NRS Zechariah 9: An Oracle
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12 Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may the Lord grant us courage in faith and confidence in hope; for the sake of Jesus the Messiah. Amen.

In the movie "As Good As It Gets," actor Jack Nicholson plays Melvin Udall, not a nice man. The least friendly person you're ever likely to meet on screen or in person, Melvin makes a handsome living writing romance novels, although he has nothing but contempt for his female readership. He is demanding, rude, and thoroughly unlikable, which has everything to do with his own internal torment. Melvin suffers from an overwhelming obsessive-compulsive disorder that has him terrified of germs, fearful of human contact, and afraid to step on even the cracks in the sidewalk. In human relations as in professional football, there's no better defense than a really good offense, and Melvin is very offensive. That strategy, however, begins to crack when he's forced to care for his neighbor's pet dog. And as his heart begins to open to another living being, Melvin also finds himself warming to a much more complicated and beautiful creature, Carol, as played by Helen Hunt, the only waitress who will serve him at the local eatery where he takes his breakfast. But to relate to Carol, Melvin will have to do something about his OCD, and that means going on medication. Melvin hates taking pills, and even more he hates the very thought of having to admit his own need for said pills. So when his psychiatrist tells him it's either the pills or the disease, Melvin asks, "What if this is as good as it gets?"

Every time we dare to get our hopes up, every time we gamble on dreaming a new dream, that's exactly the question we face: What if this is as good as it gets?
" What if I change jobs only to find that my last job was really not so bad after all?
" What if I go back to school and after all that time and money discover that I really don't want to change careers?
" What if we pull up stakes, move to a new place with new schools and new friends, and just really hate it?
People are always saying, "You gotta have hope," "You can't live without hope," "Everybody needs hope," but: what you don't hear people say is that with every hope there also comes a risk. You cannot hope without also risking disappointment. Now if you haven't had much disappointment in your life, then that probably doesn't sound like much of a risk. But if you've had a dream dashed, or a hope shattered, or a bright, shining castle in the sky come crashing down on your head, then you've probably asked yourself, "What if this is as good as it gets?"

In today's First Lesson the prophet Zechariah is addressing people who have experienced profound disappointment. Zechariah is prophesying to the exiles that have returned to Jerusalem from their Babylonian captivity. But instead of a glorious homecoming to the city of their deepest longing, they have come back to a land still devastated nearly seventy years after its fall to Babylon. The economy is in ruins, security is shaky, drought is crippling the food supply, and worse yet, Solomon's magnificent Temple is a shambles. They had dreamed of the day when they would behold "Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy" (Isaiah 65: 18; KJV), but instead they have returned to find their homeland a waste, and their temple of dreams a nightmare of sorrow. Certainly they had to think to themselves, "We've come all this way for this? Maybe Babylon wasn't so bad."

To these depressed, profoundly disappointed people, the prophet of Zechariah 9-14 addresses some of the most spectacular prophecies of the entire Bible. To these people barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth, Zechariah announces that their King is on his way. "Triumphant and victorious," "riding on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey" (9:9), the new Messiah will put Israel's enemies in their place, cutting off "the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem" (v. 10). The conquering King will establish a peace that runs from sea to shining sea, and once Israel's foes are destroyed, the land will bring forth its bounty, and "Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women" (v. 17).

But could a people already so despondent really bear such an awesome hope? After having already suffered such terrible disappointment, wouldn't you resist the next prophet making wild promises? Zechariah's prophecy seems to anticipate exactly that response, first, with a reminder of "the blood of my covenant with you" (v. 11), and second, by addressing Israel as "O prisoners of hope" (v. 12). According to Zechariah's prophecy, God's people cannot help but hope. However sorely disappointed, however crushed beneath the weight of sad experience, God's claim on God's people leaves no choice but to hope. As long as we live in the bond of God's grace, despair is not, in other words, an option. If God is, as Zechariah asserts, the Lord, sovereign king of the universe, then the people of that faith don't have the option to surrender hope in the One who rains down manna from heaven and brings forth water from the desert's rock. God alone has the last word, and until that last word is uttered, then nothing is ever as good as it can ever possibly get.

On this Fourth of July weekend, we remember the mighty men and women who founded this country, and weren't they also prisoners of hope? Many of them actually had it pretty good under British rule. They weren't destitute; they certainly weren't the wretched of the earth with nothing to lose. They had to plenty to lose, not the least of which were their very own lives. And yet they risked it all, and for what: A dream, an idea, a future that might or might not come to pass? Yes, because they were in their own ways prisoners of hope.

Think back on our own immigrant forebears. They left family, they left friends, often they left a big chunk of their own identity, and all to come to a land of hope. Their hope was certainly challenged as they faced the terrible rigors of steerage travel, and tested further still when earlier immigrants often greeted them with shouts to go back to where they came from. But still they kept filling those boats and they kept coming, because they, too, were prisoners of hope. And what was true of our own ancestors is no less true for today's new immigrants coming to our shores from Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world. Often they risk midnight journeys through perilous desert, they risk suffocating in cargo containers, they risk exploitation from evil men looking to profit from their desperation, but nothing stops them. They are prisoners of hope.

We are a nation of prisoners of hope. For many it's the hope of economic gain, for others the hope of political freedom, but for us, it's the hope that springs eternal from the kingdom of God come near us in Jesus. However heavy that hope may sometimes be to bear, we cling to the hope that God is not yet done with this world. We embrace the hope that in the fullness of time God will accomplish in all creation what was perfectly incarnate in Jesus Christ. And until that day, no regime, no administration, no human power or authority is ever as good as it can possibly get.

That message is what I think the Christians of this country can best contribute to the common life of this nation. Our job is not to impose our faith on others, but our faith impels us to proclaim that neither this nation nor any other rule, reign, or Reich on earth can ever claim to be the Kingdom of God. As both proud Americans and faithful Christians, our job is to keep national pride from falsely assuming that because we're better, or bigger, or more powerful than other nations, we're as good as it gets. As prisoners of God's hope, we know that as long as any child goes to bed hungry, it's not as good as it gets. If an old lady has to choose between buying her pills or buying a can of peas, then it's not as good as it gets. Even if most of the people are mostly happy most of the time, then it's still not as good as it gets. Of course, we can't dictate how that child is to be fed or how it's to be arranged for that old lady to get her pills and keep food on the table. Our faith doesn't give us any edge in crafting fair, just and equitable public policy, but our faith will not let us rest while the poor go unfed, or the mournful go uncomforted, or the meek go unsheltered.

We are, after all, prisoners of hope. Thanks be to God.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.