In our church’s liturgical calendar Pentecost begins fifty days after Easter and continues for about ½ of the year, carrying us all the way to Advent.  In 2007, 26 Sundays are designated as Sundays After Pentecost, a time in which our altar paraments are green as a symbol of life and growth. Now in the middle of that long liturgical season (Weeks 12 and 13), I want to spend two weeks in a mini-series re-visiting Pentecost as the church’s Panoply of Possibility.

 You might be wondering about the word Optative in my title, Optative Theology.  Not a word we use in everyday conversation, perhaps it would help to think of the word Optimum (the Latin root, meaning most favorable, best).  Optimism and Optimistic, words known to all, are cousins of Optative.  Optative Theology is a phrase I coined years ago, inspired by my seminary Greek studies, re-affirming that ours, at last, is a Theology of Hope, a Theology of Optimism.

 Greek verbs have "moods," the optative mood being one.  The conjugated form, the way the verb is written, signals that it is Optative, that it expresses a wish or a desire for the very best.  It was, even in Jesus’ time, a formal luxury of language not belonging to everyday conversation.  Optative is the language of public settings.  Think of the way we fashion our formal Greetings and Benedictions each week as the faith community gathers for worship.  We begin with Pastoral Greeting, “May the peace of Christ be with you,” and we depart with Benediction, “May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.  May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”  In those phrases one hears the word “May” again and again.  “May” is the best translation of verbs in optative mood.  Optative Theology begins and ends with precisely that intonation of desire. 

 The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur taught at the University of Paris and the University of Chicago, passing away only two years ago at the age of 92.  Ricoeur, known as the Philosopher of Hope, was considered by many to be the leading hermeneutic philosopher of the 20^th century.  He casts Christianity as “The Joy of Yes in the Sadness of the Finite.” 

 We live out our earthly existence in the Sadness of the Finite.  “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble,” moans Job.  We know this to be true, the finite boundaries of our lives pervaded with suffering, whether brought on by our own poor choices, by the ill will of others, or by accident and unfortunate circumstance.  Our lives, lived in the four dimensions of Time/Space, are lived in the Sadness of

Said another way, the 1^st two festivals of Christianity, Christmas and Easter, bring God’s “Yes!” to us in ways that don’t require action on our part.  God’s “Yes!” is our “Yes!”  At Pentecost, however, challenged and called to action, sometimes God’s “Yes!” is our “Wait, let me think about this.” 

One of the saddest and detrimental attitudes, for individual, church, or world, is the idea that “People don’t change.”  Far from Optative Theology, this is the Obstinate Theology that is the core of injustice, racism, and even of addictive behaviors.  As the Sadness of the Finite tightens its grip on one’s sense of self, they can give up, thinking, “Why fight it?  I can’t change.  It’s just who I am.  I can’t fight genetics.  I’m genetically programmed, finished at birth.”  The Sadness of the Finite can become a personal fatalism, offering ourselves as a sacrifice on the altar of Obstinate Theology, assuming life to consist of a host of determinisms – racial, socio-economic, gender – so binding that we cannot escape its grip.  How shall we then hear the Joy of Yes?  

Last month I read an op-ed piece by New York Times editorialist David Brooks that was true enough to be sad, leaving me to wonder, “Where is God’s ‘Yes?’ in this sadness?”  The article was titled, “Maybe Integration Shouldn’t Define Us,” and begins by speaking of a great sadness, “Nothing is sadder than the waning dream of integration, (a dream) that has illuminated American life for the past several decades – the belief that the world is getting smaller and that different peoples are coming together over time.”  Brooks speaks of how the Civil Rights movement promised to heal the nation’s oldest wound, that as racism and discrimination diminish, blacks and whites could live together.  Yet, he writes, “The progress of Civil Rights has not produced racial integration . . . five decades after the Brown ruling, black and white Americans do not live side by side, even when they share the same income levels.  They do not go to the same schools.  And when they do go to the same schools, they do not lead shared lives . . . many educators are giving up on the dream . . . the movement of peoples provokes as much rage as assimilation . . . the fall of Communism hasn’t created a global community of democracies.  It turns out the Russians don’t want to be like us.  The Arabs don’t want help from infidels.  The Iraqis’ democratic moment has turned into sectarian chaos.  The Palestinians have turned theirs into civil war.

“But it could be the dream of integration itself is the problem.  It could be that it was like the dream of early communism – a nice dream, but not fit for the way people really are . . . people say they want to live in diverse integrated communities, but what they really want to do is live in homogenous ones, filled with people like themselves.  If that’s the cast, maybe integration is not in the cards.  Maybe the world will be as it’s always been . . . this isn’t the integrated world many of us hoped for.  But maybe it’s the only one available.”

 Maybe the world will be as it’s always been.  This excellent essay contains much that is true, much that is sad.  Where are the Optatives?  Where is the Joy of Yes? Pentecost suggests differently, that the world does not have to be as it’s always been.  Pentecost is the Panoply of Possibility, the promise that the individual, the church, and the world, can change, a change effected by God’s Holy Spirit.   Let us rejoice in our Optative Theology. 

 Sources and notes:

“The Joy of Yes” (Ricoeur: Philosopher of Hope),  by Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Christian Century, August 23, 2005.

 “Newness of Life,” a sermon by William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, July 10, 2005.

 “Maybe Integration Shouldn’t Define Us,” by David Brooks, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 7, 2007.