Be optimistic !
There’s a story about a schoolboy who brought home his school report. It contained a lot of poor marks. "What have you to say about this?" asked his father. "One thing is for sure," the boy replied, "Dad, you can be proud. You know I haven't been cheating!"
Some people have a great gift of looking on the bright side of every situation, but others are not so good at that.
Somebody once said that a pessimist can hardly wait for the future so he can look back with regret. Another thing I read about pessimism was some laws which state things such as, ‘if anything can go wrong, it will’, or ‘if anything just can't go wrong, it will anyway.’
Or ‘when things are going well, something will go wrong.’ And then there’s, ‘when things just can't get any worse, they will’, and of course, ‘anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.’
And just a couple more, ‘If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will,’ and finally, one that’s very appropriate for every Church minister, ‘If you do something which you are sure will meet with everybody's approval, somebody won't like it.’
There’s an awful lot of pessimistic people around in the world, and I think the Church tends to have at least its fair share, ready to warn of impending danger and doom, but less ready to meet a challenge with the courage, enthusiasm and joy that God demands.
And it is this sense of pessimism, that I think the Pharisees were offering Jesus as they warned him to get away because Herod was looking to kill him in our gospel reading this morning (Luke 13:31-35). The fact that the warning came from some Pharisees could mean a couple of things – first of all it could have been a kind of test being offered just to see what Jesus would do. This is the most likely course of action from most of the Pharisees who were no friends of Jesus, but there were some who did spend time in his company, and though they may have had some doubts about his ministry, they had no wish to see him killed.
But whatever group these Pharisees fell into, Jesus’ reaction was one, not particularly of anger, but of disappointment. He talked of Herod as the fox ready and eager to pounce upon his prey. He spoke of himself as the compassionate hen, eager to gather her brood under her wings, but he also talked of the work that he was doing, and that there was still to do, and then of the way that he would be rejected by so many of those he came to save.
And that note of disappointment that he expressed can often be more hard-hitting than any anger – when a parent tells off a child it is often more effective to say how disappointed they are in the child, rather than how angry they are. But as Jesus spoke of his disappointment he offered some words of hope to those who were spiritually blind – there would be a day when they would see and proclaim, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’
And the challenge for us as Christians today must be to live out the message of Jesus in the way he did – positively, courageously and powerfully. When we talk of serving God, we do that by sharing his Godly tasks, such as love, compassion, forgiveness, joy and hope.
In Churches pessimism is one of the most destructive qualities – it leads to apathy and to cynicism, and it leads to people just feeling that they don’t want to be involved. And on the other side of that a Church full of optimistic followers of Jesus will be a Church that people want to be part of. It will be a Church radiating enthusiasm and excitement, a Church where people talk of the good things that are going on – and there are a lot of good things happening which need to be shared.
We can be optimistic in Church because God offers a promise that, whatever we will face in our lives or in our Churches, God will be with us, and we will claim the ultimate victory. And we can be sure that we can claim that ultimate victory because Jesus has already won the battle for us- whatever this life may throw at us, whatever setbacks there seem to be within the Church, Jesus has conquered every one of them through his victory over death.
Just as his journey was a painful one, so, at times, will ours be, but we take that journey confident in his power and his love, and certain that he will never leave us.
And so as Jesus lamented over the people of
We must work to defend those unable to defend themselves, to care for those who have no one to care for them, to seek out the lonely, the lost, the grieving, the scared. We must work for justice all around us, and for peace in the world. We must proclaim the unbreakable love of God through our lives – these are huge tasks, and we will never complete them – the work will go on and on, until God’s kingdom is finally and fully established everywhere.
And as we work for all of these things let’s remember the promises we have been given, and the desire of Jesus that we enjoy fullness of life, and let’s be confident, optimistic and joyful in all that we do in his name. AMEN
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