8th Sunday after Pentecost
1st Sunday in “Behind the Mask: Our
Christian Identity”
Superman and Hope
July 19, 2015
Jeremiah 29:10-14; Psalm 71; Romans 5:1-5; Luke
24:13-27
We are changing things up a little bit this summer and
having some fun, and so for the next four weeks I’ll be preaching on comic book
superheroes. Today we begin our summer
superhero sermon series with the very first comic book superhero and one who
has become an American cultural icon, Superman.
We hear people say, “I’m not Superman (or Superwoman),” and they mean
that they can’t do everything. The term
‘brainiac’ today means super intelligent, but the word started out as the name
of a villain Superman faced. And
Kryptonite has become synonymous with someone’s Achilles’ heel, or their weak
spot. Since 1938, Superman has seeped
into our common vocabulary, even for those of us who have never read a comic
book, and that includes myself. I’m
actually not completely sure the first time I learned about Superman. My guess is it was from marketing merchandise
related to the Christopher Reeve movies in the 1980s. Either way, Superman is the most obvious
superhero to start our series with, and I want to focus on the letter ‘S’ that
is part of his costume.
When
Superman comic books first hit the shelves in 1938, the ‘S’ on his chest quite
obviously stood for Superman. However,
over time the letter evolved into a symbol.
With the first Superman movie in 1978, the S-shield becomes the coat of
arms for Superman’s family of origin, the House of El back on the planet of
Krypton, and you can see each member of the Kryptonian council wearing their
own coat of arms on their shirt. When
the Superman: Birthright comic book
series came out in 2003, the ‘S’ became not just the family coat of arms, but
the Kryptonian symbol for hope. Now,
coats of arms originated as a design worn by medieval knights overtop of their
armor to cover and identify them, and so many of them have fierce colors and
fierce animals, like lions and bears.
Benjamin Franklin’s family coat of arms even has a dolphin. So, what would it mean for your family coat
of arms to symbolize hope? And why would hope be what Superman’s creators wanted him to stand for?
Let’s
look for a minute at Superman’s back story.
Unlike other superheroes, Superman is who he really is, his true
identity; Clark Kent is his alter-ego, or his false identity. When his home
planet is about to be destroyed, his parents send him, as a baby, to
Earth. He lands in the middle of a
cornfield in Kansas and is adopted by the Kent family, who give him the first name,
Clark. Superman does not actually have
superpowers on his home planet; somehow the combination of his alien DNA in our
solar system is what causes them. His
adoptive parents hide his superpowers and teach him a strong sense of what’s
right and wrong, valuing truth and justice and obeying the law. In fact, Superman’s commitment to operating
within the bounds of the law distinguishes him from just about every other
superhero and he often gets referred to as a big blue boy scout, a bit of a
goody two-shoes. So, Superman is here to
help his adopted world, righting wrongs, fighting injustice, saving children
who fall off the edge of Niagara Falls, and fighting bad guys who want to rule
the world.
Now,
what’s important here is his motivation.
He doesn’t fight out of vengeance, he doesn’t save people for the
publicity or because of what’s in it for him; he fights for good simply because it’s the right thing to do.[1] He does the right thing for the sake of doing
the right thing. That’s what compels him
to act and what guides his actions. Is
it the right thing to do? And with that
question there is hope for us, because you don’t need superpowers to do the
right thing. However, as Christians, we
don’t do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do, we are
compelled by God’s love, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:14. God calls us, and when we answer, or if we
answer, we are compelled to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.[2] Superman can do the right thing, and so there
is hope that we can, as well. I read an
article that said that “Superman isn't good or special because he's an alien
who crashes on Earth and ends up being incredibly powerful. He's special
because after all that he becomes someone who always does the right thing because
he was raised by a couple of decent people from Kansas.”[3] He was raised right. There is a proverb in the Bible that says,
“Teach a child the way she should live, and she will remember it all her life.”[4] That was certainly true for Superman. And in that, there is hope for us and for our
children.
As people who follow God, we know that hope in God does not disappoint us.[5] Let’s hear that sequence from Romans 5 again,
“We boast of our troubles, because we know that trouble
produces endurance, endurance produces character, and
character produces hope. This hope doesn’t [disappoint
us or] put us to shame, because” of the same reason as the motivation for our
actions: “the love of God, [which] has been poured out in our hearts through
the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”[6] This hope doesn’t put us to
shame, because why? Because of God’s
love. Why are we compelled to do the
right thing? Because of God’s love. I’m seeing a theme here, are you? God’s love.
In Iowa last weekend we saw a banner from the highway that was next to a
church and it said, “Celebrating 150 years of God’s love.” [pause]
Now, do you see a problem with that sign? Every time we drove past it, I wanted to add
a word, and I had a mental list of words that could be added: sharing God’s
love, showing God’s love, witnessing God’s love. It didn’t matter which and I’m sure there are
other good words. The point is the love
of God is not exclusive to that community of faith and has existed for far
longer than 150 years, and I wanted some way to broaden God’s love, because we
do know that the love of God is broader and wider and deeper and higher than we
can possibly begin to measure. In fact,
the love of God is so all-encompassing
that nothing can separate us from it.[7] Talk about something that
gives you hope and a hope that does not disappoint.
In fact, God’s love is so great, that even when you feel
you are in exile or suffering or in the midst of those troubles that eventually
produce hope, God promises that he has “plans to bring about the future you hope for.”[8] The future that you hope for. The most commonly heard translation of this
verse from Jeremiah is “Surely I know the plans I have for
you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a
future with hope.” It’s become quite a
common verse found on graduation gifts these days, as graduates are at a
transition point in their lives. However,
I think we are still also in the midst of a transition point. And to use the phrase that is found in the
Good News translation, the version Cowenton has in its pews, rather than “a
future filled with hope,” and instead “the future you hope for;” what is the
future you hope for? What is the future
you hope for yourself? For your
family? For your job, if you’re not
retired? What is the future you hope for
this church? Do you have a clear picture
of it? Or a fuzzy picture? If you have no picture at all, then it’s
possible you may have lost hope. But if
you have at least a fuzzy picture, an idea, or a couple pieces you can make
out, then let’s share them and combine them.
Once you have a vision, you know what you want to work toward, and then
you can work toward accomplishing it. We
have a future with hope, both individually and together, and I’d guess each of
you has a future you hope for. What is
the future you hope for?
And what is the future you’ve hoped for from your youth?
I realize some of us are closer to youth than others, but that’s what
our psalm says, “You, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, Lord, from my youth.” Has God been your hope from your youth? Have you trusted in him your whole life? And for those of you who have, has he ever
let you down? Or can you testify that he
is a hope that does not disappoint? You
see, you have to be at the end of the story to know that he does not
disappoint. In the middle of our Gospel
this morning, on the road to Emmaus, you hear the disappointment in the two
disciples’ voices as they tell the story of Jesus as they know it so far: “That
Jesus was a prophet, and powerful, and then he was sentenced to death and
crucified. We had hoped that he would be the one to redeem to Israel. That was three days ago and now his body
is missing and we don’t know what to believe. We had hoped, but it appears that we were wrong.” However, those two disciples were only in the
middle of the story. They had hoped for
the redemption of Israel since their youth, they had hoped Jesus was the
Messiah, but here, three days after his crucifixion, they think they must have
been wrong. Have you been there? I had hoped for this, but it appears I was
wrong. Beloved, when you hope in Jesus,
it is a hope does not disappoint! You may just have to get
to the end of the story first.
In Superman II, the movie some of us gathered to watch
Wednesday night, Lois Lane thinks she’s figured out that Clark Kent is actually
Superman, and is so sure she’s right, that she jumps into a flowing river,
thinking that Clark Kent will have to turn into Superman and come save her, thereby
proving that she’s right. However,
Superman doesn’t reveal himself and he doesn’t swoop down into the river to
save her. Instead, he indirectly helps
her find a branch to grab hold of and float to shore. Lois Lane had hoped Superman would save her,
but when all she saw was bumbling Clark Kent, she thought was wrong. It wasn’t until later when Clark Kent’s hand
didn’t get burned in a fire that she learned she was right. Superman DID save her. She had hoped, it appeared she was wrong, but
at the end of the story, she learned that her hope did not disappoint. We, however, don’t have Superman. He is a symbol of great hope, but at the end
of the day, when the credits are rolling and the movie is over, he isn’t real. Beloved, we have the true hope of the world
right here in our midst at church, we know the love of God, which led to the
salvific work of his Son, Jesus the Christ, who is actually the Messiah, the Savior of the world. This is not just something we had hoped when
we were young and foolish. At the end of
the story, it is a hope that does not disappoint. If you think God is disappointing you, then
you’re not at the end of the story yet.
Continue to hold out hope.
Because once everything has
been revealed, then you will see that God is faithful and does not
disappoint. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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