I've been noticing that not all hope is the same, and I've been thinking about types of hope. Hope changes through the long arc of the story in the Bible. Thinking about the many types of hope can help us understand how we all live our lives of discipleship.
Hope changes along a couple of axes. One axis is the psychological-social axis. I hope for my own needs. We, our family, hope for our collective needs and some legacy going into the future. Our nation and society have hopes with still bigger scope. Abraham and Sarah hoped for a family and a safe place to live. David and Solomon hoped for the whole nation to prosper.
Another axis is the power dynamic. People with power and privilege tend to hope for different things than people suffering poverty and oppression. Joseph, when he was equal to Pharaoh in every way except the throne, hoped for the survival of his family, AND he could do something about it. Even when he hoped for reconciliation with his brothers, he could hope from a position of power. When the Hebrews were in slavery just a few generations later, what kinds of hopes did they have? I imagine them hoping for meat in the fleshpots, that their taskmasters might be in a better mood on any given day, that their life in slavery might be a little less onerous. The Hebrew midwives in Exodus chapter 1 committed acts of civil disobedience, but for the most part the only power the oppressed people had was to cry out to God (and God heard them!).
Another axis is the historical-eternal axis. Look at how hope changes in relation to our mortality. Psalms are associated with the time of the kingdoms, of David and Solomon and their successors. In the Psalms, a common negotiation is something like "O God, please let me live; who can praise you from the pit?" The Psalmist hopes for THIS life to continue and acknowledges only God can save people. People of power and privilege hope that nothing changes and that THIS life will continue. In exchange for this salvation, the Psalmist promises to praise God, as if God needs anything from us. These are hopes in historical time.
In later writings (Daniel and the inter-Testamental writings) the people were again oppressed, this time by the Greek descendants of Alexander the Great. In an Old Testament lecture, a TA once said, "Antiochus IV was the absolute worst." At this time, the people were working really hard to stay oriented to God; they had learned their lessons from the late kingdom period. Even so, Antiochus flaunted his power sadistically. He set up an altar to Zeus right inside the Jewish temple and sacrificed unclean pigs on the temple's altar. At that time, with the people suffering injustice in THIS life, the cultural ideas of the afterlife shifted. People put their hope in reward for the righteous and punishment for the tyrant after death. This is not a hope for continued prosperity or even continued life. It is not a hope for liberation in this life. It is a hope for vindication of US and retribution against THEM in the after-life. This is an eschatological hope; not just a hope for the future in historical time, but a hope for the end of time.
With Jesus and Paul all this hope gets turned around. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, "I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." What is Paul hoping for here? Not relief from suffering, but more suffering so that the power of Christ will manifest in his life. This is a hope for now, not a hope for the future, and it isn't even about Paul's prosperity. Paul isn't bargaining with God, "let me live and I will praise you." Paul is hoping to lose himself and for Jesus to use him. In Galatians, Paul says, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”
If Paul hopes for Jesus to live in him, we should look to what Jesus hopes for. In his first sermon, announcing the theme of his plan, Jesus quotes Isaiah. He says, God "has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." Then he says "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled." This statement on fulfillment is important to Luke. The fulfillment isn't a detailed happening of specific events predicted by fortune tellers. It's not Jesus' actions, per se, that fulfill scripture; it's Jesus' LIFE that fulfills scripture; it's Jesus himself. Jesus embodies the fulfillment of hope. This is the power of Christ that Paul hopes for, that makes him boast for his suffering.
There's a profound shift here. Paul does not hope for his own comfort or prosperity. Paul does not hope for power like the kings of Israel. Paul does not hope for his own vindication or retribution against his enemies. Paul hopes to take on the hopes of Jesus. Jesus does not hope for any of those things for himself, either. Paul and Jesus hope for the sake of the other. Jesus' hope is for US. It’s like we’ve gone onto the negative side of the psychological-social axis. Instead of increasing the number of US that we hope for, we’ve decreased it so much that now we’re hoping for THEM.
Many paragraphs ago, I suggested that these thoughts about types of hope would have something to say about how we all live our lives of discipleship. Where, as disciples do we put our hope? We don’t hope for things for ourselves. We disciples, like Paul, hope that the power of Christ will manifest in our lives for the sake of others. Where does Jesus put his hope? Jesus hopes for the well-being of the other, of the world. This means we should not be hoping for US, for OUR well-being, for OUR prosperity, for OUR power. We should be hoping for THEM, for the people who are different from us, who are not part of us, who are other than us.
Then it gets hard. The Hebrew midwives took action. Paul took action. Jesus' whole life was the embodiment of the fulfilment of the hope of the other. If we disciples are to follow Jesus, then we should become the embodiment of the fulfilment of the hopes of the other. We should look around and ask: Who is without hope? Who is living in traumatic fear? Who is poor? Who is captive and to what are they captive? The answers may be uncomfortable. We're talking about homeless people. We're talking about refugees and immigrants and people who look like them. We're talking about people captive to substance abuse and mental illness. Jesus didn't come to release the rich and powerful, like Herod and Pilate, though I'm sure that people with power and privilege need release from certain biases and behaviors in order to enjoy the blessings of beloved community. Jesus didn't come for Herod and Pilate, but for the people they were oppressing. If we're going to exhibit the power of Christ in our embodied faith, we have to embody hope for the poor, the captives, the oppressed. Our very lives should proclaim the year of the Lord's favor to all these people that Jesus loves.
What kind of hope do we have? the hope of the oppressed? or the hope of the oppressors? Justice by-and-by? Economic prosperity for US, now? Hope for US only? or hope for all? We must follow Jesus in being the fulfillment: We must BE good news. We must proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Do we cry out for hope? We must BE the hope.
--Chas
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