When I was a child
the penny catechism taught that hope is one of the three 'theological'
virtues of the Christian faith. At the time I don't think I
really thought much about this. Nor did I think about what
it was that I should be hoping for. In retrospect I expect
that, as a child, I had a hope that I would 'go to heaven'
and live happily with God and the saints forever. I might even
have hoped for a 'happy death' for me and my loved ones.
In later years I
came to experience hope as something akin to 'waiting'. I waited
for grace and insight; I waited for God to be revealed in my
life; I waited for the reign of God to be realised in the world.
Waiting meant cultivating patience, being able to trust and
let go of my own ego-driven agendas. In the end though I had
certain hope that the time of waiting would come to an end
and that all would be well.
In
recent years I have come to understand that hope is not
a passive virtue.
While
'waiting' is part of hoping for the realisation of the reign
of God, I now understand that I must play an active part in
making this possible. The way I live my life and embody the
teachings of Jesus in my thoughts, words and actions makes
hope a tangible reality in this world. As a disciple, I am
a sign of hope and I embody hope.
I
have also come to understand that hope is not an easy virtue
to practise.
In the 1930s Dietrich
Bonhoeffer warned about cheapening grace and diluting the cost
of discipleship. Similarly, we must be wary of cheapening hope
and isolating it from engagement with the struggles of this
world - especially the struggles for peace, justice and preserving
the integrity of creation. In this context, hope often struggles
to overcome cynicism and despair. Hope and idealism are vulnerable
to the intransigence of systems of oppression and suffering.
Oppression and injustice can wear people out and cause them
to give up on hope.
Arguably,
the loss of authentic hope is one of the big temptations
facing Christians today.
Sharon D Welch is
a protestant theologian who has written about this form of
temptation in her work A Feminist Ethic of Risk. While
not denying that the poor and working class can be susceptible
to despair, she makes a challenging observation about how this
temptation can often take shape for middle class Christians:
The despair of
the affluent, the despair of the middle class has a particular
tone: it is a despair cushioned by privilege and grounded
in privilege. It is easier to give up on (working for) long
term social change when one is comfortable in the present
and when one is a beneficiary of partial social change. When
the good life is present or within reach, it is tempting
to despair of its ever being in reach for others and resort
merely to enjoying it for oneself and one's family.
She also observes
that the tendency to give up on the long term struggle for
a just society and become discouraged is 'cultured' - that
is, it emerges out of cultural conditioning that places great
emphasis on immediate gratification and personal achieve-ment.
When these cultural values are not easily satisfied because
the systems of oppression are so intransigent, the tendency
to discouragement can take hold.
I found Sharon Welch's
observation extremely challenging. My own susceptibility to
give up and to want to go into hibernation in some idyllic
rural/beach retreat was confronted. I have no doubt that I
am cushioned by privilege and am the beneficiary of partial
social change. I know now that I must dig deeper and deeper
to live with authentic hope and not give into such a temptation.
This season of Easter
is an appropriate time to reflect upon hope and our susceptibility,
as a predominantly middle class Church, to cultured despair.
Easter is the special time of hope when we are reminded that
death cannot conquer life. The call to discipleship at this
time is a call to embody this belief and never, never give
up on it.
In
recent years I have come to understand that hope is not
a passive virtue. 
