September 07, 2025
• Rev. Mindie Moore
Heroes of Hope Week 1: Unexpected Hope
Jeremiah 32
A few weeks ago, Taylor Swift did her first ever podcast
interview. And she did it on, not a music podcast, not a pop
culture podcast...but a football podcast! (SLIDE)
And for some of us, myself included, listening to this
interview was the first time we had ever listened to a
Football podcast! Some of us related deeply to when Taylor
and Travis were talking about their first date and they told
the story of how she tried to relate to him about football by
asking, “is it really difficult to stand there on the field, face to
face with your brother, knowing that you both want to win?”
To which Travis let her know that they both play offense and
do not ever actually stand face to face on the field together.
But whether you love football and you are so excited that the
new season just started, or you really do not care, I’ll tell you
that something interesting happened in 1906 that changed
the game of football forever, and is a helpful image for the
conversation we’re going to have on hope today. In 1906, the
forward pass was legalized. Now players weren’t just
running the ball, they were throwing it down the field.
Theologian Leonard Sweet, who wrote a book about
theology and football, says the thing about the forward pass
is that when the Quarter Back throws it...they’re throwing to
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a place where no one currently is...but where you hope
someone will end up. You’re imaging what COULD be...and
acting in that hope.
Today we’re starting a new series called Heroes of Hope,
where each week we are going to explore the story of
someone in the Bible who did exactly that. They imagined
what COULD be...and then they acted accordingly. They
didn’t have all the facts, they couldn’t predict the future, but
they had a faith that drove them to believe that something
good was possible, and that something that was better than
their current circumstances was worth pursuing.
There are a lot of different definitions of hope and you heard
some of them on the video that played before the sermon. I
really like the way that Miriam-Webster defines it: (SLIDE)
Hope: to cherish a desire with anticipation.
I love this definition because it feels really wholehearted and
like we’re all in...and it also feels kind of fragile and tender.
There’s RISK when we cherish something and care deeply.
That’s a vulnerable way to live our lives. And there’s risk to
anticipating because sometimes we end up disappointed.
We WANT hope to take us where we believe we’re going, but
we can’t guarantee it. Sometimes all we can do is imagine
what could be...and listen to what God might be saying to
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us...and then act out of that risky, fragile, maybe even
FOOLISH hope.
The prophet Jeremiah has an experience with this kind of
hope, and he’s the first hope story we’re going to look at in
this series. If you’re not super familiar with Jeremiah, he was
an Israelite priest who was eventually called to be a prophet,
to speak about the impending destruction that was going to
come upon his people if they did not change their ways. And,
unfortunately, they don’t. Jeremiah gets a front row seat to
the fall of his kingdom and the exile of his people.
He preached for 20 years while he watched the slow
descent into ruin for Israel. He sees the leaders becoming
corrupt, the people are walking away from their worship of
God and the things they have been called to be committed
to, and (like we talked about with Amos a couple of weeks
ago) injustice reigns supreme. Jeremiah was in this situation
where he’s pointing to all the evidence of where they’re
headed, he’s sort of jumping up and down, waving his arms,
telling the people to change course and do something
differently...but it’s like screaming into the void. Even though
he has a word from God, even though he’s trustworthy and
consistent and faithful...people won’t listen to him. And so
Jeremiah has to watch as they essentially seal their own
fate.
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I know this story is not sounding very hopeful yet...but don’t
worry, we’re going to get there.
Because then in the middle of what was probably an
exceptionally disappointing season of his life, a season
where I would guess that Jeremiah feels pretty helpless and
hopeless, he receives this STRANGE word from God in a
dream. And this word is different than what he’s been
hearing. This word, this vision that he has, sits counter to the
destruction and loss that’s coming. This new word is a vision
of hope and possibility.
In this dream, God tells Jeremiah that his cousin is going to
approach him with a request that Jeremiah would buy his
land. Jeremiah is going to have an opportunity to make an
investment in this place that is inevitably going to be
destroyed...and God says, do it. Make the purchase, buy the
land.
And to Jeremiah’s credit, he listens. Once his cousin does in
fact approach him, he makes a legally binding agreement
with contacts and witnesses, the whole thing. And
THEN...he tries to make sense of it. Listen to what Jeremiah
says in V. 24 & 25, as he literally watches his city get ready to
be destroyed and reflects on this purchase that he’s just
made:
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24 See, the siege ramps have been cast up against the city
to take it, and the city, faced with sword, famine, and
pestilence, has been given into the hands of the
Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke
has happened, as you yourself can see. 25 Yet you, O Lord
GOD, have said to me, ‘Buy the field for silver and get
witnesses,’ though the city has been given into the hands
of the Chaldeans.”
The cognitive dissonance is very clear for Jeremiah. It’s
about to get REAL with the destruction. Nothing good is
coming for the Israelites or their land right now. But even
with that truth, God has inexplicably told Jeremiah to act in
hope. To make the investment; not to give up. To let himself
believe that even in the face of the worst possible thing
happening, that it is so important to declare that a future is
possible and that God will be at work in that future. Buying
the land like he does is this radical symbol of hope...even
when hope can hardly be considered part of the story.
And here’s what is so both challenging and encouraging
about Jeremiah’s actions—they're foolish to the core.
There’s no data to back up this purchase. That land? It’s
going to lose its value QUICKLY and who knows who will
actually end up with it. There’s no guarantee that he’s going
to get back to that place and be able to tend to it and have it
be his. There’s no guarantee he will ever see his investment
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come to fruition. There’s really no guarantee of anything at
all.
But I guess that’s the thing about hope. (SLIDE) Hope
invites us to act even when there are no guarantees.
Hope invites us to invest in a future we can’t predict. Hope
invites us to believe that something better could be possible
even when every single logical things says “absolutely not”.
I recently read a story about (SLIDE) David Fajgenbaum, a
doctor who had to act with exceptional hope in order to
survive his own life-threatening illness. He found out while in
Med School that he had a rare and fatal disease called
Castleman’s. There was no cure and so he had a priest read
him his last rites, he said goodbye to his family and friends,
and he truly expected that he would die. As a last-ditch
effort, he was given a dose of chemotherapy, which saved
his life. But over the next year, he relapsed three times and
by the final relapse it was clear that the next one would be
his last.
Here’s what Dr. Fajgenbaum said about what happened
next:
“ I only had one hope. A tiny hope, but a hope. I had to
cure the disease myself. It takes a billion dollars and ten
years to create a new drug; I didn’t have the money or
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time. My only chance was to discover an existing drug that
would work. I made spreadsheets of every similar disease
and every drug used to treat it. I wrote over 2000 emails to
every doctor who’d published a paper on Castleman’s. I
started studying samples of my own blood, but I ran out of
time. Another relapse put me back in the ICU; from my
hospital bed I asked the doctor to cut out one of my
lymph nodes. I took it to the lab and discovered a
particular protein called mTOR that was sending my
immune syste m into overdrive. And that’s when I knew. I
knew from my research that a drug called Sirolimus
inhibits mTOR. My doctor was hesitant to prescribe it;
there was no research to support my theory. But he took a
chance, and within days my symptoms began to disappear.
I still take the pill every day, eleven years later. I was able
to marry my wife and have two beautiful kids. And through
my work I’ve been able to save thousands of lives, by
repurposing fourteen different drugs to treat rare
diseases.”
There was no guarantee that any of his research would pay
off. There was no guarantee that trying that treatment would
yield the results he was hoping for. But because he acted in
fragile, foolish hope, Dr. Fajgenbaum not only was able to
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save his OWN life, but his impact has been felt by thousands
of others. Because he could look the unpredictable future in
the eye and say, “let’s try it.” Let’s act in hope even when it
doesn’t make any sense.
Sometimes what can feel so difficult about acting in this
kind of hope, even if we love a story like the one I just told
you, even if we find ourselves inspired by someone like
Jeremiah who would buy land and declare that his people’s
story is going to be bigger than the devastating moment
they’re about to find themselves in, even if we love those
kinds of stories and we want our own lives to LOOK like
those stories...even then, it can be really hard to know
WHEN to act. It can be hard to know what to pay attention to
and what to do next.
We might think about Jeremiah’s story and think, well, yeah,
if God spoke to me in dreams that would be cool. I could act
on THAT hope. We might hear Dr. Fajgenbaum’s story and
think, well, yeah if I had expertise and spreadsheets and
understood really complicated scientific things, then I could
act on THAT.
The truth is, we can very quickly reason our way out of hope.
That’s not hard to do.
What’s harder to do...is to hold on to the hope when we
don’t have any of that. What’s harder to do is to take the risk
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and act even when we don’t know what will happen. What’s
harder to do is to let ourselves believe that God is at work
and that if just take whatever the next step is, we might
experience the hope that’s happening all around us.
There’s a quote from the classic book Cry The Beloved
Country, where a well is going to be gifted to a small village
in South Africa. And as news spreads about this well, there’s
a buzz in the community, people are excited about the
possibility of what’s to come. And in the anticipation of what
will be, one of the people says, “Although nothing has come
yet, something is here already.”
I wonder if that’s the kind of thinking that Jeremiah holds as
he buys this land. Nothing has come yet. In fact, what’s
coming in the immediate future is something that is going to
test the resiliency of everyone who experiences it. The hope
part of that story isn’t going to come to fruition for awhile.
And maybe when we find ourselves in the moments of
struggle or even simply the times when we don’t know WHAT
to expect, maybe those are the moments where we get to
claim that something is here. That the Spirit of God is here.
And these are the moments where we get to hold on to the
belief that everything does not need to be perfectly resolved
or out of the mess to be full of God’s hope. And if God’s
HOPE is present, if it is already here...then we can act in that
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hope. Because it’s not hypothetical. It’s real and working
and part of our story.
When you came in today, you received a paper that says,
(SLIDE) “What does hope mean to you?” Before we go into
Communion and close our service, I want to invite you to
take a moment and fill this paper out. Maybe you want to
write, maybe you want to draw, whatever springs to mind
when you hear that question, put that on your paper.
When you leave today, you’re going to walk out of this place
into some fun things in the courtyard area. And one of the
tables that will be set up with Skye Smith there to receive
these pieces of paper. She is going to use them to create an
art piece that we will have permanently hung up in our donut
area, as a constant reminder of what hope means to us as a
community.
Because we need reminded of this. Over and over and over
again. We need reminded of the hope that we have
experienced, are experiencing, will experience one day. We
need reminded of the ways that God works. We need
reminded that hope is not a solo pursuit, but it’s something
that we get to look for and create together as a community.
Because sometimes hope seems far away and out of reach
and like something only an out of touch and foolish human
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would say is possible. But we know what’s true. We know
how God shows up. And we know what hope can do.
So Bethany is going to play a little bit on the keys, and while
she does, I invite you to fill out your sheets, to pray a little
bit, and then I’ll meet you back over at the communion
table.
(90 seconds of piano while people write)
Transition to Communion...this is where we remember
hope. Every single month.
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