LECTURE 2: LIVING IN HOPE AMIDST SUFFERING

QUESTIONS: HOPE, SUFFERING, THE SPIRIT

What difference does the Spirit make in our everyday lives?

How can we trust in the promise of the Spirit when there is so much sin and suffering around us? Where is the Spirit amid our vicious cycles of being either victims or perpetrators? And where is the Spirit amid the pain of life—in sickness and other calamities?

Does Spirit actually “transform” how we interpret and respond to everything that happens to us?

How do we live in hope when there’s often much to give us cause for despair?

CANTICLE OF TURNING (#723, ELW)

ALL1. My soul cries out with a joyful shoutthat the God of my heart is great,And my spirit sings of the wondrous thingsthat you bring to the ones who wait.You fixed your sight on your servant's plight,and my weakness you did not spurn,So from east to west shall my name be blest.Could the world be about to turn?

RefrainMy heart shall sing of the day you bring.Let the fires of your justice burn.Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,and the world is about to turn!

WOMEN 2. Though I am small, my God, my all,you work great things in me,And your mercy will last from the depths of the pastto the end of the age to be.Your very name puts the proud to shame,and to those who would for you yearn,You will show your might, put the strong to flight,for the world is about to turn.

CANTICLE OF TURNING (#723, ELW)

MEN3. From the halls of power to the fortress tower,not a stone will be left on stone.Let the king beware for your justice tearsev'ry tyrant from his throne.The hungry poor shall weep no more,for the food they can never earn;There are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed,for the world is about to turn.RefrainMy heart shall sing of the day you bring.Let the fires of your justice burn.Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,and the world is about to turn!

ALL4. Though the nations rage from age to age,we remember who holds us fast:God's mercy must deliver usfrom the conqueror's crushing grasp.This saving word that our forebears heardis the promise which holds us bound,'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God,who is turning the world around.

What difference does the Spirit make in our everyday lives? How can we trust in the promise of the Spirit when there is so much sin and suffering around us?

Where is the Spirit amid our vicious cycles of being either victims or perpetrators? And where is the Spirit amid the pain of life—in sickness and other calamities?

CHARLESTON SHOOTING AND FORGIVENESS

OBAMA SINGING AMAZING GRACE

SHANTUNG COMPOUND

BIBLICAL “GROANING”: FROM EXILE TO REDEMPTION

The Call of Isaiah, by Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

Does the Spirit actually “transform” how we interpret and respond to everything that happens to us?How do we live in hope when there’s often much to give us cause for despair?

FOR ADULTS ONLYBrothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking;

rather, be infants in evil, but in thinking be adults. (1Co 14:20 NRS)

HOPE: Glory

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. (Rom 5:1-5)

Kirsten Malcolm Berry

HOPE: Suffering

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces (katergazetai) endurance, and endurance produces character (dokimē), and Character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Rom 5:1-5) Kirsten Malcolm Berry

THE HOLY SPIRIT’S GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

IDENTITY (ENDURANCE)What does the promise of the Spirit do in our lives?

FORMATION (TESTING, CHARACTER)How does the Spirit transform our ways of perceiving and responding to life?

PRACTICE (HOPE)Who do we become and how do we behave?

1. Truth2. Rigor3. Complicated

livesMolly Pollak pages through a book of letters from her former students. Alex Welsh for NPR http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/27/437525457/letters-to-the-teacher-celebrate-a-40-year-career

IDENTITY: Glory: the Spirit

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all;

3 and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, 6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2Cor 3:1-6)

IDENTITY: Suffering: Endurance

7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. (2Cor 4:7)

FORMATION: Glory: Justification7 Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses' face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, 8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory?

9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, how much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory!

10 Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; 11 for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory! (2Cor 3:7-11 NRS)

FORMATION: Suffering: Testing

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; (2Cor 4:8-9)

PRACTICE: Glory: Seeing and Being Transformed

12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness not like Moses who put a veil over his face. . . . Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror,

are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:12-18)

PRACTICE: Manifesting Life amidst Death

10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 11 For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2Cor 4:10-12)

HOPE: GloryRomans 8, 1st half

Spirit of life in Jesus

Setting minds on the Spirit

Spirit bearing witness with our

spirit: “crying, Abba!”

HOPE: SufferingRomans 8, 2nd half

Creation groaning

Our groaning

The Spirit groaning

through us

HOPERomans 8 (cf. 2 Cor 2:14-5:5)

Creation groans

Our groaning

Spirit groans

through us

Spirit of life in Jesus

Setting mind on

Spirit

Spirit bears

witness with our

spirit “crying, Abba!”

QUESTIONS: HOPE, SUFFERING, THE SPIRIT

What difference does the Spirit make in our everyday lives?

How can we trust in the promise of the Spirit when there is so much sin and suffering around us? Where is the Spirit amid our vicious cycles of being either victims or perpetrators? And where is the Spirit amid the pain of life—in sickness and other calamities?

Does Spirit actually “transform” how we interpret and respond to everything that happens to us?

How do we live in hope when there’s often much to give us cause for despair?