Wishful Thinking VS Hope
Luke 1: 39-49
December 6, 1992
Several years ago, I heard a story of a woman who desperately wanted to win the Arizona Lottery. Every time she heard that it would be over two million dollars, she would begin to pray like crazy. And the night before the drawing, she would get down on her knees and start a litany going: “ah God, let me win the lottery!” The next day, she would run to the morning paper to see if her name was listed…and it never was there.
But sure enough, the next time she heard of a jackpot of over two million she began to pray again. And the night before, she got down beside her bed and said, “Oh God, I’ve been a good person. I have a family that can use the money. Please let me win the lottery.” The next day, same thing, scanning the paper–her name not listed.
And once again, a few weeks later, two million in prize money. The night before, she knelt down and said: “Oh God, I’m a good church-goer. I’m even an Episcopalian, and I tithe. Please let me win the lottery.” The next day, she picked up the paper, didn’t find her name, but as she was throwing away the paper, a voice came down from the heavens saying: “Hey Lady, give me a break, will you? Buy a ticket!”
Our culture today is wish-ridden, but not particularly hope-filled. We’re like the woman in the story. We wish we would win the Lottery, but we don’t bother to buy a ticket. We look for magic, but have lost the elements of hope.
During these four Sundays in Advent, we’re trying to probe the meaning of hope. By sermons, by music, by readings, we’re trying to put flesh on our understandings of the word, the feeling, the expression, so that we might become a hopeful people rather than a wishful people. The church offers us some images to aid our understanding a highway and a pregnancy, Last week we looked at a highway, this week at a pregnancy.
But first, let’s understand the nature of wishful thinking – something that most of us do more than we care to admit. Wishful thinking is not just another name for hoping. It’s actually an anti–symbol. Anti-symbols are not exactly the opposite of symbols; they are replacements. They take the place and allow us to believe we’ve got the same thing, even though we settle for less. It’s like substituting passion for love or a pulp magazine for great literature, or a cartoon for a masterpiece. Anti-symbols allow us to believe we’re in touch with reality, when all we have is a pale substitute.
The key to understanding the difference between wishful thinking and hoping is to recognize that wishful thinking is generally followed by the word “that.” It has a specific object in view, it’s concrete, and usually looks for magic. I wish that I might win the lottery, or I wish that there were several one-hundred-dollar bills in the collection basket — concrete yet something less than hope. The very specificity of wishful thinking gives it away. We might say I hope that my pain will go away. What we’re really saying is, I wish that it would disappear. Nothing wrong with that wish except that it’s less than hope.
Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher, once wrote in his journal just before his death: “Hope is a new garment that has never been worn. Nobody knows how it will look or how it will fit… Wishing, on the other hand, is an old garment. By its very tangibility. It reduces what we wish for to what we know from our past. Somehow, wishing leaves off the sense of mystery and challenge so characteristic of hope.
This is why pregnancy is such a powerful symbol for hope. There is a sense of mystery and wonder associated with pregnancy. We can’t hurry it along. So we’re challenged to wait and see, to be patient. This is one reason that Advent is a difficult time for those of us who are impatient. We want what we want, and we want it now. ( At least tell us what’s under the tree.)
But a mystery like hope isn’t available at Dillard’s for $9.98 while it lasts. Hope is illusory without being an illusion. Hope is shrouded in mystery. “How we see through a glass darkly — and only then shall we see face to face,” St. Paul said. Now we are pregnant, but then (later) we shall give birth. The child will appear. Hope will have a name.
Advent is a time when the church says, “For God’s sake, don’t interpret things too soon. Wait, hesitate, hold back your desires for answers. Live with the question because something is taking its course, birthing in you. What is going to be born hasn’t appeared yet. Hope is that new mysterious garment that will be put on in God’s time and not according to our time tables.”
I’m grateful for our strong music tradition at St. Philip’s. I’m grateful to Judy, the choir, the orchestra — for music speaks to hope far more deeply than words. Bach in Magnificat gives us not only a feel of Mary and her pregnancy, but also gives us glimpses of hope. Like the clouds that surround the mountains in the window, we catch momentary flashes of hope, just as the clouds reveal the mountain tops once in a while. And as the Magnificat continues, it builds in its beauty, but it doesn’t show you everything all at once. The birth comes later, yet the message of the music is that hope is part of the rhythm of our hearts. And you can sense that message at the end of Communion when the choir sings the Gloria.
It’s difficult to get the hang of hoping. Music helps, watching a figure like Mary helps…But I tend to start wishing instead of hoping. Wishing is so ingrained in my life. I use the word hope when I mean wish, and therefore, I speak of hoping for health, wealth, reputation, victories, triumphs and I forget that at the heart of hope, the only basis of hope is the wonderful goodness and mercy of God.
Let me end our thoughts on hope this morning by sharing a story from a man named Viktor Frankl. His story of living through the horrors of a concentration camp speaks powerfully to those of us who search for hope. As far as Frankl understood hope, he began to find meaning in the most miserable of circumstances.
In his autobiography, Frankl gives us an Advent parable. He tells us that when he was first arrested and sent to the concentration camp, he managed to hide a manuscript that he had written. He hid it in his jacket lining. He was hoping (translated this into wishing) that he could smuggle it out and that it would be published and get him fame and help him to be released.
When he arrived at Auschwitz, he had to surrender his clothes and, in turn, was given the worn-out rags of an inmate who had been sent to the gas chamber. “Instead of the many pages of my manuscript,” he writes, ” I found in the packet of the newly-acquired coat a single page torn out of a Hebrew prayer Book, which contained the main Jewish prayer Shema Yisrael: (Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord thy God is one.)”
“How should I have interpreted such a coincidence?” Frankl writes, ” it was a challenge to wait and hope for a future that I could only dimly understand. I was being asked to live with unknown hope instead of being saved by what I could put on paper.” In the depths of the hell of the concentration camp, Franki began to see through a glass dimly. As he put on that prison garment, he caught a glimpse of hope…a glimpse of the mercy and goodness of God.
I pray that each of you, through Advent, will receive a glimpse of hope and not settle for wishing. I pray that the song in your hearts will not be about the presents and the Christmas list, but instead somewhere in the recess Of your mind, you can remain expectant and wait and hear these words:
My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God
For He who is mighty has done great things for me
And Holy is his name.
Amen