Hope springs eternal

A Sermon preached on All Saints Sunday 2 November 2025 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Daniel 7:1-3,15-18, Ephesians 1:11-23, Luke 6:20-31

November can be quite a depressing month, the weather is grey, the evenings get dark early, and every Sunday seems to focus on death: All Saints/All Souls, Remembrance Sunday, Volkstrauertag, Totensonntag. And so, I am glad that the readings we had this morning all contain a message of hope!

Hope is a major human driver and motivator, you probably all know the phrase “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” by the 18^th century poet Alexander Pope, in is “An Essay on Man.” Hope is a state of positive anticipation that is essential for human existence. Even when people flee from their home countries because of war persecution, poverty, natural disasters, or climate change it is hope that drives them on, hope that at the end of their journey they will be able to find a better life for themselves and their families. Without hope we can become lethargic, depressed, unable to act and when hope is disappointed, some turn to those who offer easy and supposedly quick solutions.

As people of faith, we are also people of hope. Hope is not the most frequent word in the Bible, love and faith are mentioned more often, but there are still many references to hope, both to the one (God, Christ) in whom we set that hope, as well as to what we hope for. That which we “expect with confidence,” to use a dictionary definition of hope, may not be something that we will experience personally. The author of the Book of Daniel, set during the Babylonian exile but written in the 2^nd century BC, when the Hellenistic rulers were trying to wipe out the Jewish faith, is trying to instill hope in troubled times. The four great beasts, standing for four kingdoms that have at some point conquered Israel and Judah – Babylon, Medes, Persia and now the Greeks – may seem all powerful. But they have passed or they will pass. “But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever." (Daniel 7:18) Do not give up hope, the author says, God will be victorious in the end and with him those are faithful.

In the letter to the Ephesians, attributed to Paul, the author also writes of hope. Hope does not come to us; hope is an active choice: “We set our hope on Christ.” (Ephesians 1:12) We choose to trust in Him as an expression of the will of God, who has already chosen us. This hope is not in vain: God has already “put God’s power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places;” (1:20) And before that, in Jesus’s word, witness and actions, we have seen God at work in the world. Paul knows how important it is to hope and so he prays to God for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation … so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.” (1:17-18) I love the phrase with the “eyes of your heart,” and we talked a lot about it at our Bible study on Wednesday. With the eyes of our heart we can more easily recognize the beauty and greatness of God and God’s power and actions in the world and in our own lives.

What is that hope to which we have been called? One thing we hope for, and that is a focus of today’s serve when we remember the faithful departed, is the hope of resurrection. Our prayer book reminds us that we are an Easter people and that the liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. “It finds all meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too, shall be raised.” (BCP, 507) We also hope for that time – the age to come as Paul calls it – when God’s reign will be complete and Christ will “fill all in all,” or “all things in every way” to use a different translation. In doing so we are expressing our hope for the salvation, that is the transformation of self and of the world, so that we who are made in God’s image will truly live as image bearers, bearing and sharing God’s love.

Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount takes place on the plain and Jesus is not standing at the top of a hill, looking down, but squatting or kneeling and looking up – an image I much prefer. His Beatitudes, in Luke only four of them, are also about hope. When Jesus says that the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are hated are blessed, this is not to console them to their fate, but to give them hope that this must and will change. Poverty, hunger, distress and hate are not part of God’s plan. The idea of reversal, of turning things round, not upside down, but the right way up is a persistent theme in Luke’s Gospel, most eloquently and beautifully expressed in Mary’s song that we call the Magnificat. “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1:52-53) Note the past tense, indicating that this has happened, that this is the right state of the world: The everlasting kingdom Daniel promises, the fullness of him who fills all in all that Paul looks forward to in Ephesians, the good news that Jesus promised when he first preached in the synagogue in Nazareth and, quoting from Isaiah, proclaimed that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” (Luke 4:18)

According to Paul in Ephesians (1:13) we are also anointed with the Spirit: “In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.” And so we too are called to bring good news to the poor in word and deed. Jesus’ instructions for doing so, at the end of the passage from Luke’s Gospel, may sound impossible and they are deliberately over the top in their generosity, just like our God. Vania preached all about God’s reckless mercy and unlimited grace last week. In his commentary on this passage, Tom Wright says[1] that “this list of instructions is all about which God you believe in – and about the way of life that follows as a result” and calls on us to imagine living in a society where everyone believed in this God. “Imagine” he says, “if even a few people around you took Jesus seriously.”

We take Jesus seriously, that’s what the Baptismal vows stand for that we will now reaffirm when we promise to try and live as he lived, righting the world and living in hope and love.

Amen.

  

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[1] Luke for Everyone, p. 74

Lost and found

A Sermon preached at Pentecost XIV 14 September 2025 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10

Jesus is weird at times. He meets and eats with all the wrong people – today it was tax collectors and sinners, rather making it sound as if being a sinner is as much a profession as being a tax collector! What would the job description and the salary scale for a sinner be, I wonder? In fact, we think this broad category covers all sorts of people who did not keep to the strict rules that the Pharisees propagated, and often simply could not, due to their status and poverty: outcasts, outsiders and misfits! And in the two parables about lost things – a sheep and a coin – the behaviour he recommends is very strange indeed. So much so that if his listeners were honest, their answer to the question: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4) would be, well me of course. I would not. Why should I put 99 sheep in danger just to go and look for the stupid one that has wandered off! And why should I spend hours searching for one drachma (to use the original term, the equivalent of a day’s wage of a labourer), possibly even using up oil in the lamp worth the same amount?

The level of care that Jesus shows and recommends, and the amount of time and effort that the sheep owner and the woman in the two parables are willing to invest is simply astonishing, and the extent of love and mercy and joy that Jesus expects for the one sinner who repents goes well beyond any expectations, both those of his listeners and I think also ours today. This is the kind of love without limits and constraints that inspired the hymn Amazing Grace:

 

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost but now am found,

was blind but now I see.

Last week in the Epistle, we heard about a slave, Onesimus and a slave owner, Philemon. The author of Amazing Grace, John Newton, was a slave trader and captain of a slave ship. In that function, he was not only lost himself, but responsible for the pain and death and loss of many, many people. And so, he was truly amazed that God went looking out for him. But with the help of his friend and later wife, Mary Catlett, and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ (hint: that book title is a command!), Newton not only gave up the slave trade, but became an ardent abolitionist. And under the influence of George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley, yes, the founders of Methodism, he studied for the ministry and was ordained a priest in the Church of England. What a turnaround!

And then as we heard in today’s Epistle, the 1^st Letter to Timothy, Paul too was amazed that God went looking after him, “even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. … “the foremost sinner.” (1 Tim 1:13, 15) And yet it was for him that the “grace of our Lord overflowed … with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” (1:14) As we know from the story in Acts, Paul was privileged to experience this faith and love through a very dramatic and personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This was another amazing turnaround! And once again that theme of example, of imitation comes up: “I received mercy, so that in me … Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example.” (1:16)

So, what does Paul’s and Jesus’ example have to tell us? We can get very comfortable in our own communities and bubbles, we can be tempted to close out that confusing and frightening world outside, keeping ourselves to ourselves, and carefully avoiding other viewpoints and experiences. But as Christians, those who follow and try and imitate Christ, we don’t get to avoid today’s equivalents of “tax collectors and sinners,” and we don’t get to talk and interact only with those we know and whose views match our own.

Instead, the right answer to the question, who would not go after the lost sheep, who would not actively welcome the stranger, who would not seek out the lost and needy, and who would not leave the comfort of our sheep pen, is I would Lord. I would go after them. I will follow you and your way – which is what true repentance entails. Following the way of Christ, as we will recite together in a moment in the Baptismal Covenant, is a call to seek and serve HIM in all persons, loving our neighbor as yourself. We are supposed to reflect God's persistent love and to participate in God’s active search for those who are lost.

There are so many lost people out there. People who have lost home and family, people who have lost a loving community, people who have lost meaning and purpose, people who have lost all sense of being valued and worthy. Reports from England, and some other countries, on what is being called a “quiet revival” indicate that loneliness and a need to be loved are one motivator for the young people seeking out communities of worship, and joining them, if they are properly welcomed.

All these lost ones need to know and hear from us that God is diligently looking for them. And as followers of Jesus, we should be actively engaged in the search on behalf of our Lord! Jesus provides a clear example for us to follow. Finding lost "sheep" and missing "coins" is a disciple's priority. Jesus involved himself with the lost of his culture and time, especially those that society rather wanted to lose and not see or experience.

Jesus is weird and so must we be. It may be more efficient to focus on the 99%, but we value everyone, not just 99 out of 100 or 1 out of 10. Each individual matters and let’s not forget that it is pretty risky to be a lost sheep. In the parable, both the owner of the sheep and the woman take responsibility for what is lost and they do not give up on them. Their joy in finding them is their reward. Finding the lost, incorporating them into our community, making our church as broad and as diverse and as much like the colorful, rich and varied kingdom of God as possible would be our reward too. It is always an occasion to rejoice and to celebrate!

And today we incorporate Alma into our community and into Christ’s body, the church. She’s not lost! Nor is she a sinner. Though she – like all of us – will probably need to repent and return to the Lord now and again. Like every new member, she will strengthen and enrich our community, and so we rejoice and celebrate.

Amen.