A Reasonable and Holy Hope

Have you ever thought about what it is we mean when we talk about "human nature?" As I think about the way I most often hear the phrase, it is usually referring to one of humankind’s somewhat less admirable characteristics. Things we tolerate in one another because we think it’s impossible for us as human beings to rise above them. The desire for revenge if we’ve been injured in any way. That’s human nature. Sibling rivalry. All the behavior we mean when we say "boys will be boys" (and whatever the analogous phrase is for women.) That’s human nature. Parents’ expectations that their children will fulfill the parents’ hopes and ambitions. It’s human nature for parents to feel that way. Children rebelling against their parents’ expectations of them. Human nature. Competitiveness in the workplace. Being motivated by self-interest in personal relationships. A teacher who inevitably shows favoritism in the classroom. Being fearful of new opportunities or new experiences. Human nature. We could go on for a long time, I expect, thinking of similar examples of "human nature." None of this is criminal or deranged behavior; we would not term those "human nature." And we could undoubtedly also list many noble qualities of human kind when we are at our best. But hear in your mind a voice saying, "Oh, so-and-so’s behavior stands to reason, doesn’t it; it’s human nature." This "human nature" is generally some human failing or shortcoming within us. And there is always a note of resigned fatalism in that voice. We are talking about human shortcomings, and we have no hope that humankind will ever rise above them.

This morning’s epistle from the letter to the Philippians is one of the real cornerstones of the New Testament (at least outside the Gospels). "Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness." It gets you thinking about human nature, about this "human likeness" that Jesus voluntarily took on. What does it mean to say that Jesus took on human nature? In the broadest sense, what are some of the more significant characteristics of being human?

One way to think about what makes us human is to consider what qualities we have as human beings that (1) animals do not have and (2) God does not have. I don’t know if the great philosophers would agree with this process for defining the unique qualities of humankind, but I think it works pretty well. Qualities that animals don’t have and God doesn’t have. At our best, we share in some of God’s characteristics, and at our worst we are worse than many animals, but in general, we’re somewhere in between.

Along this line, then, one part of being human is knowing things like fear, anxiety and doubt. Clearly, God does not experience fear or anxiety or doubt. Nor, I think, does the deer in the woods. Animals certainly have a sense of danger, when it is imminent, but I do not think they fear the unknown, or are anxious about financial security, or feel doubt about the direction of their lives. Fear, anxiety, doubt… these qualities are uniquely part of human nature.

On the other hand are things like wonder, awe and gratitude. As wonderful as these feelings are, I do not imagine that God feels them. The God who creates and comprises all that is awesome and wonderful does not somehow stand back from that creation and look upon it with feelings of awe or gratitude. And the eagle of the air or the otter in the stream… perhaps they sense some sort of fulfillment or maybe even pleasure when the hunting is good or the wind is keen or the water alive. But can they know awe or wonder or gratitude? I do not think so. Those feelings are part of us, our human nature.

And then there’s hope. Hope seems to me a singularly human feature. Hope. Real hope. The conviction that this is not all there is. The sort of hope I’m talking about is not a wish or a desire or a general optimism; it is a conviction. A conviction that there is more to daily life than meets the eye. And our human hope affirms that some sort of greater potential lies within and beyond our lives. And our human hope is the conviction that this potential is good.

Hope. Only humans, it seems to me, have the capacity to hope. Hope is a part of our human nature.

There is a wonderful phrase in one of the prayers we say in the burial service. We pray for a "reasonable and holy hope." A reasonable and holy hope. It is reasonable to have hope. Hope is not just some scatter-brained pie-in-the-sky imaginative fancy. Hope is not necessarily false optimism or perpetual cheerfulness. Hope is a reasonable conviction. And hope is holy. When Jesus took on human likeness, human likeness was made holy, including our hopes. Hope is reasonable and hope is holy.

When God became human in Jesus, God chose to share our human nature. In Jesus, God shared, experienced all of the pain and struggles of human existence. It is a great comfort to know that God understands sickness, doubt, confusion, fear, anxiety. To know that God has lived with all of these human trials helps us feel God’s holy presence with us in the midst of life’s difficulties. God shares our human nature. And when we think of the more positive things like awe and wonder, it adds depth and richness to those human experiences to know that God is a part of them, too. God shares our human nature.

But there is more. God not only shares our human nature; God offers us the hope that we may transcend our human nature.

This is our reasonable and holy hope. Our hope is the conviction that we are more than just human nature. Our reasonable and holy hope is that we can transcend our human nature to share in the divine life. I know I have shared this collect with you before; it is one of my favorites in the prayer book. It celebrates the incarnation, which is what this morning’s passage from Philippians is talking about, too. "O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity." That’s our reasonable and holy hope.

And what does that really mean to you and me? In the burial service when we pray for a reasonable and holy hope, it is a prayer for the bereaved. We pray that they may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a reasonable and holy hope and in joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. God shares our human nature; God shares in our human grief. But God does more. God offers us the hope that we may transcend the most significant limitation of human nature—death itself. God offers us the holy hope of transcending death itself to be united with God and with those we love.

It is also a reasonable and holy hope for us to see in life more than just existence. God shares our human nature, our human existence. God accompanies us every step of every day. But God does even more, as well. God accompanies us as we make breakfast, run the vacuum, hurry from one appointment to another, sit quietly at home in the evening, or do whatever it is that fills our days. God also offers us the opportunity in the midst of these mundane activities to fulfill God’s own purpose in our lives, so that our lives may transcend their human busyness and activities to share and become a part of God’s own life and purpose.

And, finally, to come back to where we began, it is a reasonable and holy hope to expect ourselves and one another to rise above all those sorts of behavior we usually label "human nature". We should not speak of "human nature" with resigned hopelessness. We are not condemned to live out our lives locked into the petty and limited behavior we so often think of as "human nature." In this life we will never escape the shortcomings of human nature altogether; but our human nature does not define us; it does not control us. God does more than just understand or tolerate human shortcomings. God offers us pathways beyond our human shortcomings. There is more to us than just "human nature." That is our reasonable and holy hope. Amen.

Sermon Index
Comments are welcome.  Send to krisorr@att.net