Image via Wikipedia“Hope comes alive only in the dreary silence of God, in our loneliness before a closed heaven, in our abandonment. God is silent, so it’s man who is going to speak ... Man is going to express his hope that God’s silence is neither basic nor final, nor a cancellation of what we had laid hold of as a Word from God.”
"We cannot let God off the hook. When God seems to say nothing, we must demand divine words. When God seems absent, we must insist that God come be with us."
“When God is silent, he has to be made to talk. When God turns away, he has to be made to turn back to us again. When God seems dead, he has to be made to exist. It can take the form of an anguished appeal, a complaint, a lamentation or a prayer of repentance. It can also take the form of daring protest, of violence against God, of accusation … In a sense, it could be said that hope is blasphemous. It actually rejects the decision of God’s silence ... It appeals to God against God. It demands an accounting of God, who is not acting the way he said and had shown that he acts.”
Comment: It’s up to us to tell the world that the bleakness all around us is not the end of the story. Rather, we must insist that, despite all appearances, God is active and drawing us into a brighter future. That means we must find where and how God is working in the world -- in effective ministries, in brave people standing up for what is right -- and get the word out. Hope is active, virile. It stands up in the midst of chaos and calls forth order -- or at least invokes the one who first turned chaos into form. It sees beyond what can be seen and imagines the future that God promised. Then it demands of God such a future, even if it means we must work with God to create it. This kind of hope insists that we pay attention to where God already is active in the world, that we not miss God’s healing presence because either we’re too depressed by conditions of the world or we attribute to Caesar the work that is God’s. - Bill Tammeus
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