Beginning on Pentecost and in the weeks that followed - Pastor Joel and I invited you to respond to some questions - not knowing what responses we would get, how many we would get, or what we would do with them - but trusting that the Spirit would speak - through you, to us, as we discerned where our worship time might take us this summer.

Pastor Joel has used the sermons of the last two Sundays to address the responses we received from the questions asked giving us a bit of an understanding of the “State of the Community”. Individual responses, yes, but individual responses that seem to represent an overall feeling of the larger community.

We are a community that cares deeply about others - others that we love, others that we don’t even personally know. Living in right relationship matters to us and encompasses all aspects of our daily lives and this is not simply because we desire to be moral and ethical people (though I do believe we are), but because of our faith, our trust that the Way of Jesus, of hope, of love, will right all that is wrong in the world - in God’s time.

We also found that while we are committed and compassionate people living out our faith in the world - we are tired, exhausted even, weary and wary, burnt out. Joel and I have been trying to find a word that expresses the feeling we think many of us are experiencing - malaise has been a word that has been used a lot, but this week while watching The Big Bang Theory I learned a new word thanks to Sheldon Cooper - it’s a German word - Weltschmerz. It’s a literary term and the definition can change a bit depending on the context in which it is used - but the definition that resonates most with me is “world-weariness” or “the pain of the world” which arises from the experience of reality that is insufficient to one’s expectations.

To experience malaise is to have a vague feeling of discomfort, the consequence of which you cannot quite put your finger on. To experience Weltschmerz - while it may carry similar symptoms - we must know what is causing it - the experience of the reality that the world not as it should be. If that's where we find ourselves—a people who know the world is not as it should be—then perhaps the question before us isn't, "How do we escape it?" but "How do we practice hope in the midst of it?" I think our text from Exodus today has something to teach us about that.

We have been saying for a couple of weeks now that we are going to do something a little different during the month of July. We are going to use our Sunday mornings—the one time each week when the largest part of this community gathers in one place—not simply to hear another sermon or learn something new, but to provide more space and opportunity to hear from and encourage each other during this hour. To be reminded that we are not alone, that the Spirit calls us to carry our burdens and the burdens of the world together, and to practice being the community we want to create out there, outside of these doors.

So this month, we are inviting each of us to bring our whole selves to worship—the polished and the ragged, the joyful and the grieving, the confident and the questioning, the energized and the exhausted. We are going to practice being honest about where we are, attentive to one another, and open to the Spirit moving in and through each and every one of us. This is not your pastors just changing things up for the sake of “trying something new” these Sundays are sacred, spirit led invitations to show up for ourselves and for each other.

Now, that might have been my longest sermon intro yet, but it was important to both me and Joel to make sure we are all grounded in what we are doing here and why we are here. Today, as the sermon title indicates - we are going to talk about hope. After everything I’ve just said about how tired we all are, it almost feels unfair to ask you to “Bring Hope” this morning, doesn’t it?

Let’s pray.

Holy One, day in and day out we see all the ways that the world is not as it should be, not as you would have it and though this causes us sadness and pain - we have not given up, for we are here. Remind us of who you are and who we are today as we study ancient stories and share communion with one another. Amen.

If we're asking what hope looks like when the world is not as it should be, there may be no better story than the beginning of Exodus. Before Moses ever parts the sea, before the plagues, before Pharaoh is defeated, before Israel is free, there is a small community of women who quietly refuse to let death have the final word. They don't change the system overnight. They simply begin living as though God's future is already possible. Six ordinary women quietly begin practicing hope.

We’ve been skipping around the bible a bit so let’s take a moment to reacquaint ourselves with where we are in the story of God’s people. A man named Jacob with the help of FOUR women had 13 children -12 sons, and 1 daughter. One of those sons was Joseph - Joseph’s brothers, resented him for being daddy’s favorite so they sell him into slavery. Despite enslavement and imprisonment however, Joseph becomes a very powerful Hebrew, second in command to Pharaoh in Egypt. Eventually, due to famine - Joseph’s family, yes those brothers that worked so hard to get rid of him - end up in Egypt where Joseph, because of his position and relationship with Pharaoh is able to care for them. This is a very brief telling of how the Hebrews ended up in Egypt and is told in the book of Genesis.

Exodus begins with the naming of all of Jacob’s sons - and quickly informs us that a great deal of time (400 years) has passed as that whole generation of siblings had died and that the number of Israelites in Egypt had grown so prolifically that the land was filled with them. During this time a new king arose in Egypt - it is noted however that this king did not know Joseph. Because of this lack of knowing he was intimidated and threatened by the Israelites, these people who worshipped a God that was not him, who were great in number and strength, so he forced harsh labor on them in an attempt to oppress them. When that didn’t seem to affect the Israelites the way the Pharaoh had hoped, he calls the Hebrew midwives in and informs them to kill any Hebrew sons that are born, but to leave the daughters alive. The midwives, Shiphrah and Puah outsmart the Pharaoh - so the baby boys are not killed. So Pharaoh tries again to limit the number of Israelites being born in Egypt and commands all his people that every Hebrew son born shall be thrown in the Nile, but that the daughters may live.

We recognize this story now, right? What comes next? Moses - correct, this is where our story picks up in Exodus chapter 2.

2 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4 His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. 5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10 When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses,[a] “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

The word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

Ironic, is it not, that twice when Pharaoh ordered babies to be killed he commanded that the female babies be allowed to live - and yet it is the women in this story that ensure Moses lives and goes on to free the Israelites from Pharaoh. Perhaps there is something to be said about underestimating women in this story, especially women who know God, especially women who practice hope.

It may seem unfair to ask us, you, to “Bring Hope” to worship today and then tell a story that we all know ends well - the Israelites do get out of Egypt after all, liberation achieved - and then ask you to practice Hope. But the women in this story who took the biggest risks didn’t know at the time how the story would end. And hope isn’t activated through the sure knowledge that things will turn out alright. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite - hope springs forth from the ability and courage to see, to acknowledge that something is wrong. William Adams, writer and pastor, puts it this way, “Hope doesn’t spring from comfort or complacency. [ …] Hope transforms when our empathy and compassion for those who are grieving and suffering make us so uncomfortable that something must happen. […] We have more power than we realize when hope combines acceptance and imagination.”1

In our story today six women, Shiphrah, Puah, Moses’s mom, Jochebed, Moses’ sister, Miriam, Pharaoh’s daughter, and her attendant all practice hope, taking unimaginable risks, not because they knew everything would end well, but because they were willing to acknowledge and accept that something was deeply wrong, and then use their imagination to do something about it. None of these women had the power to overthrow Pharaoh, but together they form a resistance to his vitriol and calls for death.

Hope, at least in this story, looks like three things: first, telling the truth about what is wrong; second, imagining the world as God intends it; and third, taking the next faithful step—even when the outcome is uncertain.

When Pharaoh insisted on a narrative of us vs. them - Shiphrah and Puah refused to accept such a story and directly disobeyed the Pharaoh - affirming the dignity of their people and using their wit to outsmart the Pharaoh.

In the face of violence and oppression, Jochebed and Miriam, protected Moses hiding him from danger, until they too came up with a subversive plan - they would put the baby in the Nile - but strategically in a basket not far from the eye of the Pharaoh’s daughter.

Pharaoh’s daughter along with her attendant use her position and privilege as the daughter of the king to adopt Moses as her own and raise him in the royal family - where Pharaoh could only fear the Israelites his daughter offers Love.

And I’m sure it is not lost on any of us - that none of these women acted alone. For thousands of years, the people of God have practiced hope together. Today, before we leave this place, we will join that long line of hope-filled communities. We won't simply remember the story. We'll step into it.

These women are not simply characters in an ancient story. They become part of the story that leads to Jesus himself. Like them, Jesus refused to look away from the suffering of the world. He named injustice for what it was, imagined God's kingdom instead, and gave his life embodying that hope. Hope, it turns out, is a family trait. It is the story Jesus inherited—and the story he now invites us to inherit as well.

Today we aren't just going to talk about hope. We are going to practice it.

In these baskets you will find - Moses - no, just kidding - In these baskets you'll find bread, juice, and a simple guide that will walk your group through Communion together.

After Pastor Joel and I consecrate the elements, our elders will distribute the baskets throughout the sanctuary.

You may need to move a little and form small groups. And friends, let's pay special attention to one another. Please, please make sure that no one gets left out in this process - extroverts - we might need you to invite people in to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Once everyone has a basket, simply follow the guide together. Don't worry about doing it perfectly. The point isn't getting every word right.

The point is practicing hope together.

Let our practice me our liturgy…

1 https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/when-acceptance-unleashes-our-imaginations-hope-fulfills-its-promise-d457ec85242a