New year, new hope?
It is a new church year. As I mentioned in the message, the church doesn’t have its own year to complicate things; it is just how we do things.
The church year begins with the four Sundays of Advent. The first Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of hope. I wasn’t frightened of the topic of hope, but when I first thought about it, I was, to be perfectly honest, a bit demoralized. There is so much awful at the moment. I’m wading through some personal things, just like everyone else is. So I thought, how about a new hope? I almost instantly realized I wasn’t going to talk about a new hope as much as renewed hope, but I liked the title for the microscopic Star Wars™ reference, so I left it.
The lectionary readings include a passage from Isaiah where there is talk about turning spears into pruning hooks and such. It is fairly well-known, even outside of the church, and is a lovely image of what seems to be an impossible future. I’m not interested in talking about what the end of things looks like or speculating on what the world may look like when it is all wrapped up and made new. What I am interested in is how to find hope now. It seems pretty straightforward, and I talk for quite a long time when I might have simply said, “If you look for hope, you will see it, and if you don’t see it, make your own signs of hope for other people to see.”
There is more than that in the sermon, and I hope you find it useful. There is a lot more background noise than usual. I was informed by a generally reliable person that the sound is made by the pipes in the old building getting used to the cold. What it sounded like was someone in a crawl space or something like it, hitting the pipes with a hammer every few metres. I did seriously think of going through the recording and trying to remove the clanks and groans. In the end, I didn’t because I’m not skilled enough to do that in fewer than many hours. I hope you don’t find them too irritating.
As always, I love to hear what you think, what you disagree with or think could have been said better. Let me know as you are inclined and able.
Warmest blessings,
