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Before he became an official candidate for the presidency of the United States, President Obama wrote a best-selling book called The Audacity of Hope.

The Righteous Branch - Jeremiah 33: 14-16; John 15: 5-11 - November 29, 2009­  Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett 1. Bassett

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Before he became an official candidate for the presidency of the United States, President Obama wrote a best-selling book called The Audacity of Hope. It is not surprising to me that he first heard that phrase in church. I don't know that this is true, but it really wouldn't be surprising if he heard that phrase during the Advent season in church. Because the audacity of hope is exactly what this season is all about.

The scripture lesson from the prophet Jeremiah is audacious to the point of seeming crazy - or at least hopelessly naive. That's really the first thing we need to notice about Jeremiah's predictions - they're impossible pipe dreams. Take, for example, the first part of verse 16 - Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. Talk about crazy.

The book of Jeremiah represents a time when Judah was far from safe. Echoing in these pages is the harrowing experience of attack by the most powerful force in the world - the Babylonian army. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed; the great Temple was demolished; the leaders of the kingdom were either slain or paraded through the streets; and the most prominent citizens were exiled to Babylon. Nothing was left of the glory of Israel- it was in ruins. And someone had the audacity to prophesy that Judah would be safe and Jerusalem would be secure? Nothing could have sounded more insane.

During the Advent season, the four weeks before Christmas, we Christians are invited to get in touch with audacious promises - to light the candle of hope. We read through this season the words of prophets from thousands of years ago saying impossible things, to remind ourselves that we are not bereft of hope, no matter how dim things might seem; we are living under the watchful love of a God who keeps His promises.

We always need to be reminded of that; but perhaps this year more than many others. As someone said in a television interview last week, "I wake up today with less optimism than I've had in a long time." And we all know the litany of reasons - unemployment, insecure retirement funds, protracted wars with little end in sight, spread of nuclear weaponry, global warming - it's a sad list. Yet the prophets of Advent would ask us the question they asked their contemporaries so many centuries ago: Do we dare to hope? Christian faith answers a resounding Yes. And it's prophets like Jeremiah who remind us that hope has always been audacious; it has always made outlandish expectations of what God would do, even in the face of impossible obstacles. Let's look closer at some of Jeremiah's outlandish claims.

First of all, he claimed that there would be outlandish unity. It is there in verse 14, where Jeremiah says that God would fulfill the promises he made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. If you follow the history of Israel, you will see that after the majestic reigns of King David and King Solomon, the people of the Old Testament ended up bitterly divided -- with the North Kingdom, Israel, separated from the South Kingdom Judah. The division lasted for centuries, and long after both kingdoms fell, it still echoed throughout history, right into the days of Jesus and beyond.

When Jeremiah talks about the promises to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, he implies that the division can end, because both kingdoms serve a mutual God. And in Jeremiah's day, that was a ridiculous claim. North and South did not mix. But as the promise played out, outlandish unity was a huge part of it. We see it in Jesus, whose most famous parable told of a Northerner - a Samaritan - stopping by the roadside to help a Southerner - a Jew - who had been attacked. We see it in the apostle Paul, who broke the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, so that the Good News of Jesus Christ could be preached to each of them. We see it in the Letter to the Ephesians, where the writer talks about Christ 'breaking down the walls of hostility.'

We live in a deeply divided world: Israelis and Palestinians; liberals and conservatives; Shiites and Sunriis; Muslims and Christians - and on and on. There seems to be less and less middle ground - you find yourself constantly lured toward the radical edges, where hate and intolerance are. We see so much of it that to suggest otherwise ­that unity is actually possible - is outlandish. And yet Advent faith makes just that claim.

A second outlandish claim of Advent is that there will be justice. That idea of justice is bigger than the way we often use the word. We use the word 'justice' in the context of crime. We say those who break the law will be brought to justice. But in the Bible it is a bigger term than that. In the Bible 'justice' refers to a just and fair society. It backs away from the reality we are so familiar with in this world, where certain people and races and nations have all the advantages, and others have to live without. That's why one of the key Advent passages is the prayer of Mary the mother of Jesus, which says that now that the Savior is growing within Mary's womb, the poor will be lifted up, and the rich will be sent away empty-handed. This agonizing debate we are having as a nation now about health care reform is driven by a fact we know in the core of our bones - that it is not right for critical health care to be available to some, and not to all. That's an argument from justice, and Jeremiah and the prophets made the outlandish claim that someday there would be a just and fair world for everybody. A pipe dream. Impossible. But Advent faith is challenged to believe that God can, and will, make it so.

A third outlandish claim, as I've already mentioned, is security. Judah and Jerusalem, says the prophet Jeremiah, will live in safety - when in fact reality said that nothing could be further from the facts. And we have the same sense of insecurity Jeremiah addressed. Jobs we thought were solid are not; investments we thought were airtight have leaked; military superiority we thought was insurmountable has been stretched to the limit; leaders we supported with heart and soul have turned out to have clay feet. I have to imagine our President is feeling a little differently about security these days, now that it's been shown that a fame-seeking couple can just walk through the defenses and crash a White House party. There is not much that we can claim for absolute security today. And yet Jeremiah challenges us to have faith, and trust that God will take care of us. It is an outlandish claim to make in a time when people are ridiculing, saying, 'Where is your God now?' They were saying it in Jeremiah's time, and they are saying it in ours.

Jeremiah couches his outlandish claims of unity, justice, and security in an extremely popular image throughout the Bible - the image of a great tree that God has planted.  From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, to the great tree of life in the very last book of the Bible, the imagery of trees has been central. And Jeremiah picks it up, and says that in the great day that is yet to come, God is going to raise up a righteous Branch. He will be a descendent of the house of David, and he will bring the unity, justice, and security God has promised - in other words, the righteous Branch will do just what the name implies - he will set things right. There are a lot of deep theological definitions of the word 'righteousness' in the Bible, but this simple one is as good as any: the righteous Branch will come into a world that is not right - an unrighteous world. And the righteous Branch will set things right. And, of course, from our faith-perspective, the righteous Branch is Jesus. And Jesus is the reason for our hope.

I believe in Advent, because I've seen what Jesus can do. In a world where unity seems impossible, I've seen enemies turned into friends. In a world where justice seemed like a pipe-dream, I have seen people who were powerless elevated to dignity. In a world where nothing seemed secure, I have seen courageous people face daunting challenges secure in their faith in the God of life and hope who watched over them. We heard about some of them last week when we heard about the children at Golisano Hospital. I've

seen audacious hope in action, and that's why I know God keeps His promises.

So we have this outlandish claim of Jeremiah that there will be unity, justice, and security. And we have the righteous Branch that God raised up, His own son Jesus Christ. But then one more step makes it a complete plan. It's that moment just before he died, when Jesus said to his disciples, 'You are the branches. If you stay connected to me, then you have the power and the mission of hope in this world.' That's what Jesus worked on doggedly with his disciples. To let them and us know that everything he came to do happens now through us. We are the Body of Christ. We are the continuation of the Good News. We are the branches of God's great tree of life.

So, it seems to me, the power of Advent for you and me and this world comes down to a choice that we make about what we're going to represent in this world. There are voices that represent hopelessness - there is no hope; the world is a dog-eat-dog place that is never going to be anything different than what we see, so grab all you can and work the system, or give up. Accept your given place as a brief speck in the universe. Probably not many people actually put it in those terms, but the actions and choices of their lives reflect a fatalistic yielding to what seems like a hopeless world.

But there is another choice, and that is to be a branch of God's great tree - connected to the promises of hope; connected to the righteous Branch Jesus; seeing God at work around us and through us. This is not to deny the challenges of reality in a hurting, imperfect world. But it's to claim that there is another, greater reality at work, and we want to be part of it. And God invites us to do just that. So light a candle of hope this day. And if your candle flickers this week - if you find yourself giving in to the negative and discouraging voices coming at you day by day - remember the promises of Advent, and the great causes - unity, justice, and security - that you and I are part of, because we're connected to the righteous Branch.