Sermon for the New year's Eve

Thursday 31st December 2009

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

In Greek Mythology, Pandora was created at Zeus’ instruction; the first woman, and was endowed by the gods with ‘all the gifts’ (that’s what her name means). Whatever the purpose (and there are a couple of versions) Pandora had been given a mysterious box and told by Zeus never to open it. According to some basic research of mine, it was more of a jar, rather than a box; but, whatever the case, she did the one thing she was told not to do and that was she opened the box (or jar, if you’d prefer). She opened it for no other reason than curiosity, but, by doing so she released all the evils that have since afflicted the world, from rheumatism and colic to spitefulness and jealously. Only hope was left behind. The simple moral of the story is that, whatever sorrows may afflict us, hope is always there to provide comfort!

If you want a little more information, Hesiod, the Greek poet, is given the reputation of writing about Pandora’s Box in what is considered the earliest literary version. Yet there is an earlier mention of jars or urns containing blessings and evils bestowed upon mankind in Homer’s ‘Iliad’, supposedly in the eighth century BC. But setting times and dates around this kind of period is a little confusing and a bit ‘hit and miss’.

So, if you have learned nothing else during 2009, you now know something about Pandora’s Box, Hesiod and the Greek’s attempt to address the great question of why there is evil in the world!

It’s a good question! The Greeks had their stories, and three thousand years later, our Church is still trying to work that one out – ask any learned theologian, and you’ll hear no straightforward answer. But the one thing we are all sure about is that Hope is the kind of antidote for all the world’s ills. And we all know that if we didn’t have hope; if we didn’t have some kind of belief in a positive outcome to life’s events and circumstances, then what would be the point of anything, even given the most appalling news we hear every day on the news? Hope gets us up in the morning – it’s the reason we’re still functioning at all!

All I want to do this evening, to bring us in to 2010, is for us to realise that, as Christians, hope is not a physical emotion. Hope is distinct from ‘positive thinking’ which refers to a therapeutic or systematic process used in psychology for reversing pessimism.

Hope is much bigger than that. Hope is a spiritual grace. For us, hope is one of the three theological virtues which are spiritual gifts of God; faith, hope and love. Hope, just like faith and love, is a spiritual grace. How desperately we need spiritual grace in our churches and in our lives and in the world we live.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Greyhound Race, but you’ve seen it on TV perhaps. The dogs run after a mechanical rabbit around a track – you know the score – but the dogs never catch up to it.

Some time ago, and I’m sure it has happened on more than one occasion in different locations, there’s a story of the dogs, in their traps ready for the off. And the mechanical rabbit came speeding past the dogs and the traps were suddenly opened and the dogs were off like bullets out of a gun. As the rabbit made the first turn, however, an electrical short in the system caused the rabbit to come to a complete stop; it then exploded and went up in flames. All that was left was some smoke and a bit of black stuff hanging on to the end of a wire!

Their rabbit gone, the bewildered dogs didn’t know what to do; they stopped running, some chased their tails instead others just howled at the crowd. Not one dog finished the race.

We’re not greyhounds, but we still need reason to run the race. What is our goal, our purpose, our hope? What if it were taken away? Many chase after false hopes, false illusions; a mechanical rabbit of sorts which ultimately offers no hope at all. Paul wrote, ‘For me, to live is Christ’.

Whatever life throws at us, and forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, we press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenwards in Christ Jesus.

Pandora’s Box or not, hope, as a spiritual grace, is what we bring with us in to 2010.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year, full of promise and full of hope!