The Audacity of Hope

(Disclaimer: This is not a political post…just linking to a great sermon and painting)

For the past week or so we’ve been seeing video of Rev. Jeremiah Wright on tv and YouTube. Here’s the
sermon that Barack Obama got the title for his second book. At least take 10 minutes and read the sermon and check out the painting. It really is a moving message.

Brief Excerpt:

“The real lesson Hannah gives us from this chapter—the most important word God would have us hear—is how to hope when the love of God is not plainly evident. It’s easy to hope when there are evidences all around of how good God is. But to have the audacity to hope when that love is not evident—you don’t know where that somewhere is that my grandmother sang about, or if there will ever be that brighter day—that is a true test of a Hannah-type faith. To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope—make music and praise God on and with whatever it is you’ve got left, even though you can’t see what God is going to do—that’s the real word God will have us hear from this passage and from Watt’s painting.”

Oh, and if you want to see the painting that helped inspire this sermon you can go here or here.