Practitioners of Hope

Table Talk


Setting the Table

You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.

Consider how one tiny light has the power to light up an entire room. Hope is like that.

It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung,
the one more thing to try when all else has failed,
the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor.
This is the basis of hope in moments of despair,
the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and people have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash, and dreams whiten into ash.
- Howard Thurman, The Growing Edge

Romans 5:2b-5
And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also give glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.


Food for Thought

Allow me to state the obvious for a moment – we are living through some pretty turbulent times. Environmental, financial, political, and social strife overwhelm us. And I’m concerned – maybe even a little worried. Not because of the times in which we live – God knows this isn’t a new phenomenon. I’m concerned that people of faith are consumed by despair and distressed by hopelessness.

And though not everyone is feeling like they’re at the end of their rope, so many are. We hope, and nothing happens. We hope for the end of corruption, and it still exists. We hope for compassion, and it is in short supply. We hope for deliverance, relief, a better tomorrow, and yet…

Though we wish God could spare us our suffering, God cannot and does not. But, God does bear with us in it and, as Paul says, God empowers us as we journey through it, giving us a glimpse of hope in times when hoping is difficult.

Paul learned to be content, regardless of his circumstances, by teaching himself to hope. We, too, must learn to hope. That is our growing edge amid these turbulent times – to learn how to lean into hope in the midst of trial, to practice hope no matter the circumstances.

In her book, Joy Unspeakable, Barbara Holmes refers to the “timeless practice at the center of the Black church; the practice of a shared religious imagination that manifests as the communal intent to sustain one another and journey together toward joy despite oppressive conditions."

Hope does not make us ashamed. Hope shares; hope thinks; hope speaks; hope paints; writes; endures and imagines. We hope in Jesus Christ.

Through our faith in a God who is with us in our suffering, we are able to nurture the growing edge – to become intentional practitioners of hope. Together, we participate in the claim that we are redeemed by a suffering savior. We are on a quest to love one another – to bear all things, hope all things, endure all things. Justice and the whole of creation are depending on us to learn to hope, no matter what.

In the middle of the night, I was awakened by the Holy Spirit and heard this rhetorical question, “Can hope climb?”

I believe the answer is YES, it can! Hope can ascend high above the turmoil, peer over the edge of the mountaintop, see beyond this moment into a future of new beginnings and overcomings.

Our hope is an acknowledgement that God IS.

God is good, among us, with us…
God is still performing new mercies every day…
God is still in the miracle business…
God is intervening through us, and for us.

Our God sends new mercies every morning, but we must develop the habit of looking for them. Through Christ we receive grace. Through Christ we have peace. Through Christ we have hope because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.

To be practitioners of hope, we must tend to the growing edge; we must nurture within us and among us a religious imagination that manifests as the communal intent to sustain one another, and we must lean confidently on this God who IS – the God who journeys together with us toward joy.


Take a few quiet moments to reflect on the last time you felt hope surround you. Maybe journal about that experience and think about how you can bring a little bit of that feeling into the world.

Be hope to someone else – sit with someone in their moments of struggle, bring someone a meal when they are sick or feeling overwhelmed, offer words of encouragement to a friend just because.


Blessing

God of hope,
You are among us, giving us hope in all things.
You bear with us in our suffering and in our moments of joy.
You are there intervening for us and with us,
providing new mercies every day.


A little Table Talk for your table...

  • In times of hardship, share how you are able to find hope. Where do you turn? Is it God? Is it a friend? Is it to moments of stillness?

  • How can we actively be practitioners of hope for one another? Make a list of small ways you can bring more hope into the world.

  • Talk together about a time someone shared a little hope with you. How was that transformative for you?

Try taking it to the Kids Table...

  • Ask your kiddos what it means to have hope.

  • Have them draw a picture of what they think hope looks like. Allow their creativity to shine here.

  • Ask your child to make a list of small ways they can bring more hope into the world – sharing a kind word with friends, helping someone in need, bringing flowers to someone just because.

Meet Our Welcoming Voice!

Rev. Cheryl Harris is a graduate of Boston University School of Theology and holds a Master of Divinity degree. She strongly believes in servant leadership, actively serving on the ABC Ministers Council leadership team since 2018 and the Conference of Baptist Ministers in MA since 2015. Putting the Gospel into work clothes, Rev. Harris also founded her consulting firm in 2004 and provides diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting as well as leadership coaching to a variety of private and public organizations. www.cherylharrisassoc.com

To hear more from Rev. Harris throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!

Here are Five Things to Remember When Setting Your Own Welcome Table!

Rev. Cheryl Harris