I have to be honest and say that I found last night's theological reflection on hope hard work. People were generous and engaged in conversation but I felt we never really got to the nub of it, which is how we endeavour to live the hope we have in the here and now. I think that means I didn't do a very job as facilitator as much as anything.
However, it did give me things to think about, which is the purpose of such a discussion/meeting, and that has to be good.
Christian hope seems to fall into two categories, (i) what happens to me when I die and (ii) how will it all end? These are both wrapped up in eshcatological considerations, and maybe that's the tricky bit - some people in the group are keen on deconstructing and demystifying what is ultimately mystery. If some parts of Christianity have erred too far to the personal (my salvation, my eternal bliss, etc.) almost all have lost sight of the eschatological visions that inspired the ancients - the 'all things new' of, among others Isaiah(s) and mystic 'John the Divine'.
Living hopefully, to me anyway, is about glimsping the inbreaking Kindom of God (a kind of inaugurated eschatology) and trying anticipate it, to 'live tomorrow's life today' as the hymn expresses it. We are shown vision of a world - a cosmos - restored; where death, sorrow, sin and sickness have no place, having been swallowed up be God. We are given a glimspe of a society free from discrimination, from violence, from nationlalism, from injustice, from poverty. We are given a glimpse of what might just be possible - a source of hope, a horizon to aim for. Living hopefully is about working towards that goal, not as mere humanitarian response, but inspired by our faith in Christ.
A more helpful, for me, aspect of our conversation explored the possibility of communal hope, or of being a hopeful community, from which came the idea of 'a priesthood of all hopers' - that I will hope for you when you feel hopeless, and you will hope for me, and we will hope with and for each other.
We teased around the edge of the interface of 'faith' and 'hope' and didn't get very far - I have to admit after a decade of pondering this interface I am still not sure the two are separable. Maybe we 'have faith in' and 'have hope that', but maybe that's just semantics at its worst?
For the record, I do believe the words I say at funerals about 'sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life in Christ our Lord'; they are not just beautiful words to make people feel better (pace the person who suggested they might be). I hold that hope in conjunction with a fuller, brighter hope that at the eschaton, when the inbreaking Kingdom is fully established, the new creation will be even nore wonderful than the glimspses we see in the prophets and apocalyptists. Like the New Narnia of C S lewsi, it will be deeper and brighter and more wonderful. If I can take even one step on the road to that hope, if I can live hopefully, and encourage others to so likewise, I will have done something right!
