Desmond Tutu is the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa. He was deeply envolved in the struggle against Apartheid in his country and received in 1986 the Nobel peace prize for his endeavour for freedom and equality for his black brothers and sisters.
In an interview with the magazine Christianity Today in 1992 Desmond Tutu was asked if he was hopeful about the future.
"I am always hopeful," he replied. "A Christian is a prisoner of hope. What could have looked more hopeless than Good Friday? … There is no situation from which God cannot extract good.
Evil, death, oppression, injustice - these can never again have the last word, despite all appearences to the contrary."
A Christian is a prisoner of hope.
When we go through our Church history we meet a lot of people who felt strongly that they are prisoners of hope.
We think of Paul of Tarsus, all the martyrs, men and women during the persecutions in the ancient Roman Empire.
The Pope thought he quiet a prisoner of hope named Martin Luther by excommunicating him, but he only gave birth to the Protestant Reformation.
An assassins bullet tried to silence the dream of Martin Luther King, however his spirit of hope couldn´t be silenced. Or think of Mother Teresa and her commitment for the poor.
All those prisoners of hope possessed the same unique characteristic. They refused to accept the traditional way of doing things when there might be a better, more truthful way. In a world which constantly screams out at us, "You can not," "We have tried that before," and it won´t work," they tell us that there are alternatives.
When I was a teenager I used to go with my friends to southern France to help building a retreat center for Christians.
The organizer was French and they were always short of money and they didn´t know whether they could really finish the project.
However he always kept the spirit high. And as a laid back French person he always used to say: En France le mot impossible n ´exist pas. In French the word impossible does not exist.
Christians are prisoners of hope. For us too, the word impossible does not exist. We are prisoners of hope because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are prisoners of hope, because of the first reading we listened to this morning.
In this Gospel reading we find what’s sometimes called his Nazareth Manifesto. That is, his statement of policy, of what he was on about: his mission statement, if you like, made at the very start of his mission.
He quotes from Isaiah 61 and immediately says "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In a couple of verses he’s summoned up what his career goals are.
But of course they’re not our standard career goals. I’m not sure that they’d be a good thing to include in your resumé, unless of course you’re applying for a job in an aid agency or as a missionary. But for Jesus they sum up what it is that he’s about.
Jesus unrolled the scoll where it is written,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he had chosen me to bring the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people".
Jesus target group is the poor. They include those imprisoned behind bars as well as those imprisoned by by physical pain or imprisoned by memories. Those blind in their eyes, and those blinded in their thinking; those oppressed by others and those oppressed by guilt and fear.
However now, we could stand up and say: Objection! All this sounds great and looks good on paper, but is it really true.
More than two thirds of the world´s population lives under the poverty line, there are countless innocent people kept in prisons, we have so many sick people our doctors cannot help, there is war and violence everywhere we look.
We as Christians are prisoners of hope, however we are no fools. We acknowledge that this world is far away from being perfect. However we know from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that God can transform evil to good, defeat into victory.
Through Jesus we know the kingdom of God is at hand, although it is not fully here yet. Theologians call this the concept known as Already-but-not-yet.
We are prisoners of hope because God has promised to transform this world and he is transforming this world right now.
The Sciptures promise a jubilee year, a new start. And this new start has a name: Jesus Christ.
Christ calls us to transform the world around us with him. God wants each and everyone of us to turn this hope into action. Into action so that people can get a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. This is why Jesus says in the sermon of the Mount:
"You are the light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl; instead he puts it on the lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house."
Amongst Theologians in Berkeley a funny story was often told. It is a story about a US Navy ship with the Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland.
The American ship signals: Please divert your course 15° to the north to avoid a collision. The Canadian side replies: Suggest you divert your course 15° to the south to avoid a collision.
The Americans answer: This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again: divert your course.
The Canadians signal back: No. I say again, you divert. The American captain is getting angry and saying: This is the aircraft carrier USS Missouri. We are the largest warship of the US Navy. Divert your course instantly!
The answer of the Canadian authoritiues is short: This is a lighthouse. Your call now!
You are the light of the world….We are the light of the world. Like a lighthouse our responsibility as a church is to help others to find their way through deep waters and stormy weather. The church is a signal revealing a meaning to life. We - -as churches and individuals - are serving for the way to those who are in deep stormy waters, those who are lost, blind and treated in an injust way.
The church is a signal, a light on a mountain, a lighthouse - in small light or a huge light.
In Bishop Desmond Tutu´s South Africa many churches were a huge light in the struggle against Apartheid and finally Apartheid was abolished. And a man in this South Africa became a prisoner of hope. His name is Nelson Mandela.
Trained as a lawyer, Nelson Mandela became as a young man president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa´s anti-apartheid movement.
In the 1950s, he helped orchestrate the escalating polical warfare between the revolutionary movement and the apartheid government.His resistance ended with the Rivonia trial of 1964, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
After serving twenty seven years in prison, he was released on February 11, 1990, by then President de Klerk.
Four years later, the country´s first national, nonracial, one person, one-vote election was held. And on May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated president of South Africa.
He told the assembled guests and the watching world:
"Today, all of us do, by our presence here… confer glory and hope to newborn liberty. Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.
Never, never, never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another….. Let freedom reign. God bless Africa".
Bishop Desmond Tutu is right: A Christian is a prisoner of hope. There is no situation from which God cannot extract good. Evil, death, oppression, injustice - these can never again have the last word.
So let us announce today that the time has come when the Lord will have his people. Amen.
