Forty years ago, when I was young and starting a family, people were worried about overpopulation. That was a big thing. China had its one child policy, which they were enforcing pretty rigidly. Only one child per family permitted, with very few exceptions.
Among my friends, I would sometimes hear concern about whether or not it was responsible, even ethical, to bring a child into this world. What would life be like for them? What unknown challenges would they face in their lifetime?
But while I heard people expressing these concerns, I don’t know if it actually impacted their decisions. It seemed like most of my friends were, like me, having families – two, three, even four children. And China did a total reversal of its one-child policy, when they discovered there might not be enough people to care for them when they get old.
So I think most of us stopped worrying about overpopulation. Life went on. But now there has been another shift, a new thing to worry about.
I recently read an article by the journalist Neal Gabler in which he shared his concerns about what he sees as a sort of national depression. He says surveys show 78 percent of Americans believe the future looks dim. And maybe not only Americans.
He points to research on the worldwide decline in birthrates. It seems that the decline is not related to financial stability or how much of a support network you have, or maybe not even related to how much you want to have children. It seems that people are sharing a sense that the future is too uncertain for the lifelong commitment of parenthood.
Which does not seem like a good thing.
But the falling birthrate is really just a symptom of a very complex problem in our world. We could talk about it all at great length and get very depressed in the process, so I’ll spare us that. But there is one thing I want to lift up, the one thing that really took my breath away: In Gabler’s words, people no longer trust hope.
That what the future holds is only more of the same disunity, disfunction, and dissatisfaction. That our values have been trampled. That truth has been so devalued that we no longer even know what is real; we no longer know what to trust.
I cannot deny these realities. Yet, when I read Gabler’s conclusion that hope has died in our world, I felt a strong resistance well up inside me, saying, “No.” It is all too possible for the hope of a people to die. But if it does, then perhaps that hope has been anchored in something that cannot sustain it.
The foundation of our hope matters more than anything. Which brings us to the story of Abram and Sarai.
The history of the people Israel begins with two persons: Abram and Sarai. In the 12th chapter of Genesis, we meet this couple who are just beginning an extraordinary journey together. Even more extraordinary is their age. Abram is 75 years old; Sarai is younger, but not by that much. I think we would agree that most septuagenarians do not embark on brand new epic journeys into the unknown, but that is what Abram and Sarai did. And the reason they did this is because God made a promise to them.
Go out to the land I will show you, God says, a land you know absolutely nothing about; do this, and I will make a great nation of you. And even though this elderly couple had no children at all – for Sarai, the story says, was barren – they followed the promise. They went.
And as they traveled, God led them through the land of Canaan and said to Abram, this is it, right here; I will give this land to your children. Children, of course, that they did not have because Sarai was barren. They looked at this land, and then they moved on. Because the promise was not yet.
This is the beginning of it all – the story of our faith and the faith of our ancestors. This story begins with a promise to two old folks, a promise that will set the foundation for everything that follows. And in everything that follows, we see a pattern where the people seek to follow their God. Then they stumble. They fall into a deep pit where there is darkness, where they might easily lose hope – but then they discover that God is still with them. God has not abandoned them.
It is a pattern that repeats itself so many times it becomes an expectation. Human beings will just mess everything up, such that it feels impossible to sort it all aright, to get back on track. But then, God, who does not let go of us, sets us back on track. It is a story of hope, and the foundation of our hope is our God whose promises are sure, whose love is steadfast.
The pattern repeats through the scriptures: the human tendency to fall, but as we remind ourselves in the great communion prayer, God called a people back to God’s self through the law handed down to Moses, through the prophets who spoke truth to kings to show them how they had fallen away from righteousness, and finally, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is in Christ, we believe, that the promise to Abraham is fulfilled – the promise that through Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed. It is in Christ that we get a glimpse of the glory of God, a taste of the kingdom of heaven. It is in Christ that we anchor our hope, a hope that will not fail us.
For as the writer to the Hebrews says, it is through two things – God’s character, which we know as love, and God’s promise, as old as Abraham – that we may seize the hope that is set before us.
But we must also know that the hope is for now – not just for the next world – a kind of pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. The Letter to the Hebrews and the other New Testament epistles offer some words of comfort, but much more, they give words of guidance, encouragement, instructions for the church: how to be a community of human beings made in the image of God. How to move this world toward hope. And that is our calling.
In the early 16th century, John Calvin, the father of our Reformed faith, arrived at the city of Geneva and it was a sight. It was a sort of a wild west town, corrupt politically and religiously. It was a turbulent age, not so different from our own time in that way. But Calvin somehow managed to bring order to this place. They created a culture in which the poor were cared for, where people had a sense of their role in creating a better society. They created a place where there was hope. Even though the world was not less turbulent, their lives were shaped by hope.
In his commentary on the book of Hebrews, Calvin writes to his community about the corruption, the sin, the misery that they all knew so well, and then he asks, “what would become of us if we did not obstinately cling to hope?”
Hope gives us a clear vision of a better way. Hope stirs us to act, to become better than we were, to work for a world that is better than it was.
Yes, there are many signs in our world that despair is winning the battle. People giving up on community as we hibernate in our homes. People giving up on politics as we see our leaders unwilling to work together anymore. People giving up on the earth, because caring for it is too big a job for individuals to do. We even see people giving up on life when they decide against the possibility of bringing children into the world.
I see despair. Even in our congregation I know there is that risk. Some of you completed the little survey I gave you this week about hope. When asked how it feels when you contemplate the unknown, some of you said that you do feel some dread, or worry, that drags you down. Despair is a real thing that looms out over us. But hope still has the power to hold us. Hope in the sure and steady love of God, the God who has a plan for us, for this world created with love. With hope, we will not give up.
The choice for hope is a kind of resistance in this world. Although we will still feel pain, we will not be devastated by it. Although we will see the world around us choosing other ways, we will stay on the path that God has set for us, lifting one another back up when we stumble. And although we see people around us surrendering to apathy, we will choose active, hopeful engagement with our world.
During these next few weeks, we will walk together, praying together, studying together, seeking a better understanding of the way of hope.
Let us go this way together because, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “Hope does not disappoint.”
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