A Practical, Impractical Hope
An Easter reflection on winning and losing and acting in faith
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It seems hard to believe now, and you have to be of a certain age, but the evangelical world was once fairly invisible as a demographic entity. They were pious, conservative, and removed from much of the cultural expressions of their time. They weren’t, as a group, political. The political world was much different then than now - and issues then were not seen immediately as cultural and political wedges. In any case, evangelicals, as a group, largely stayed out of them. It was said of them by some that they were “too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good”, meaning they were too disconnected from the messy reality of this world and escaped into a notion of “pie in the sky bye and bye”. And some of that was probably fair. They may have been a bit too disconnected from the real world. All of that began to change when Evangelicals became more politically active in the 1970’s. The Roe decision led to a more politically engaged church and the formation of what was called the moral majority. Evangelicals became politically connected. Evangelicals now may be a bit too connected, if that is possible. I consider myself an Evangelical (in the old senses of the world which was defined by theological commitments and not political and cultural ones). And we Evangelicals seem to be caught in the anxiety, outrage, and point scoring of a very earthly culture war. We may be too earthly minded to be any heavenly good.
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5)
It is this eternal perspective that will work against such anxiety and outrage. We believe that our earthly tent will be destroyed at some point, and “meanwhile we groan”, longing to be “clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling.” It is in this groaning that we find hope. When one school shooting follows another, when one disappointing public figure follows another, we know that this broken mortality will be “swallowed up by life.” This hope is not simply for another time. Hope is something we experience now with a future in mind.
Can all of this tempt us to withdraw and only think of the future? Sure, but we can engage in faithful action despite of this temptation. We are to act in hope now, in the face of all that seeks to defeat our hope. We are to move toward redemption and restoration now, even as we groan and are burdened, knowing that in being connected to this coming life, it will and does matter - even if we can’t see how
Don Quixote, unable to meaningfully battle injustice, tilted at windmills. He was fighting a substitute - a broken world was a more hopeless battle than windmills - the symbol of futility. Many of us in the evangelical world seem to be charging the windmills of the culture or our cultural enemies or those who don’t hate those we think are destroying our culture as much as we hate them. We often seem to have lost hope. It is hard to forgive those who hurt us or to speak with humility to the proud. We may seek easier substitutes of our own, or of our culture’s, making. There are some in the evangelical camp who would label patience, humility, hearing the best from others instead of the worst as the futile actions of “losers”. And it may be true, in a sense, in the short run. But those kind of losses are fleeting when we live in the hope of what is promised, of the story we are in. In this story, winning may just look different than we expect. This kind of ‘losing’ makes sense against this eternal backdrop of hope.
Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. (Luke 5:18-19)
A long time ago, a group of friends acted in hope. Their friend could not walk and they could not help him walk. In that time, it meant he could hardly have a life. But they had hope, an impractical, impossible hope, that there is One who could help him walk. And it was in prayer, faith, dependence, and in agency and action that they approached. It was in this hope that they chopped a hole in the roof and lowered the man down. The man first was eternally healed - he had his sins forgiven by Jesus. When that was considered out of bounds by the religious leaders, he was healed in this life as a proof of the forgiveness of his sins and a ”guarantee of what is to come.” It is his faith that made him well - eternally first, then temporally.
Our evangelical faith is in the One who walked from the tomb 2000 years ago. God’s Spirit gives us hope of the redemption of all things, a new life in a restored and renewed world. This is not a hope we will have in the future, hope is something we have now based on a belief about the future. It is a hope that gives meaning when all we are called to seems futile now. We are not called to win, but to live in an active hope - in faith that the promises are true and that faithfulness has meaning even if we don’t see how or why.
These friends acted with practicality and ingenuity and industry, all in hope that God would do something. They had a practical, impractical hope.
The celebration of the resurrection reminds us not only of our destiny, but of the power that makes that destiny secure. And, acting in that power, armed with this hope, we can bring healing to a broken world - little by little, community by community, living room by living room, roof by roof.
I’m a little late, but Happy Easter.
