Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 16.9-15

Psalm 67

Revelation 21.10,22 – 22.5

John 14.23-29   

I read something the other day written by a man named Doug Sewell in a book called A Way in the Desert.  “Hope and expectation are different.  Expectation wants something to happen in a particular way – usually my way.  It demands and seeks to possess.  It is narrow in its field of vision, like looking down the wrong end of a telescope.  Expectations can end up consuming and possessing us.  Hope, on the other hands, is open-ended and broad in its vision.  It is like looking to the whole horizon – not just to one particular point.  It is flexible and willing to change direction. And finally, hope learns to accept obstacles and move around them.”  I wasn’t able to find much information about the book or the man, but the statement is interesting.  If what is to happen is losing 20 pounds or getting the house clean, we’re not probably not talking about things which fall within the realm of hope.  But there are many times when hope rather than expectation is the real way forward. 

          As we come to the end of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, the gospel lessons turn from stories of Jesus’ presence among his disciples toward the stories of his ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  The four gospels are different in the manner that they describe Jesus’ disciples experience of the loss of his presence among them.  None of the gospels gives us much sense of the inner life of the characters they portray – but we are told that the disciples scatter in fear after Jesus’ arrest and that they are amazed and overjoyed to see him in the stories of his post-resurrection appearances.  In today’s gospel text Jesus tries to prepare the disciples for his approaching death and the time that he will no longer be present with them in life, but will be there in spirit.  In this text we hear a very familiar passage “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  It follows shortly after the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet, which we read on Maundy Thursday.

          Sometimes all you can do is wait in hope.  When a change over which you have no control, takes someone or something important from your life, it is tempting to envision precisely what would make things better.  Sometimes that vision is the restoration of what has been lost – the relationship that ended being restored without its old flaws, or the person who is dying being miraculously healed.  That is expectation. If that’s all you have to work with it will end up consuming and possessing you.  Life will continue to disappoint you.  Jesus’ disciples might have heard him speak of the Holy Spirit and complained that it sounded like a pale shadow of the real thing.  Their vision might have been Jesus’ ongoing presence among them – that he would not die.  Eventually all of Jesus’ followers came to understand the spirit as a true presence of him that teaches us that God in Christ is first and foremost about relationship.

          It is not easy to say goodbye or to let go of what we love, but that is what life requires of us.  If we lose nothing else, we all die eventually.  More often, those we love precede us in death, relationships end, work that we have been called to do is completed.  In all of these instances, life poses the question: what comes next?  In these situations, the broad and flexible vision of hope is what God offers – to see all of the possibilities and to remain open to inspiration rather than longing after what has been lost or setting impossible standards for what must be.  Hope allows us to be prepared for what God offers.  It allows us to encounter life free of fear that we will only be disappointed.  It is a certainty that we will sometimes be disappointed.  Things that look promising initially turn out not to be; options that we thought might be open to us turn out to be dead ends; people we depend on turn out not to be dependable.  If hope rather than expectation is the realm in which we live, disappointment is an occasional reality, but not a way of life.

          Hope can sanctify the in-between moments of life – the times when we are waiting for or preparing for what comes next, but haven’t got there yet.  It allows us to experience the presence of the divine in the parts of life that are dull and difficult.  It makes the work of preparation holy – whether that work is study, the creation of a resume or clearing clutter from a home in anticipation of its sale.  Hope offers comfort in times when we are unable to envision what might be the object of expectation.  The loss of a loved one to death is a change sufficiently profound to leave anyone wondering how life can even continue without the one who is gone.  The loss of a stable job in a difficult economy when new jobs are not easily available is something we have all learned to fear over the last five years.  Hope rather than expectation allows us to move in the direction of what is next even when we can’t imagine what it could be.

          Jesus’ followers in our time are most familiar with his presence as spirit in the times when we deliberately open ourselves to it – as we do here – or at times and places when it comes upon us suddenly.  Today’s lesson encourages us to set aside our expectations and be open to that spirit in all times and places.  It encourages us to live in the broad and open-ended vision that hope offers; to see the the whole horizon – not just to one particular point.