Everyday A Bow Tie Thursday--July 24, 2026

Everyday A Bow Tie Thursday--July 24, 2026

"For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8:24-25)

On Thursdays, I wear bow ties (well, except for when I'm on vacation).  My curious fashion schedule has come to be, for me, a regular, disciplined practice of hope. Let me tell you why.

A bit of backstory: years ago, when I was a seminary intern (this would be more than twenty years ago now), my supervising pastor would not only wear bow ties regularly, but also would occasionally recite the advice that had been given to him even further back in the past about the method of tying them.  This mentor of mine would say, echoing the one who had first said it to him, that to tie a bow tie, "You take the one end and bring it through a loop that doesn't exist yet, but which comes into existence in the act of pulling it through." And like an epiphany, there it was.  

That is exactly what it is like.  It took me some years after I was finished with my internship and had begun my own ministry in congregations before I dared to teach myself how to actually tie a bow tie on my own neck (much less wear one in public). But one day I found myself holding the flared fabric, staring into a mirror, folding the end, and doing exactly what my mentor and his previous fashion adviser had said long before: I was pulling the end through a loop that didn't exist yet, but which was coming into existence as I pulled it through.  The pulling of the end starts tightening the loose loop that becomes the center point of the bow, and what do you know, you end up with a nicely tied bow tie in the end.  Almost like magic.

But more than that, you end up with a pretty potent parable of the nature of hope--at least hope in the New Testament sense, which is always richer, stronger, and deeper than mere wishful thinking.  We are accustomed to using the word "hope" pretty loosely in everyday speech. "I hope it doesn't rain" is really a way of saying, "I'm afraid it will rain."  "I hope my team wins" isn't much of a statement of confidence but a helpless posture of watching something happen and knowing I am not contributing to victory or defeat from the stands.  But hope in the sense the apostle Paul uses it is something stronger, something active and daring.  It is a step into the future which does not exist, but which comes into existence as we are stepping into it.  It is Abraham and Sarah going to a land on which they have never stepped foot before, because they dare to believe a promise that this will be a home for their descendants) who are not yet born.  It is Jeremiah buying a plot of land while the Babylonians are banging on the gates in the shadow of exile because he is convinced God will keep the promise that there will one day be a homecoming from Babylon and one the deed will be worth something.  It is the long-time resident of a run-down neighborhood in the city who starts fixing up the front porch and planting flowers in the hope that it may be the catalyst that spurs a whole neighborhood revival.  It is the way parents offer the world to their children, as the poet Maggie Smith puts it in her poem, "Good Bones," "This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful." To live in hope is to step forward into a future that does not yet exist--like a leap of faith--knowing that the stepping itself helps to bring the future into existence.  The loop that doesn't exist yet comes into existence as you pull the end through it.  The reality that hasn't come into being yet starts to become more than a wish or a hope when we start acting like it is indeed becoming a reality right now.

In this passage from Romans, which concludes the reading many of us heard last Sunday in worship, Paul is envisioning something bigger than a spruced-up neighborhood or a neatly tied bow tie.  He is envisioning a world made new.  He is envisioning God's promised "restoration of all things."  He is picturing creation redeemed and restored, including each of us, who have pinned our hopes on Christ to raise us to new life beyond death and to put all things right in a world of disorder.  And of course, because the world is not yet put right and there is still a great deal of crookedness, hatred, and rot all around us, Paul's vision is for a world we cannot yet see.  The world isn't like that... yet.  In Paul's day that was plenty obvious: a brutal empire ruled by a succession of egocentric and petty tyrants was conquering the entire known world.  There were dangers and disasters all around. And even apart from the Romans, there was a constant threat of violence and starvation.  That doesn't sound like a world made new.  That doesn't even sound like the "golden age" of eternal peace that Caesar kept bloviating about.  It sounded like a miserable, sad, and broken sort of world.

That is to say, things haven't changed much.  Sure, the names on the letterhead come and go, but the same dynamics of empires and emperors has continued for the past twenty centuries since Paul wrote.  Sure, we have cures for some diseases--but we also have a host of new ones.  Certainly, we have made some societal improvements from the slavery and conquest of the first-century Roman Empire... but we have also found new ways to build empires and reduce people to virtual slave labor in sweatshops, prisons, and labor camps.  In other words, to look around us today or read the day's headlines, it sure doesn't look like we are getting any closer to a world put right or a creation made new.  And it can feel like Paul's counsel to wait with hope can feel like just a religious spin on saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if things got better?"  But that doesn't actually do anything, nor does it guarantee that the world actually will get any better.

This is why we need the robust, fierce sort of hope that Paul has in mind.  Paul has in mind not a resignation to sit back and twiddle our thumbs wondering why the world doesn't fix itself, but a present-tense beginning to live in light of how things will be at the end of the story.  We live each day like it's Bow Tie Thursday: we take the end that is in our hands, and we bring it through a loop that doesn't exist yet, but which comes into existence as we pull it through.  So the question for us each day becomes, "How will the world be in God's new creation--and how can I begin to live in anticipation of that new reality?"  That's what Christian hope is really like: not vague wishing, but present action in light of a promised vision of the future.

For example, will I be driven primarily by fear, or by love, in the fullness of God's Kingdom--and what is to keep me from living that way now, ahead of time?  Will the hungry be fed in God's Reign--and if so, could my help to feed hungry people now point ahead to that reality, and maybe offer a glimpse right now of the banquet God is preparing?  Will the lowly be lifted up--and if so, how can I be a part now of raising up the folks who have been stepped on, and maybe look at the ways my own comfort and privilege have been a part of what held them down before?  In the promised future, will our peace come from the constant threat of mutually assured destruction, or from learning to lay down our weapons and bring our enemies to sit at the same table with us?  In God's new ordering of things, will there only be good things for "Me and My Group First," or will there be abundance enough to share all around--and if so, could I begin to live with that kind of open-handed generosity?

Each of those might be a small difference in the way you spend your day, but they are all about daring to living in the present in light of an envisioned future that begins to come into existence as we dare it.  It is a daily pulling of the end of the tie through the loop--the one that doesn't exist yet but which will come into existence as we pull it through.  It is beginning to practice what Dr. King called "the Beloved Community" even when the world is still full of meanness and hostility, because we know God's intention is to bring such a community into existence.  All of that is genuine hope--and it is never just a mental exercise or thought experiment. It is the daily choice to live now in light of God's promised future.

Today, practice such hope--and then we'll see what happens.

Lord Jesus, enable us to day to step forward into the future you are bringing about, regardless of how different it looks from the conditions of the world around us now.