Hope For the Future
Clare Williams-Sarpong is an Associate Speaker with OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. The Following words were given by Clare as the keynote speech for the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast, held in Westminster Hall, 7th July 2026
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The readings for today are Mark 10:46-52 and 1 Peter 1:3-7
As we gather this morning, we are aware of the many responsibilities represented in this room, and of the complexity of the moment we inhabit. And so, I want to share with you some thoughts about our topic today, ‘Hope for the Future’, through a New Testament account of a blind man named Bartimaeus and his encounter with Jesus.
On first reading, this first century narrative might seem quite removed, irrelevant even, to the concerns of political and public discourse in 2026. After all, we know that hope is in short supply.
According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 66% of Brits feel pessimistic about the future. The Office for National Statistics found that 1 in 4 adults experience loneliness often or some of the time (ONS, 2024). And in 2023, NHS Digital found that 1 in 5 children/young people have a probable mental health condition. Pessimism, loneliness and poor mental well-being are symptoms of a culture that has lost hope. However, sitting with today’s text allows us to see that this ancient story has profound comfort and challenge for us in our changing and unpredictable times.
And so, there are 3 key things we’ll focus upon as we think through hope together.
- Bartimaeus’ cry for hope
- The crowd’s rejection of hope
- Jesus’ offer of real hope
1. Bartimaeus’ cry for hope
We should note where Bartimaeus’ sits as he begs on the road, not just his physical condition of blindness. The fact that he is sitting on the roadside is a literal picture of his socially outcast position. Bartimaeus faces a threefold crisis of blindness, poverty, and isolation. And yet, this did not prevent him from crying out to Jesus for help. Despite his vulnerability he hadn’t stopped hoping that something could change, that his life could turn around. Whilst the crowd wanted to shut him down and keep him silent, he still had a longing, a deep hope that things could get better – he wasn’t prepared to give up on this.
In many ways, he represents a universal longing for hope, for the healing of personal suffering and sickness, and for all manner of injustice to end. All of us are searching or hoping for more: more life, more security, more meaning and possibility. This is why we may look to political ideas that offer hope or positive change, why we invest in technologies like A.I. in the hope that it will deliver progress. And why we continue to invest in healthcare, education and environmental policies in the hope of creating a future that is healthier, more prosperous and more sustainable than the present.[1]
Whether in first century Jericho or in modern Britain today, hope is universal. It is to say out loud the longings we have deep in our hearts.
2. The crowd’s rejection of hope
It’s interesting that the crowd was with Jesus but notably they didn’t behave like him.
In the first instance, the crowd discourages Bartimaeus, telling him to be quiet. Yet, when they see that Jesus has noticed Bartimaeus they say, ‘Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.’ This reveals the fickleness and cynicism of the crowd, which tried to suppress Bartimaeus’ cries in one moment, only to encourage him later, when Jesus takes an interest in him. The fact is, they don’t genuinely believe that there is hope for Bartimaeus.
But Jesus doesn’t think that just because Bartimaeus is on the margins, he doesn’t matter. Instead, he stops and sees him. He calls to him and acts. Likewise, many of us have entered politics because we believe that we also have a duty to serve those on the margins. Like Jesus we should not only see the needs of others before us, but we should also take action.
Here, we have a sobering caution. Unlike the crowd, we have a duty to remain committed to those on the margins whom we serve. But perhaps the pressure of this duty can make us misplace our hope in the things around us. If we just gain a few more seats then… If we just get the funding for such and such a project then… If we just get so and so to endorse us then… Then what?
Too often we ask politics and political victories to deliver more than they ever could: not merely policy change but security, identity even a sense of redemption.
This misplaced hope can leave us thoroughly disappointed. Disappointed by people – however impressive – or systems that crumble under the weight of expectations that they were never meant to carry. No person, party or institution, can bear the burden of ultimate hope. Every ideology, every ‘ism’, eventually reveals its limits because no system can overcome the darker realities of the human heart. Our fears, our self-interest. Our desire for control. Because every system is ultimately made up of people, and every person carries the same moral limits.
Part of our political disillusionment comes not from merely failed policies, but from asking too much of politics itself. We have placed upon parties and prime ministers a burden no person and institution was ever meant to bear.
Politics is a good servant, but a terrible saviour. And this brings us, fittingly, to Jesus.
3. Jesus’ offer of real hope
Unlike the silencing of the crowd, Jesus calls Bartimaeus to come near to him. It is a call, an invitation that restores dignity to a beggar long pushed onto the outskirts of community. Where the crowd likely saw only blindness, Jesus asks an unexpected question:
“What do you want me to do for you?”
This is not a cruel question in the face of Bartimaeus’ obvious disability, but a deeply dignifying one. As many theologians working within the theology of disability have observed, Jesus does not presume that blindness is Bartimaeus’ greatest or only need, nor does he assume how Bartimaeus understands his own condition. Instead, the question reveals a posture of service: ‘How can I serve you?’ ‘In what ways can I show up for you?’ And as each of you took office, I imagine these are the very kinds of questions you hoped to ask your constituents.
But Jesus’ call to Bartimaeus has an even greater significance because it points to the greater call upon his own life. We are told that Jesus is on his way through Jericho, but we know, from the rest of the chapters in Mark’s gospel, that this journey will ultimately lead Jesus to a humiliating death by crucifixion. He was acutely aware of his calling to bring good news to the poor, to let the oppressed go free. He also announces just before his encounter with Bartimaeus that he has come to give his life as a ransom for the forgiveness of sins.
He came not just to bring physical healing to Bartimaeus but spiritual healing too, a restored relationship with God. So Jesus’s call to Bartimaeus not only points to physical and political hope to the sick and outcast, but spiritual and personal hope for all people.
Today, you have answered the call of political service, and that road may well be a journey of criticism as you carry the weight of high expectations. Your vocation as MPs is one of service, of sacrifice. It is a call to honour the hopes of those whom you serve. And it is this posture of service that makes hopeful political work possible. It is justice oriented. In a world riddled with hopelessness and cynicism, you hold on to the hope that your political work can make a difference.
And this is why our topic, ‘Hope for the Future’, should not be dismissed as mere religious jargon, a polite theological platitude which has no grounding in the real world. We might be tempted to say that hope is just a nice thing we talk about before we get to the real and more serious work of politics. However, ‘Hope for the Future’ isn’t just optimism or wishful thinking. It is a position that assumes that the future can be changed, that the future is worth caring about in the present. It assumes that good ultimately matters and will overcome evil. This is the assumption that you, rightly, make by rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck into the work of politics. The meetings, the emails, the paperwork may at times feel or appear mundane, but they are all part of the praxis of hope.
Hope betrays our intuitive sense that the past, present and future are teleological, meaning that they have a purpose. Hope suggests an alternative to the view that our existence is pre-determined, that we are cosmic orphans or that our lives are merely the product of impersonal forces. Hope says that we are not shaped only by biology and circumstance, inhabiting a universe that is ultimately indifferent to us.
The Christian worldview affirms this intuition. It affirms that hope is not just an evolutionary by-product, a psychological strategy that is convenient or useful in keeping us motivated but ultimately irrational. Christianity takes hope seriously; it doesn’t trivialise hope as a beautiful illusion. Hope provides insight which enables us to imagine different possibilities and futures.
You see, hope within the Christian worldview is not merely an abstract idea.
Hope is grounded and embodied in the person of Jesus.
Through his well-documented life, Jesus challenged both the religious elite and political powers of his day. Within the Roman world where ‘might made right’ Jesus pursued justice and brought hope to those on the margins. That’s why he called Bartimaeus. In his death on the cross, Jesus took on the dark reality of the human heart and chose to be marginalised and outcast from God’s presence for us, making it possible for all to be brought into relationship with God.
Often when we speak of Jesus, it is to regard him as a moral teacher. But this framing is too limited, too British, if I can say, for the God who has stepped into human history and brought hope for the human condition. A ‘wise sage’ or ‘harmless itinerant speaker’ are too domesticated for the extraordinary claim that after being crucified by experts in execution – the Romans – Jesus rose from the dead. The claim that our last enemy, death, was defeated because Jesus was resurrected is more than a metaphor for hope after difficulty. It is evidence of a God who acts upon our hopes. A God who says that even death is not the end and grants us an eternal hope. A hope that, according to the Apostle Paul in our second reading, will never perish, fade or spoil.
This eternal hope is one where creation, our world around us, is made new. It is not discarded but healed completely. Hopes are fulfilled and justice is realised. The bodily resurrection of Jesus points to a future in which we too are embodied; not disembodied souls adrift, but renewed people in a renewed world. This offers a personal hope to each one of us beyond this life. But not only that. This hope gives weight to our political work now. It shifts us from a mindset of “we only have one life, so make it count” to “what we do now carries meaning beyond our lifetime.”
The invitation
Today, we are invited to hope and imagine differently. We are invited to steward the hopes of the people we serve, to keep our own hearts soft with hope and not hardened by disappointment. These passages from the Bible we have reflected on today affirm that we are right to hope. Hope for justice is grounded in a creator God of perfect justice. And this hope was confirmed in the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth, in his death and resurrection. As I bring these thoughts to a close, we are invited to examine the claims of a God who enters history in the person of Jesus, and bends it toward hope.
Thank you.
Clare Williams-Sarpong