Hope Against Hope
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 12:1-9 and Romans 4:13-25
Jennifer Shepherd, TRE
“What is your favorite word?” At the end of each episode of Inside the Actors Studio, James Lipton would ask his esteemed guests 10 questions, based on a similar questionnaire created by French talk show host Bernard Pivot. You might consider it the original “Colbert Questionert”, for those of you more familiar with Late Show host Stephen Colbert’s 16-question version. I was an avid fan of the show, so of course I liked to imagine what my answers might be if I ever had the chance to sit across from the host.
I’ve never discussed my answers with anyone, partially to avoid spoilers on the off chance I ever made it onto the show, but mostly because I feel like my answer to that first question, the one I started off with, is a real doozy. It definitely reveals a lot about my true self, as the question writers intended. But considering that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an actor, that James Lipton died in 2020, and I am here among friends, I suppose it suppose it’s safe to finally share my answer with all of you.
Before I do that, I’d like you to humor me: to really let it sink in, close your eyes, listen, and when you hear the word, try to really soak it in and imagine what it means to you.
So here it is: my favorite word is redemption. (long pause) Okay, if you haven’t already, you can open your eyes, and I’ll share what it means to me. For me, redemption is the idea that a person or a group of people can be woefully lost, make terrible decisions, wreak who knows how much havoc, and cause untold suffering to themselves and others, and then somehow in the end turn it around, figure things out, make amends, find the right path, and somehow everything works out okay in the end. They have been rescued, restored, and reckoned as righteous. Redeemed.
I grew up in a fundamentalist church that was very much about the letter of the law. There was a lot of preaching about God’s wrath and judgment, and many reminders about all of us sinners going to hell. Looking back, to me it felt a lot more like regular delivery of the Bad News, rather than the Gospel. I got the message about my damnation really loud and clear, doubly so because I had the
audacity to have been born a girl. I had questions, I had doubts, and I knew that even if I ever chose to respond to an altar call to be “born again”, that I would never be able to perfectly follow the law, so what was the point? I was doomed to hell.
I’ve done a lot of work since then, but if I’m being completely honest, there’s a small part of me that, much like the singer of the Smashing Pumpkins song Bullet with Butterfly Wings, still believes that I cannot be saved.
So of course that’s why I absolutely love stories about redemption. We all know and love the story of John Newton, the man who started off as a rebellious youth, became a slave ship captain, and after surviving a near-death experience ended up an abolitionist pastor who wrote a beloved hymn about God’s grace and mercy.
Two of my favorite books (and movies), Louis Sachar’s Holes and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, are in many ways stories about redemption. Redemption for the Yelnats family and the town of Green Lake, redemption for Celie, Sophia, Mister, and for Shug
Avery. Few movie scenes resonate with me as much or can make me cry as hard as when Shug bursts into her father’s church singing Maybe God is Trying to Tell You Something, and she hugs her father saying, “See Daddy, sinners have song too”.
Fortunately for all of us, as our scripture for this morning tells us, our salvation is not dependent on adherence to the law, but through righteousness by faith.
Yes, there really is a part of me that believes that I cannot be saved, but there is a much bigger part that believes in what author John Green has described as radical hope. The idea that hope and forgiveness are available to all people at all times.
In the movie Ever After, a retelling of Cinderella, the wicked stepmother portrayed by Anjelica Huston tells her daughter, “Nothing is final until you’re dead, and even then, I’m sure God negotiates.” Which reminds me of Abraham. No, really, it does.
When I think about Abraham hoping against hope, instead of his belief in God’s promise to make him the father of many nations, I think of his fervent pleas with God to save the righteous people of Sodom in Genesis 18. Beginning in verse 23:
23 Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” 26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”
After this, Abraham continues to negotiate with the Lord in a growing combination of desperation and bravery. He suggests 45, 40, 30, 20, and then finally 10 righteous souls for the Lord to spare the city. In the end, we know that not even 10 righteous souls could be found; the city was destroyed, and only Abraham’s nephew Lot
and most of his family were spared. Abraham knew the odds were heavily stacked against him, but he believed so much in the goodness of God, and cared so much for his people, that he was willing to risk God’s wrath to remind him of his own goodness and plead for mercy. As we read earlier, Abraham’s faith in God “was reckoned to him as righteousness” and “will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification”
To wrap up my message, having begun with my answer to James Lipton’s first question, I’d like to leave you with my answer to the last one. “If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?”
Welcome to the party. Everyone is here.
Benediction
God of hope, we leave this place filled with joy, peace, and grace, knowing Jesus Christ is by our side. As we live each day to come, may we walk in hope as one, with the Holy Spirit as our guide.