Presence Weekly 10/7/2024, "The Paradox of Our Hope"

Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Hell begins where hope ends.” I think he is right. And if he is right, then it is imperative that we have a hope that never ends. And that begs a very important question: Where is your hope? 

As Christians, our hope should be the one that Peter lays out, 

^“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5)

Even though Peter’s declaration of hope is straightforward, it is not a hope we usually embrace. We are inclined to hope in things that we think we can control or influence, that we can see, and that we can touch. Why? Because all of those things seem far more certain than a hope that we cannot control, that we cannot influence, or that we cannot see. But as Christians, we are called to embrace a living hope which is beyond our control, beyond our influence, and beyond our sight. 

Defining hope this way creates the second paradox that Peter offers the elect exiles of Asia Minor in his quest to equip them to flourish as they participate in Christ’s mission of making all things new, and to do so from a posture of faithful presence. Peter’s message is that to live in a posture of faithful presence we must embrace a living hope.

Further, we must cling to this hope in the midst of uncertainty because it is this very hope that produces confidence. How? Because this salvation is not one that we have earned or even sought!

The phrase, “he has caused us,” is crucial to Peter’s argument for these elect exiles to live with confidence rather than uncertainty. Why? Because he is grounding them in the gospel, and the heart of the gospel is that it is only from God’s great mercy, not our work, that we are saved. The message of the gospel is that we have not earned our salvation but that it is a gift. 

The tension here is that this is one of the most challenging aspects of fully embracing this hope. So much of our paradigm is about earning what we have. 

Washington, and much of the public square, promotes and rewards accomplishment. Honestly, most of the corporate world places the same value on accomplishment. These accomplishments come from going to the right schools, getting great grades, grabbing the right internship, and knowing the right people. It’s easy to see how our work can become the focus and foundation of our hope. 

Conversely, that same assessment scheme can leave people who are without access to the best schools, have home lives that are so chaotic that good grades are nearly impossible, and who lack a network from which to even find an internship to develop a deep sense of hopelessness. 

Together, these dynamics can lead those with greater social and cultural opportunities to look down on people who lack those resources. It can lead to uninformed judgments when passing by people on the roads with signs asking for help. It can lead us to think, “Why don’t you get a job? Why don’t you work as hard as I do?” That is not to say that self-motivation is not important. It is. But it is important not because it allows us to place our hope in our efforts, but because we were created to cultivate flourishing. Yet despite the best efforts at securing equality of opportunity, there will always be inequality of outcome. 

The reality of the Fall is that we feel far more confident when we can say that we have earned what we have either through our physical labor, mental acuity, or relational capital. But it is these very elements composing the hope that we create for ourselves that make this hope insecure.

This is why we must cling to a hope in the midst of uncertainty that is safe and secure. Peter writes to the elect exiles, who face daily uncertainty and lack any real political agency, that they have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

This idea of having security only through God’s power unfolds throughout the Old Testament. First as the people of God made their way from Egypt to the Promised Land. Then as they conquered the Promised Land, through the Exile, and then during the rebuilding of the Temple and Jerusalem. The Psalms even contain songs for the people of God to sing as they made their way across Israel to Jerusalem and the Temple in the Songs of Ascent, which spoke of “being kept” by the power of YHWH. Theologians call this the “redemptive-historical narrative.” In other words, the story of God promising a hope and delivering a hope for his people. 

Peter is drawing his readers to this idea of security through his choice of adjectives. Notice the way that Peter strings together these three words: imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. There is nothing that we can earn that meets all three of these criteria. No matter what we have, it is either subject to perishing, defiling, or fading.

In using these words, Peter is just repeating what he has already heard from Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount,

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

My wife and I recently had a conversation with a financial planner about how to best manage all of the money that we don’t have. We are doing all that we can to set aside funds for what we hope is a modest retirement, and, of course, we hope to be able to leave something for our kids. But we are also mindful that another financial crisis can wipe out all those efforts. It is not wrong to take intentional action to plan for the future. It’s foolish not to. 

But, Peter’s call is to remind those of us with significant accomplishments that while we may have the ability to place our hope in what we can accumulate, all of our plans face uncertainty. Further, these words come as an encouragement to those who do not have the opportunity or particular skills needed to match others' achievements, as they are reminded that their hope is precisely the same as those who have achieved more. To both, these words are liberating! The living hope that Peter directs us toward is uniquely equalizing. In fact, speaking economically, it is only the gospel that overcomes inequality of opportunity with equality of outcome. 

Thankfully, we all have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Those words offer us hope and allow us to live lives of confidence in the midst of uncertainty.

Application Questions

How have your opportunities for achievement directed or impacted your hope? What is secure about the achievements that result from those opportunities? What is not secure? 

How does the distinction between the hope that Peter is presenting and the way in which we are typically enticed into viewing hope impact your relationship with God? With others? With your own work?

In your role as servant or leader in the public square, what capacity do you have to increase the opportunities of flourishing for others? 

• Monday: Morning: 1 Kings 21, 1 Peter 5, Psalm 92, 93 // Evening: Malachi 3, Matthew 25:1-30, Psalm 92, 93
• Tuesday: Morning: 1 Kings 22, 2 Peter 1, Psalm 95, 96 // Evening: Malachi 4, Matthew 26:1-30, Psalm 95, 96
• Wednesday: Morning: 2 Chronicles 20, 2 Peter2 , Psalm 99, 100, 101// Evening:Matthew 26:31-57, Psalm 99, 100, 101
• Thursday: Morning: 2 Kings 1, 2 Peter 3, Psalm 103// Evening: Matthew 26:57- end, Luke 9:18-50, Psalm 103
• Friday: Morning:2 Kings 2, Jude , Psalm 105:1-22// Evening: Matthew 27:1-26, Psalm 105:1-22
• Saturday: Morning: 2 Kings 3, 1 John 1:1-2:6, Psalm 106:1-18 // Evening: Matthew 27:27-57, Psalm 106:1-18
• Sunday: Morning: 2 Kings 4,1 John 2:7-end, Psalm 107:1-22 // Evening: Matthew 27:57-end, Psalm 107:1-22

• Cabinet Agency: The staff of the Disaster Recovery Center at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 
• Think Tank, Lobby group, NGO: For the many servants and leaders of the Volunteer Organizations Assisting in Disasters (VOAD) who will soon deploy to help the people impacted by Hurricane Helene. 
• Weekly delegation: The congressional delegation of South Carolina as they work to secure funding and support for their constituents impacted by Hurricane Helene. 
• News: For the individuals at the CIA and State Department working to navigate the situation in the Middle East and Ukraine. For cabinet and sub-cabinet agency staff who are implementing new fiscal year budgets.
• Personal requests: For individuals weighing transition team appointments. For those working on campaigns. For someone celebrating one year of sobriety and for others in recovery. For a couple looking for a new nanny. For someone with a heavy speaking schedule in the next three weeks. For parents of a child facing a medical procedure this week. For a couple with a child getting married.

• Go here first →  The Ideos Institute’s (Re)Union Project 31 Days of Unity. For the 31 days of October, you can receive daily texts — each with a prayer for unity, scripture reference, and a link to a short video reflection. Faithful Presence is participating in this initiative. 
• Read this first → The Gospel Coalition has a critically important work for every Christian from Dr. Kevin VanHoozer on How Biblical Hermeneutics Transforms Us as Readers.
• Christianity Today has a read-and-reflect-worthy essay on The Evangelicalism of Jimmy Carter.
• Religion and Liberty has Jordan Ballor’s latest, The Faithful Christian and the Politics of the Tao.
• World Magazine has a very timely article on the crucial role that Christian ministries play in assisting in disasters (see prayer section above).
• The Rabbit Room has a beautifully written essay on why Beauty Matters: A Short Theology of Beauty.

• Tuesday, October 8, 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm ET, The Institute of Religion and Democracy hosts Christian Realism Social Hour at the Hyatt Place – Ellipse Rooftop Bar.
• Tuesday, October 8, 5:15 pm ET, The Hoover Institute in Washington presents Health Care: Key Priorities For The New Administration.
• Wednesday, October 9, 1:00 PM, The Roosevelt Institute hosts an online event, Green Industrial Policy’s Unfinished Business.
• Thursday, October 10, 11:15 AM - 4:00 PM ET, AEI presents Church and State: Reimagining Faith Communities’ Role in K–12 Education with Ian Rowe and Robert Pondiscio.
• Friday, October 11, 1:00 pm EDT - 2:00 pm EDT, The Brookings Institute hosts Race in the 2024 election.

If your musical tastes are developed enough to enjoy what critics refer to as “smooth, old school, California soul,” featuring tight harmonies, classic jazz-soul fused instrumentation, and a stripped down but pitch perfect production that creates just the right vibe for a backyard dinner party, then you need to pick up the second album from The Sacred Souls. The lead track, “Lucid Girl” highlights everything that has created the international buzz around the band who are touring the East Coast now before heading to Europe. Building on the success of their self-titled 2022 album, “Got A Story to Tell” on the Daptone label is out now on vinyl and available on most streaming services.