Sermon on Hope

This is the Sunday in Advent when we focus our thoughts and attention on the word HOPE.

If you will look at the Advent Banner behind me, you can see the HOPE panel on the right.

Describe the colors…….the Sun

Webster says that hope is “a feeling that what is wanted will happen.”

One of the great bishops of the Roman Church onetime described hopes as “walking dreams.”

And one of the most memorable contemporary descriptions of hope comes to us from the poet Emily Dickenson who described hope as…”that feathered thing that perches on our souls” which sings on the darkest night.

Well, I’m not sure how to define hope but I sure know what it feels like.

I spent most of this last week down in Austin, Texas with my sister, who found out twelve days ago that she needed open heart surgery.

She needed it immediately if she was going to live.

When I heard the news I made my way to Austin as quickly as possible to be with her and with my little Aunt Ruthie.

So I arrived and made my way to the Seton Medical Center.

Carol had already been operated on so I went to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and joined Ruthie by Carol’s side.

Many of you know what that kind of area in a hospital is like, don’t you. You have been there.

Space age state of the art electronic equipment monitoring vital signs.

IV bags hang above the beds.

Catheters bags hang below.

People don’t talk much in these rooms…about the only noises come from the machines.

Visitors are kept to a minimum.

Ruthie and I stood by Carol in a room like this….Carol was semi conscious with tubes going in and out of her.

Her heart beat was very fast and her blood sugar level was off the chart. Carol is a diabetic.

Well, I’ll tell you something folks.

As Ruthie and I stood there by my Sis, we probably couldn’t have given anyone a definition about what HOPE was but we sure knew what it felt like.

So we waited in the Waiting Room and we hoped.

And we poked at out food in the hospital Cafeteria and we hoped.

And we wandered the hallways and we hoped.

And we stood by my sis’s bedside and we hoped.

And as many of you already know, my Sis turned the corner. It was nip and tuck but she made it.

She’s in a Rehab Center now, and she has a long way to go, but the prognosis is a good one.

I talked to her on the phone last night….she was sassy…she gave me a hard time…so I know she’s getting better now, getting back to her old self.

 Oh, we might not be able to define HOPE too well but we know what it feels like don’t we?

Think about the feelings we have in regard to what’s happening in Iraq today.

I was reading in Time Magazine this last week about how many fewer medals of valor have been given out to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than in previous wars.

But one Congressional Medal of Honor will be awarded to the family of one Marine who lost his life in combat in April of this year.

It seems that several marines were manning a check point in western Iraq when an insurgent grabbed Lance Corporal        Dunham by the throat.

When the insurgent dropped a live grenade during their struggle, Corporal Dunham jumped on it so that his body would absorb the blast, saving the lives of his comrades.

The grenade exploded.

Lance Corporal died eight days later.

Well, almost 3000 of our troops have been killed in Iraq since March 19 of 2003

Almost 22, 000 have been wounded

We have no body count for Iraqis or Insurgents but it has to be astronomical

The body count for Iraqi civilians is between 50, 000 and 55, 000……….Think about how many of those are elderly and children.

Oh, we might not be able to define it, but we know what HOPE feels like in regard to Iraq and the other war torn parts of our world don’t we?

The scriptures speak of a time when the lion and the lamb will lay down together….a time with swords will be beaten into farm tools.

Don’t we know what it means to hope and pray for that time?

I want to say one more thing about HOPE this morning.

One month ago I had a wonderful meal with my great friend Don Morlan at Di Guilio restaurant down here on Lexington Avenue.

Breaking bread like this is something Don and I have done for many years.

Don was ordained like me back in the 1960’s

So we were breaking bread again a few weeks ago and drinking Chianti Classico

Don ordered veal and I ordered

gnocchi with cream sauce.

We finished the meal with a good strong Italian caffe.

Well, Don and I parted and Thanksgiving came along, and on Friday after Thanksgiving, I received a call from Don’s partner, Tim Martin.

Tim told me that Don’s leukemia had finally got the best of him….and that he had died on Thanksgiving evening out in Detroit.

We knew it was coming…Don had been sick for a long time…but the news was still a sad surprise for both Jeri and me.

Yesterday I officiated at a family memorial service for Don out at Greenwood Cemetary in Brooklyn.

After the service we were talking to Don’s life partner Tim Martin and he told us this story.

He said that on Thanksgiving Day, in Don’s room at the hospital in the late afternoon, he and Don were talking. Death was imminent.

And this is what Don said.

He said…Tim, I can’t preach any more.  I can’t play the flute. I can’t sing. I think I want to go on home.

Tim said:  Home? You want to go back to New York?

Don said:  No. Home. I want to go on to heaven.

Just a short time after this, Don made his journey home. To heaven.    

Folks we might not be able to define HOPE very well but we know what it feels like as we think of our passing or the passing of our love ones don’t we?

We hear the words of the scriptures and the words of Christ, words about Heaven, about acceptance, forgiveness and eternal life, and HOPE  burns within us doesn’t it?

It comforts us.

We raise our heads and we can see the stars.

Our minds and hearts are filled with thoughts of the Eternal Sky and Eternal Life in the presence of God.

Our minds and hearts are filled with thoughts of reunion.

In closing I guess I should say a word about my sermon title….An Invincible Summer

I lifted it from one of the writings of Albert Camus the famous existentialist writer/philosopher.

He wrote this….In the midst of winter, I learned that there was within me an invincible summer.

And the people said….AMEN