Sowing Hope

John 20:19-31

For the next few weeks, our church is going to be focusing on a vision we developed in 2024 while we worship together. We are calling this series “who we are,” and we think the timing for this is ideal in the church year. The time of Easter (consisting of fifty days until Pentecost) is a time of the church figuring itself out in light of Christ’s resurrection.

There were all kinds of questions that continued to be asked for centuries after Christ’s resurrection. Did you have to remain Jewish and follow Jewish law? Who was in and and who was out? What is our faith’s relationship with the government?

A lot of these questions feel appropriate today, too. Over the past year, our church has been figuring out who we are as well. We have been putting to words what we believe our values are, what our mission and ministry in the world is, as well as what the vision God would have us be a part of for the world in which we occupy.

You can read about our vision, mission, and values by clicking here.

So over the course of Eastertide this year, we are going to look at the different facets of this work and start with our values. This week, we are looking at our values that emphasize how we are “hope sowers” for the world. Hope is something we think we can cultivate by simply being about the work God calls us to do. But it can also be enlivened in our acceptance of this story of hope we embrace in light of Easter’s miracle.

The thing is, hope is not casual. It doesn’t feel simple to just “have hope” these days, does it? There is despair and apathy and exhaustion that gets in hope’s way. Simply paying attention to the news feels like something that makes having hope seem impossible.

Our doubts might seem to contribute to hopelessness, but I think doubt is a gift from God. Doubts are simply beliefs waiting to be confirmed by the grace of God. When Thomas had doubts, Jesus actually doubled back to show him the same thing that he had already shown the disciples in John 20:19-31.

God is showing us the abundance that can confirm our doubted beliefs if we simply open ourselves to that abundance! And our church? We see that abundance everywhere: in our west colfax neighborhood, in the 40W Arts district, in the artists who use our space to make beautiful things, in the non-profit JeffcoEats organization that feeds children and uses our church building to make that happen, in so many surprising and beautiful connections that our church’s openness to the neighborhood facilitates.

If you are struggling to find hope, look for it in places you aren’t expecting. With the right intention, you will find God’s abundance there. You will bear witness to the grace of God that persists even in the midst of difficulty. And that hope will grow in you so that you can sow it wherever you go.