What makes the Christian lifestyle unique
from other lifestyles? While there are
certainly additional considerations to be included, I believe that five moral
virtues are at the heart of a distinctive Christian lifestyle. These five virtues are:
(1) hope
(2) love
(3) justice
(4) frugality
(5) humility
Beginning this Sunday, January 8th, I will explore these critical virtues
over the next five weeks. We can define
virtues as the values that define who we are as persons. They are the attributes of our character that
others see in our lives. Virtues
strengthen us as Christians to live ethically in a way that reflects Christ in
what we say and do. That is, virtues
give us moral strength to make ethical decisions, even when those decisions
make us unpopular or those decisions are not in our own best interests. More than that, virtues give us clarity of
vision so that, in confusing and difficult ethical decisions, we can see
clearly what ought to be done.
We begin this weekend with the
virtue of hope. What does it mean to have hope?
What is hope, exactly? In his
book, The Anatomy of Hope, How People
Prevail in the Face of Illness, Jerome Groopman explores hope and its role,
especially in the lives of persons struggling with cancer or some other serious
illness.[i] Jerome Groopman, who is a medical doctor on
the faculty at the Harvard Medical School, is an oncologist. Over a 30-year career as a physician,
specializing in cancer, he has become very interested in how patients who are
seriously, or terminally, ill with cancer have coped with their diagnosis. In particular, he has studied how the virtue
of “hope” can sustain these patients.
Groopman believes that there are two
components of hope. One component is a
rational, or cognitive, element while the other component is emotional. In his study of hope, Groopman interviewed
Richard Davidson, an experimental psychologist studying positive emotions, such
as hope. In their discussion, Davidson suggests
that hope contains both rational and emotional elements, which are
intertwined. Davidson explains the
rational component of hope this way: “When
we hope for something, we employ to some degree, our cognition, marshaling
information and data relevant to a desired future event. …[we] generate a different vision of [our]
condition in [our] mind.”[ii]
Dawson continues by describing the
second component of hope as emotional.
The emotional component involves, “…affective forecasting—that is, the
comforting, energizing, elevating feeling
that [we] experience when [we] project in your mind a positive future. This requires the brain to generate a
different … [positive, emotional] …state”. [iii]
For Groopman, then, genuine hope occurs when the rational and emotional
components interweave and modify one another.[iv] Groopman elaborates further, claiming that
the distinction between “true hope” and “false hope” concerns the intertwining of these two components. On the one hand, true hope integrates both
the rational and the emotional components.
On the other hand, false hope is more like blind optimism. It is only emotional and does not have a
rational component.
I find Kroopman’s proposal that hope is comprised of both rational and
emotional components to be very plausible. However, in addition to these two components, the
Apostle Paul suggests a third component to hope in his discussion in Romans
8. Paul writes, “For by hope we were
saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what is
seen? But if we hope for what we do not
see, we wait for it with patience.”
(Romans 8: 24-25)
It is important to see Paul’s discussion of hope within the broader
context of this scriptural passage in Romans 8.
For Paul, God’s work of redemption is ongoing and not yet complete. Further, this redemptive work is not
restricted to just human persons.
Instead, the scope of God’s redemption includes all of Creation. A little earlier in chapter 8, Paul had
written, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the
children of God” (Romans 8:19).
Paul’s expanded view of Creation is based upon two themes within the
Hebrew scriptures. First, in Genesis 1,
when God creates human beings, God assigns humans the role and responsibility
of caring for the rest of Creation, as stewards working on behalf of God. This role of caretaker which humans have been
given is both a great privilege and a great responsibility. Secondly, in the Hebrew prophetic book of
Isaiah, God promises a sweeping re-creation in which all things are made
new:
“For
I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the
former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”
(Isaiah 65:17; see
also Isaiah 66:22)
For Paul, God is still active in world, working to redeem and re-create
the world. However, God’s transformative
work has not yet been completed. Thus,
all of us—humans, as well as the nonhuman environment—are waiting on the full
establishment of God’s Kingdom here on Earth.
Paul writes, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor
pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the
first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the
redemption of our bodies” (Romans
8: 22-23).
While God’s re-creative work of redeeming and transforming all of
Creation has not yet been completed, Paul believes that it has already begun
through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Indeed, for Paul, the Resurrection offers a foreshadowing
and guarantee of the redemption and transformation to come, when the Kingdom of
God will be fully established. Thus, God’s
Reign has been established, but is not yet completed.
Christ invites his disciples to join in the work of kingdom-building, as
junior associates. And, for Paul, humans
have a special opportunity and responsibility to ultimately bring about the
transformation of nonhuman creation.
Paul believes that through humans “the creation itself will be set free
from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the
children of God” (Romans 8:21).
Commenting on this key theological point for Paul, the British New
Testament scholar, N.T. Wright has written that humans “will be God’s agents in
bringing the wise, healing, restorative divine justice to the whole created
order.”[v]
Both humans and nonhumans alike continue to wait for the full
establishment of God’s Kingdom and God’s transformation of everything in a New
Creation. Yet, we do not wait alone or
in isolation: “Likewise the Spirit helps
us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very
Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what
is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints
according to the will of God” (Romans 8:
26-27).
This is the basis for the third component of hope. As Christians, we have hope because God is
still at work in the world, redeeming and transforming the world—and each of us—into
a New Creation. We wait with eager
anticipation; we wait with longing that the wait will be over and God’s Reign
will be established. We wait, knowing
that God has invited us into the work of building God’s Reign. But, ultimately, we know that we are not
alone in our waiting. God is with us,
and that grounds our hope.
Hope is a core Christian virtue because it shapes our outlook on
life. We live with optimism and
confidence for the future because we know that we are not alone. God is still active in the world, working to
transform us into a New Creation.
If you live in the Lincoln, Nebraska area and do not have a place of
worship, then I invite you to come and join us this Sunday, January 8th, at
Christ United Methodist Church, as we begin an examination of the virtues which
make the Christian lifestyle unique. Our
classic worship services are at 8:30 and 11:00 on Sunday mornings.
Everyone is welcome and accepted because
God loves us all.
[i]
Jerome Groopman, The Anatomy of Hope, How
People Prevail in the Face of Illness (New York: Random House, 2004).
[ii]
Richard Dawson, as recorded by Jerome Groopman in The Anatomy of Hope, 193.
[iii]
Richard Dawson, as recorded by Jerome Groopman in The Anatomy of Hope, 193.
[iv]
Groopman, 193.
[v] N.
T. Wright, “Commentary on Romans,” in The
New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10, accessed by CD-ROM.
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