Recap of 9/16/19 Meeting

1. Readings: Exodus 32:7-14, Luke: 15:1-32 - see last post.

2. Genesis

Gen 10: Table of Nations – descendants of Noah and his 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth

Gen 11: The Tower of Babel (2300 BC, origin of Babylon) – God confuses their languages.

Gen 12: The Call of Abraham – and Sarah and nephew, Lott, leave Haran and go to Canaan. A famine strikes and they go to Egypt. Kind of a sordid story (!) but afterwards they return to Canaan wealthy.

3. Hope – We’ve studied Faith, the first Divine Virtue; now we move onto Hope. A human gift.

The dictionary says: Hope is the desire for something with the expectation of obtaining it.

We will explore the small “h” hope and then the capital “H” Hope.

What is every day hope (small h)?

I hope I get to work/the meeting/whatever on time. I hope I do well on my tests.

I hope I look good for the party. I hope I lose weight. I hope I get organized.

I hope he/she likes me. I hope my team wins! I hope Ron makes this recap short.

• Notice how our entire lives are filled with hopes. We have a lot more hoping going on that just about anything.

• Also notice how our hopes are very personal. Not a lot of “group hope” going on.

• Have you ever hoped to improve some weakness – e.g., losing weight, being on time, being more patient – like hundreds of times? And yet you are still hoping to achieve it after hundreds of failures? Is that not kind of amazing?

• Even when we don’t get what we hoped for, hoping gives us time to think, time to plan, maybe time to change plans. It’s a great buffer between the now and the future whatever.

• Hopes are what spurs humans onto great things. We hoped to explore outer space, and now we are. We hoped to heal broken bones, and now we can. We hope to cure cancer – and I’m sure we will.

• What would we do without hope? Give up?

• Conclusion: It’s a good thing we have hope.

Can hope be dangerous? Sure. What’s the chance of getting bored and always hoping for something better just around the corner? When this happens, hopes are starting to manage us rather than us managing our hopes. If we let our hopes run away with our minds, we become dreamers, never living in the present.

What about gambling? Gambling is all built on hope and is $250 billion industry. A lot of gambling addicts are there because of runaway hopes.

That said, hope is a gift, a tool to help us progress. In that sense, hope is mostly good, but like all our gifts (skills, money, etc.) it can be misused and abused. So, how do we manage hope?

First, most people never think about it, so think about it. Are we hoping only for personal gain or do we hope for good things, especially for others?

Secondly, do we appreciate the good things and good people in our lives? Or, do we take them for granted, which leads to hoping for more superficial experiences, always around the next corner?

Most importantly, is it not hope that leads us to pray? Why else would we pray? This is not an accident. Understanding the value and purpose of hope is part of our spiritual development.

What’s the "end game" for this thing called hope?

The ultimate hope for all humans – Hope with a capital H - is happiness. Heaven. Every culture in history hopes for happiness and heaven of some sort. These are God’s calling cards. The reason Hope with a capital H is considered a divine virtue is because it leads us to the Divine.

We all want heaven – this perfect happiness place; but we are simultaneously aware it is always out of our reach. Worldly happiness, if we find it, is always temporary and never complete. Think advertising!

We have the spirit of God in us, so that’s why we know what it is; and because we know what it is, we want it very much. But we are fallen – separated from God – so we can’t possess it. To be more specific about this, human attributes like selfishness, sickness, greed, and death block happiness. According to Christianity, however, God saw fit to come here to undo our fall and restore our original condition. Once we are baptized (officially putting God back into our lives), we are kind of like Adam and Eve again before the fall – except now it’s our turn to choose.

The most important fact about what Jesus did in reversing the fall was that he conquered evil and death once and for all. That repeats saying: he conquered evil and death once and for all. But if that’s true, what’s all this nonsense in the world going on all around us, and why are we still here?

What we are witnessing is just our own individual battles because, remember, we still have free will. The WAR against evil and death is OVER. Good won, evil lost. The greatest hope of all is that we now know the end of this story. Now humans must make their individual decisions: do I have God in my life, or do I go it alone?

The train to heaven leaves from our bedside every morning when we get up. It’s a train of happy people willing to converse with God and live in kindness, love, and forgiveness. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the clerk at the 7-11, the jerk at work, or the fool in the car next to you – the job is to bring some joy or good to bear on every encounter. How hard can this be? This is living the Gospel. If you mess up, then discuss it with God, apologize, and get back on the train in the morning. One thing about this hope is certain: if you are on this train when you die, you will find yourself in heaven.

So, no matter how bad things look around you whether it’s the job, politics, or bills – remember that God and Good have already won. That game is over. Only our individual choices remain.

This is the greatest Hope that ever was. It is the reason humans can have joy in this lifetime, no matter what our worldly circumstances are.

Next week, the 3rd divine virtue: Love (...this one may take 2 meetings)