Hope Brightens the World

2 Corinthians 3:12, 17-4:2

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

2 March 2024

            “Our problem is . . . a pandemic of fear,” so writes the Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han.  His description of our times is stark:

We are facing multiple crises.  Anxiously, we confront a bleak future.  There is no hope.  We muddle through from crisis to crisis, from one catastrophe to another, from one problem to the next.  Amid problem-solving and crisis management, life withers.  It becomes survival.

            According to Han, this pandemic of fear prevents us from acting, narrows our horizons, and robs us of a future.  Fear, he writes, is a spectre, haunting humanity.

            We have a sense that these fears are caused by structural regimes that we have little control over, so we turn inward and focus on the self, sometimes isolating ourselves.  Loneliness and even more fear result from this isolation. 

            And our competitive economic environment also generates fears.  He describes the “fear of failing; fear of not living up to one’s expectations; fear of not keeping up with the rest, or fear of being left behind.”  One thinks of the ubiquity of the concept of FOMO—the fear of missing out.  Han writes that these fears are good for productivity, but not so much for our humanity.

            What’s the solution?

            He writes, “Only hope can give us back that life that is more than mere survival.  It is hope that opens up a meaningful horizon that reinvigorates and inspires life.  Hope presents us with a future.”

            St. Paul proclaims “Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness.”

            According to Paul scholar Michael Gorman, hope for Paul is “grounded in the character and promises of God—God’s faithfulness and integrity.”  And because of this, we can look to the future, no matter what is happening in the current moment, even if we are suffering.  And that God-grounded hope “produces confidence, courage, and patient endurance.”

            According to Paul, our hope looks forward to when we will fully shine with God’s glory.  And because of that hope, we can engage in ministry and speak the truth.

            On this Transfiguration Sunday, as we conclude our Epiphany season worship series on the Common Good, I thought we should focus on hope.

            And I thought Byung-Chul Han’s meditation on hope would be worthy of our attention, for some of the fresh ideas he brings to the topic.

            Last fall the Spanish paper El Pais named Han one of the top ten most influential currently working intellectuals in the world.  Fred Nielsen sent that article to me one day.  I had not yet read anything of Han’s, but I had been seeing his name pop up various places, particularly with the publication in America of his latest book The Spirit of Hope.

            Han has been writing short, widely-read books for a while now on the current state of human anxiety and burnout in this time of great change and crises.  His 2015 book The Burnout Society describes how our world is “filled with exhausted people, who exploit themselves at work and optimize their free time by immersing themselves in their cellphones.”

            Han criticizes how we have surrendered to a social narrative about work and consumption instead of doing what we really want to do or what is best for us.  And so much of our work is on superficial things.  He also says that we might have multiple connections with other people but are losing genuine communications in real presence with each other.

            Instead, he encourages that we live more simply, spend more time in each other’s presence, carve out spaces where we disconnect from technology, and make sure we spend time having fun or doing nothing productive at all.

            Han is developing a following for speaking to the concerns of our age.

            His latest book, The Spirit of Hope, encourages hope as a counter-mood to the fears and anxieties that dominate our lives.

            Unlike fear, which narrows our horizons and ability to act, hope has a vastness to it.  Han writes, “Hope effects a widening of the soul so that it embraces the great things.”  When we hope, we can see beyond on current moment and its constraints.  We can imagine new possibilities and make ourselves ready for what new things may come. 

            Han also writes that hope is a form of attention.  If you were here throughout the autumn when I was preaching on the spirituality of awe, then you know that every Sunday attention as a practice came up.  I’ve long preached about the spiritual and ethical importance of being attentive to the world. 

            Here’s what Han has to say about attention and its relationship to hope—“There is also something contemplative about hope.  It leans forward and listens attentively.  The receptivity of hope makes it tender, lends it beauty and grace.”

            He distinguishes hoping from both optimism and wishing.  Optimism has no room for doubt, despair, or anguish.  It overlooks these essential parts of the human condition and ultimately is a passive attitude.  Whereas hope is “searching movement” that leads to action.

            Wishing, he writes, “involves a feeling of lack” but hope is different.  It “possesses a fullness and luminosity.”  Wishes, he says, are never forceful, but hopes are.

            Hope arises from despair, from a deep attention to our human condition.  It is a spiritual mood that breaks out of the constraints of the moment and sees a future of newness and possibilities.

            Hope becomes much like the yes to life that I preached about last week when I was talking about the resurrection power that we Christians can lay claim to.  Han writes, “Hope is the spring, the zest, that liberates us from our depression, from an exhausted future.”

            Hope is a force, a momentum that moves us forward and with that comes an enthusiasm.  Han says enthusiasm and motivation are “hope’s fundamental traits.”  And because of this hope “brightens the world.”

            Han even says that there is a festiveness to hope.  An attitude of celebration and joy instead of being constrained by anxiety and fear.  It makes me think of the importance of having fun, throwing a party, going dancing, laughing with others.  These enjoyments and delights are essential for our spiritual, emotional, and ethical well-being.

            And because hope has all these traits—its attentiveness, its tender receptivity, its searching movement, its vastness, enthusiasm, motivation, and festiveness, then we are able to act.  Han very simply and directly states, “Humans can act because they can hope.”

            Which returns us to what St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians—“since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness.”

            The crises and changes of our time cause us anxiety and fear.  Makes sense.  But we cannot become trapped by those anxieties and fears.  We cannot allow our horizons to narrow, our souls to shrink into passivity.  We can claim the yes to life and cultivate the attitude of hope, that looks forward with newness and possibility and embraces great things.  And with that hope we can be people of courage, living in to God’s mission and speaking the truth.