Today's readings...

Psalm 22: 6 - 7

Exodus 4:2 - 3a

Matthew 26: 6 - 13

To be honest, reading these verses once, twice, three times, I struggled to find anything that spoke to me about hope... the words from the psalm are full of despair ("I am a worm"), the words from Exodus, quite frankly, meaningless out of their wider context, the story from Matthew very well known and well loved but 'the poor will always be with you...' 

So, I have decided not to force the issue.  To accept that sometimes what is needed is permission to express hope-less-ness.  "I am a worm and not a person"  I am useless... I am worthless... I am a failure... whatever it might be that people need permission to say, rather than the cheesy Christian 'I'm fine' (Feeling Inadequate, Needing Encouragement).  The hope, then, is not in the terms of a promise (though reading bigger chunks than the Northumbria Community list might well give us that), but that it is permissible to express how we really feel and know this will be acceptable to God.

God,

Sometimes we feel worthless, useless, failures

Sometimes we feel abandoned, isolated, rejected

Sometimes we can find no positives to express

Sometimes we wonder, with the psalmist

"My God, have you forsaken me? I am like a worm..."

Despised, if even noticed,

Trodden under foot

People mock

People insult

They shake their heads in despair or derision...

Where does help come from?

God of Jesus, whose cry of dereliction resounds through the ages

We come as we are

Longing for hope, feeling hope-less,

Hear our prayer

Amen