Implanted Hope - Kyle Hanawalt
IMPLANTED HOPE
Opening Story
SLIDE: hope & hopelessness
I want to talk about hope and hopelessness today
When I graduated from college. It was a period of time when I felt some real hopelessness It was in the middle of the recession and I had a part time job that I didn’t like and didn’t pay enough. And I was spending much of my time at this job, sending out resume, after resume, looking for some sort of next step professionally that seemed like step forward. But all I got was rejection, or, more often, silence… (PAUSE) no new opportunity, no new job (PAUSE) It sucked. (PAUSE) Because more than being unhappy in my daily experience of life, I felt so little hope for what was next. I felt like I was just going to have to resign myself to having a lesser life. I wonder if any of you have ever felt that way? Like you are struggling to imagine any way forward in life that won’t leave you feeling destroyed or just done-with-life
Throughout my life I have experienced a number of seasons when one part of my life (or sometimes more than one part of my life) feel hopeless it’s changed depending on the season, but behind them all is that sinking, terrible feeling of: is there any way I get through this and it doesn’t ruin me? am I going to have to resign myself to living a lesser life than I had once hoped. I wonder if any of that resonates with you? If you too have ever, or even now have an area in life where your hopelessness threatens to overtake you? if you have or are, I am really sorry. I know it is a lonely and hard thing to feel. And I know that, whether you’re in religious or secular environments, in general the advice we get for hopelessness is: Hope harder, or Just be cynical, because then nothing can hurt you So today, neither of those will be my advice for you in whatever hopelessness you may be in touch with.
Instead, I want to take us to a moment in Jesus’ life that is about hopelessness, which speaks to me so much, because it is so different than both “hope harder”, and “just be cynical”.
It is a moment in Jesus life, right before he is betrayed and killed. A moment where he knows what is coming, and awaiting it
SLIDE: scripture
Luke 22 ESV 39 And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. 40 And when he came to the place, (The place being the garden of Gethsemane) he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. (Speaking of the suffering and death that he soon will be walking into) Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow
There is a theologian named Matthew Henry who in addressing Jesus experience in the Garden of Gethseman wrote
SLIDE: Henry quote pt 1
That, when Christ was in his agony, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. It was an instance of deep humiliation of our Lord Jesus that he needed the assistance of an angel, and would admit it. He was not delivered from his sufferings, but strengthened to walk through it…
BREAK FOR EXPLANATION: I think this is key to understanding the God -- this God is not a almighty and aloof, or distant and above, like a puppet master or chess player, just tinkering with the world -- Jesus shows us God is deeply invested in the human experience, who is himself not afraid to be humiliated -- there’s something about that word choice from the Henry commentary -- it’s almost uncomfortable -- like, no, God can’t be humiliated, God would be clever enough to avoid humiliation -- but that’s not what Jesus shows us. The God Jesus shows us is powerful in a different way, an ally and aid and help to humanity in a different way -- in a way that is full of empathy for any of the hardship or humiliation we may experience in life.
CONTINUING FROM HENRY’S COMMENTARY
SLIDE: Henry quote pt 2
As his sorrow and trouble grew upon him, he grew more impassioned in prayer; not that there was before any coldness or indifference in his prayers, but there was now a greater vehemency in them, which was expressed in his voice and gesture. Note, Prayer, though never out of season, is in a special manner seasonable when we are in an agony; and the stronger our agonies are the more lively and frequent our prayers should be. And we can find solace that in these moments, we are not only positioned to see our need in prayer, but positioned to be with the God who has too walked this path and comes closest in these moments of grief.
*My story
SLIDE: Gethsemane art
So, I have experienced this -- the strengthening Jesus experienced -- and what Matthew Henry describes about being positioned to be with the God who has too walked this path and comes closest in these moments of grief..
It is feeling a company in my hopelessness, as if something beyond myself is sharing in my grief over how hard things are. Both feeling less alone in it, and also feeling some sort of help in grieving.
That’s why it’s a strengthening
Strengthening, here, is not about increasing your resolve so you can hope better… and it’s not about hardening yourself so you’re unaffected
Strengthening happens when we’re quite honest about hopelessness -- like we see Jesus here: “is there another way…because I’m struggling to see this as something that doesn’t ruin me?” And it’s at that point of honesty that he is strengthened
at the end of this last year I was in another one of those seasons of hopelessness.
And in that space all I could muster in prayer was honesty, “Help me find hope” -- but I did discover that that started to change things for me. I did feel strengthened
I began to feel like suddenly my attention was being drawn to things around me that truly did breath hope for my future. Things like seeing my kids play with their friends, learning to write their letters and count. Or seeing some of my students that I work with, making visible and real progress as students and as little people in general. Students who I have known for years, winning awards for their excellence.
Noticing those little things was huge because when I feel hopeless, it’s almost like it draws my attention away from anything good, it steals from any area that I might see hope.
But by being honest in prayer these last couple months I have felt just the opposite, like I can’t help but to see the hopeful things around me.
And then I have also felt help in grieving - grieving how hard things are.
My counselor recently said to me - we can’t grieve without hope.
I was not delivered from my suffering, from what is hard in my life, but I was strengthened to walk through it.
There is an catholic prayer that I came across via the theologian Richard Rohr
SLIDE: prayer God for us, we call you Father. God alongside us, we call you Jesus. God within us, we call you Holy Spirit. You are the eternal mystery that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things, Even us and even me. Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness. We can only see who you are in what is. We ask for such perfect seeing— As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen. And in response to this prayer, Rohr zooms in especially on the “God within us, Holy Spirit” part…. he writes - In the Divine Spirit—God within us.. God takes on an indwelling character.... Let’s call the Holy Spirit Implanted Hope... When we feel the Spirit alive in us... Like Pinocchio, we move from wooden to real. We transform from hurt people hurting other people to wounded healers healing others. The Indwelling Spirit is this ability of humanity to keep going, to keep recovering from its wounds, to keep hoping. One thing we love so much about young children is their indomitable hope, curiosity, and desire to grow. They fall down, and soon they’re all grins again. Another generation is going to try again to live life to the fullest. But all too often, by the time they’re sixty they don’t smile so much, and we ask, “What happened between six and sixty?” I see it as loss of Spirit.. But the indwelling spirit can breath life back into us, bring back that hope, curiosity, and desire to grow. As best I can understand, that is what it has felt like to me over the last couple months, I feel like hope has been implanted in me I’ve not really done anything myself except be honest in prayer… and then the thing has been done to me: hope has been implanted in me by God, the Indwelling Holy Spirit When we pray in that kind of desperate, honest way that we see Jesus pray, “is there another way?” it does not guarantee that we will be delivered from our sufferings, but it opens us up to something better I think: feeling strengthened, feeling our hearts grow softer, more open. Feeling hope begin to grow in us to the point that we can then imagine a way to move through all the hard things we see before us and not be ruined by them.
Application
SLIDE: application
So I want to leave us with this Catholic prayer for this week. We will do it together in a moment, but I’ll also encourage you to try it each day this week, and see what happens like what should we watch for? how will we know it's working on our hearts? To pray for the experience of God who is for us, who we call father. For God alongside us, who we call Jesus, and most importantly for our topic today God within us who we call Holy Spirit. Implanted Hope
God for us, we call you Father. God alongside us, we call you Jesus. God within us, we call you Holy Spirit. You are the eternal mystery that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things, Even us and even me. Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness. We can only see who you are in what is. We ask for such perfect seeing— As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.