Dear friends and members of University UMC:
The book “Hope is Here” inspired this year’s Lenten Sermon Series on hope. I will confess that the very subject of hope has overwhelmed me of late. It’s the topic of a great number of articles and blog posts. And it’s a topic that leaves me at times with more questions than answers. How do we genuinely live a life of hope? Is it realistic to have hope these days? The scriptures tell us that, “Faith, hope, and love remain,” but what if I don’t feel hopeful?
In Luther Smith’s “Hope is Here”, he centers the questions we bring about hope in spiritual practices. In other words, questions may come and go and even remain. But the larger question is this: “How will we live our life?” Or to put it another way, “What practices will we take on to assist us in renewing our hope?”
One of the practices Smith writes about is Contemplative Prayer. I’ve often heard the saying that “prayer changes things”, but in my experience prayer is about my own transformation. As I attempt my own practice of contemplative prayer (I say attempt because some days I fail to honor the full 20 minutes of silence), I find myself to be more grounded and centered. I dare say even more hopeful at times - not because of how right things are in my life and in the world, but because of God’s great love.
Quaker scholar Michael L. Brikel puts it like this: “As we listen to divine guidance, our true desires are clarified. Central to discernment is discovering our deepest desires, where we are truly in tune with God’s desire for humankind.”
Another practice Smith writes about is Prophetic Remembering. Throughout scriptures, we are told over and over to remember. Remember who God is. Remember the Sabbath. Remember God’s faithfulness. Remember that from which we came. Dr. Smith is an African American theologian and in “Hope is Here” he writes about living near Stone Mountain Park in Georgia. Stone Mountain is one of the state’s most popular tourist attractions. He goes on to write, “Every time I enter the park, I’m inspired by its beauty and the images of people enjoying its offerings and one another. And also on each visit, I’m troubled by the park’s identity as a tribute to the Confederacy.” Sometimes remembering means reckoning with a troubling past. This is the spirit in which John Elford approached his work in his book “Our Hearts Were Strangely Lukewarm.” In promoting the book as a teaching tool, the California-Nevada Conference of The UMC writes:
