The Song that never stops singing isaiah 11.1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12 Advent 2 )A) 2010
We hear it in Isaiah: The wolf shall live with the lamb . . .
We hear it in Romans: May the God of hope fill you with joy . . .
We even hear it in the angry words of John the Baptiser: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.
It is the song that never stops singing. The words change, even slip away, but the song goes on not unlike the humming of a certain bear. You know you must be near the truth of something when TS Eliot and Winnie the Pooh intersect.
Words, the poet says, strain,
crack, and sometime break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um. says Pooh Bear.
In a more coherent moment, it was also Pooh Bear who said, Humms are not something you get they are something that gets you. Or something like that. I sometimes wonder if hope is like that though this business of hope is more complicated and probably more simple than one might think at first.
The rest of the famous poem by Emily Dickinson says:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so may warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land.
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Is it something that we create or is it something that creates us? Is it something we get or is it something that gets us? What is the source of our hope? Is this our song or is it simply the song that we sing; cannot help but sing? And what happens when hope is gone if it is ever gone? Is it not like breath itself? How do we go on living without at least the barest, minimal, unrecognized hope? What does it ask of us?
In Isaiah the hope is fantastic: they will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain, says the Lord. It asks us to dream.
In Matthew it is more basic: the hope is that we can change; that the kingdom is near; despite the bad news, God is always near and we can always change. Repent simply means change your ways and saying it out loud might mean that it can be done. It asks us to change. It asks us to believe that we can change.
For Isaiah's vision to be completed, Matthew's hope must also be true for there will have to be a whole lot of changing going on before we do not hurt or destroy or learn war anymore.
Is this something that just happens or do we make it happen? I think it is fair to say that we will have to be responsible for changing ourselves but it may also be true that something other than ourselves may have to convince us to change ourselves and we may have to wait for the world to change even if we are changed. And even if the world is not changed by our efforts we are changed and, being changed, we may be surprised how things will change.
So what is our hope? One thing it might be is the simple revelation that things do change. I saw the beautiful tribute to George Harrison on public television this week. The song, "All things Must Pass Away", struck me oddly enough this time as an expression of hope. In the sadness of George's absence there was also the joy of his presence in the music and among his friends and family and fans. Nothing is permanent on this planet, in history, in our lives. At first we might think this is sad because what is good and beautiful passes away but then it occurs to me that what is evil and cruel and mean also passes away. There was another learning as I noticed George's son Danny playing guitar with the others. He looks just like his father did when he (and I more or less) were Danny's age now nearly 40 years ago. It was one of those times when the passing of time hit me right between the eyes. It made me sad because life as we know it ends and it made me glad because life goes on. George died but the music goes on and not just the songs he wrote and performed but the hope created in people coming together to dream and to celebrate love and the spirit that cannot be named that brings us together and connects us beyond our isolated circumstances binding the living in the hopes and dreams of every soul for something more than any words can say. My Sweet Lord, I really want to know you . . . Give me hope, help me cope, give me peace on earth . . .
Another thing that our hope might be is that if we can dream of something there might be something to it not so much that it will come true but that it could and that whether it does or not it is in fact true. The dream is true because we can dream it. The truth Buechner once wrote, is what sets us wishing for it. (Wishful Thinking)
But hope is more than the simple fact that things change and more than the fantastic dreams of peace on God's holy mountain. Hope is the air we breathe while we sleep that allows us to rise for another day. It may be as simple as the hope that on this day we will enjoy a cup of coffee or conversation with a friend, that we might have something to make us glad, that we might feel something that reminds us we are alive. It might as unsimple as the hope that this very day peace and justice will break out all over the world and people everywhere will finally recognize themselves in each other and there will be love and harmony on God's holy mountain. Hope is what keeps us alive, looking forward, reaching out, doing our best. It is what keeps us going. It may not add up to a long list of great accomplishments or successes that anyone would notice but it may be enough just knowing that we are showing up again and refusing to give in to bitterness or despair or cynicism and taking another step forward with all that is glad in us and with all that is sad in us, doing what we can do to bring the peaceable kingdom, the dream of God's prophets, the hope of humankind; to bring God's new creation into being one sweet note at a time. This may not sound like much given all that is before us and if we do not take actions based on our hopes it may well be less than not much. Hope cannot replace what we fail to do but it will give us a reason to keep on failing until we get it right. Hope is like the struggle for justice - it is the winning that is never won and the losing that is never lost. The struggle itself, the hope that it matters, is itself a victory of the human spirit. It has been said that one of our primary tasks as a church is to keep hope alive (apologies to Jesse Jackson) but in fact it is really the other way around, it is hope that keeps us alive.
The song that never stops singing will carry us. It will not let us stop either. How does it go?
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.
Bless your hearts. I will not ask you to hope for you can no more stop hoping than you can stop breathing if for nothing else than that this sermon will end. We are always looking forward to what is next, to who we will meet, to what will happen, to all the love that may surprise us with how it has grown when we meet again, to what might really be possible when our dreams come true, when everything we hoped for we also live for; when justice is not just something we hope for but something we do everyday. Hope is not just what we want or wish for but who we are. The song that never stops singing is the hum of God enlivening God's people with the will and the heart to change a world that never changes, to make right what is wrong, to bring peace where peace is not, and to never stop at all.
