Hope is a Choice

By Pastor Marcia Moret Sietstra

Nov. 21, 2004 Crestwood UCC

(Inspired by Joan Chittister’s “Scarred by Struggle: Transformed by Hope”)

Today is, of course, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It is also the last day of the church year, and the day we traditionally remember those in our congregation who passed away this year. It may seem an odd combination at first, this day of remembering loved ones who have died—on the same day that we give thanks for our blessings. It’s hard to see the loss of loved ones as a blessing. And yet, the special memories we have are surely reason to give thanks.

Does this holiday give you occasion to recall wonderful memories of people and perhaps Thanksgiving holidays you shared with them? A colleague of mine was reminiscing about her parents, who are both gone now, and how much her father enjoyed making stuffing for the Thanksgiving meal. She remembered the year he found a new recipe and made a fancy oyster stuffing for the turkey, and it made all the children sick so they had to go to bed right after dinner.

I have great memories of my Grandmother. She was a large-boned Dutch woman with endless patience. No kidding, she did have endless patience. Grandpa was a little casual about working, though he was very serious about good cigars, good jokes, good company and card playing, and an occasional nip of the comfort. After he died, Grandma stayed in the tiny house a few blocks from school. Actually Boyden is such a small town, Grandma’s house was a few blocks from almost any point in town, so we kids could run over to Grandma’s house anytime, just walk in and call her name (which was Grandma) and help ourselves to cookies from the cookie jar. The house had a pump on the porch that we thought was great fun, but Grandma preferred the indoor sink and bathroom that was added to the house. It didn’t have a tub or shower, so when we stayed overnight, we got to sit in the huge kitchen sink for a bath. I honestly never heard her complain or say a bad word about anyone, and though she lived on practically nothing, she was positive, happy, and perennially hopeful. My grandma lived by the Dutch proverb: “They are not poor who have little but they who desire much. The richest man, whatever his lot, is the one who’s content with his lot.”

But memories are often bittersweet, because we remember the pain of our loss too on days like today. But as I meditated on this this week, I was impressed by an idea that I want to offer for your consideration. Could it be that the memories of pain and loss are the ones that can inspire the greatest hope in us? Why? Because through those memories we recognize that things we thought would crush us didn’t! We look back and realize we made it through darkness to the other side of joy. The fact is— our memories are the seedbed of our hope because we can look at whatever we are facing now and remember that we have survived pain and loss before.

This is a lesson demonstrated all around us in life. Look at nature: every autumn we wistfully watch the leaves fall from the trees, until the freeze finally signals the end of the year’s blossoms. Soon all will be covered in ice and snow. But every spring we see new life resurrected from which has died. The dead looking bulbs sprout again. The bare branches break out in green buds. Birth following death, over and over.

It is the pattern of the church year, beginning with advent, pregnant with the birth of Jesus, whose life we then follow throughout the church year, all the way to death and then—resurrection, and his spiritual presence that remained with the disciples, until on the last Sunday of the church year, today, we finally celebrate the presence of Christ’s spirit with us.

It is the pattern of our spiritual ancestors. The Jewish people, still today, act out the memory of the Israelites who survived their wilderness wanderings. Around Thanksgiving, Jewish people celebrate the festival of Sukkot (Suk-uh). They build a small 3-sided room in the yard, often covered with branches or corn stalks or other harvest materials. They eat a meal in this flimsy, outdoor room as a way to recognize the fragile existence of the Israelites in the wilderness which required trust in God through all the seasons of their lives. It is a way to look back and recognize that God did not fail them.

This is the pattern of our own lives as well. We have tasted death, each of us, one way or another, and been raised up again in so many ways. How many of us can look back at the death of a dream or the loss of a relationship and see that what looked hopeless at the time, became a new path to a new understanding or a new relationship you didn’t know was possible. Maybe a business crumbled or a friend deserted you, but looking back can you recognize now that God stood on that dark road with you? Did you take a new road together? What a precious memory to return to.

We have a choice when the hard facts of life threaten to paralyze our hearts. We can choose despair or hope, and they are cut from the very same cloth, made from the very same circumstances. Every life finds itself forced to choose one from the other, one day at a time, one circumstance after another.

The Irish love to tell the story of Paddy McGarrity, who spent his life bemoaning all the circumstances of his life. Nothing satisfied him. But one particularly gracious summer day the sun burst out through the fog and rain of the country and spread over the Irish hills in a blaze of glory. Surely even Paddy would see the beauty of life in this! “Ho, Paddy,” the parish priest called to him over the fence. “Isn’t it a beauty-ful day!” “Ah, sure, Father,” Paddy moaned, “but will it last?”

If we choose to let despair rule our thoughts, it will make us negative about the present and suspicious of the future. Most of all, despair leads us to ignore the very possibilities that could make life better.

If on the other hand, we choose hope, hope says “Remember where you have been before and know that God is waiting for you to go on again to something new.” Hope helps you reach out, even when you don’t feel like it, to make friends with others rather than curl up alone. It helps you cultivate new joys, new interests. Hope helps you begin to build a new life when death comes. Hope is like manna from heaven; it comes as the bread of life from the God who will never, ever, let us go.

Like manna, hope is a gift, but we need to choose it. To hope is to believe in the pattern of birth, life, death and resurrection that we see demonstrated in Jesus’ life, in nature, and in our own lives where God has provided “little resurrections.” May we, like the apostle Paul, say, Rejoice in the Lord always… Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

For this let us give great thanks today and declare we are God’s hopeful people. Amen.