Doomsday Preppers
After a month or so of holiday feasting, hosting family, and reconnecting with old friends, our thoughts begin to turn once again to inboxes, deadlines, and other deferred responsibilities. Maybe some still make their New Year’s resolutions, but for the most part we tend to just settle back into the everyday duties that make up our lives. The mundane. Except, maybe there’s a touch of some inspiration, that this year could be different somehow. Call it superstition, or a connection to the rhythmic nature of our embodied existence. I call it hope.
Over the break, I’ve been watching back through the (now) classic television series The West Wing. It’s a fantasy about what it might be like to live in an America where statesmen (even those with whom we most ardently disagree) are brilliant and idealistic, striving with nobility and wit to put politics on the backburner and principles at the forefront. Like I said, a fantasy. But hope is not an ethereal thing. Hope resides, not in whimsy, but in real objects with power to bring justice to the wrongs of our world. Speaking hope is putting our mouths where our money is: in the treasury of eternity.
In our sermon series over the next few months, we’re going to follow Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, as he challenges the people of Israel to consider the hope that drives our sense of justice, and of mercy. He will charge us to walk humbly before our God, who is not far off but near. Even in the shadow of a coming exile, Micah puts pressure on the leaders of his day to live and lead as though the Messiah really is coming, and soon, to restore a remnant under his rule. It’s that kind of hope that can transform our daily lives into redeeming signs of the Kingdom today. A New Year of Our Lord is at hand!
