How We Hope

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

There are times in our lives when I think it is fair to admit that one of the hardest things to do is to simply continue having hope. Hope that we will feel better after a loved one dies. Hope that our chances will improve when financial crisis comes. Hope that our kids will fare better than we will, or rise up from their own failures.

There are other wilder hopes we can have that are even more difficult to cling to. Hope that we will ever get to a place as a country that isn't defined by deep and violence ideological division. Hope that we will see life and vitality in the christian church instead of death and decline. Hope that we will see redemption in the stories of staggering poverty, drug abuse, and homelessness.

There are times that it has been difficult to be hopeful about our community garden at our church. Sometimes the external pressures can be too much. On a given night, someone might vandalize one of the garden plots that one of our gardeners has worked tirelessly to cultivate. Someone might refuse to leave the garden area who is behaving in threatening and unsafe ways. We might have to call the police to end criminal behavior that trickles in from the bike path adjacent to the garden. Someone might steal a motion activated light in the garden.

All of these things have happened in our garden in just this year. And that can make the hope we have for what that garden can be in this neighborhood so hard to sustain.

So how do we hope? First, we breathe and remember that there is always abundance to notice. And that is true in our garden. Despite a somewhat messy first year, we have grown in relationships we never imagined we would have as a church. We have seen growth in a previously desolate place. We have seen healing in many of those who started a garden plot in this year's growing season. That is where I can find hope--in the simple truth that it's worth it. The difficult way we are running a community garden in our parking lot is simply worth it. And it gives me hope because I don't think we are done with what is possible there.

One other example. I am a vocal proponent of finding and investing in solutions that eradicate homelessness. During the pandemic, we saw the rise of one of those solutions: Safe Outdoor Spaces. Campsites developed by the wisdom of service providers and music festival organizers--SOS sites are orderly encampments that provide a safe and secure place for people experiencing homelessness to live.

One of them burnt down to the ground two nights ago in Denver. I am thanking God no one was hurt, but I am also devastated at the harm I foresee this doing to the movement. SOS sites are very controversial, and they encounter a ton of public resistance from people who have a very limited understanding of what they are and what is possible. Where they normally would casually claim drug abuse or crime or garbage as being caused by these sites, this fire from two night ago will only provide additional fodder for people who want to organize against them. It could be very easy to give up any investment or willingness to see models that address homelessness like this from continuing when something like this.

So I went looking for some good news to remind me what to hope for when it comes to how we can eradicate homelessness in the Denver metro, and found the Colorado Village Collaborative's (CVC) success stories for this particular site. It turns out this site was a "Native American-Inclusive" SOS site, a site specifically oriented to serve indigenous people. And the first good news is that they were already planning to close it just about a month and a half from now. Here are some of the things this site has accomplished, according to the CVC:

"To date, the Native American-Inclusive (NAI) SOS at Denver Health has served 95 people, including 53 Native Americans, providing well over 10,000 nights of safe, dignified shelter. At least 24 residents have moved into longer-term housing. Additionally, more than 300 meals for at least 45 people have been served at the site by 44 volunteers amounting to more than 200 volunteer hours."

May we never forget that hope is closest to us when times are bleakest. Because hope comes from God. We have been made in the image of a God of hope. We are hardwired for hoping! How we hope is how we live out our faith in the hope offered to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God!