Pentecost 12C
August 7, 2016
Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
INTRODUCTION
The first and second readings today complement each other so well, I just couldn’t help preaching on them! So as much as I like Luke, I’m going to focus this introduction on their context.
First, the story about Abram, later Abraham, who was promised many times by God that he would be the father of a great nation, and yet at 100 years old he and his wife Sarai were still childless. In today’s text, Abram really starts to doubt, and wonders if maybe this heir God has been promising him will end up being his servant, Eliezer, not his own flesh and blood. But God assures him once more that the promise will be fulfilled, in a beautifully mystical expression of that promise.
This moment is so important, in fact, that the writer of Hebrews will pick it up centuries later. As a whole, the book of Hebrews aims to bring encouragement to discouraged Christians, urging them to persevere in faith. In today’s reading, the author uses the story of Abraham and Sarah to show how God has been and will be faithful, even when it seems impossible.
All of our texts are about what it means to have faith, even in the face of discouragement. As you listen, think about a time in your own life when you have found it difficult to keep the faith, when God’s promises seemed too big, too impossible, and what it was like trying to hold onto that faith anyway. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Waitin’ for the whales to come… waitin’ for the whales to come… Been up since the crack of dawn. Waitin’ for the whales to come. I paid my money, and I’m waitin’ for the whales to come.”
This is a song by singer/songwriter Claire Holley, and was introduced to me by a friend from seminary. He thought it was such an apt commentary on life: you wait and wait for something to come, do all the things you are expected to do to make that thing happen, and it just seems like you still wait and wait for the thing you really want to happen, to finally happen.
This song always pops into my head when I read the texts for today – not only as a metaphor for life, but a metaphor for faith. Faith can in some ways be the same, can’t it? You pray, you wait, you pray some more, you read your Bible looking for answers, you pray some more… but you just have to wait and wait until you see some response from God. “Waitin’ for the whales to come…”
That’s why Abraham is the classic biblical model of faith – and we see the height of his faithfulness in today’s short reading. Abraham (at this point, still Abram) speaks to God in distress, reminding God that while He promised Abram many descendants, here Abram remains, growing old in years and still childless. Abram is getting understandably worried. At this point, Abram is afraid that his servant Eliezer will be his sole heir. Abram has been waiting for those proverbial whales to come for so long already, and it’s getting to be too late; and he is losing hope. BUT, the author of Genesis says, God tells him, “No, Abram, I got this! I told you I would! Don’t you worry: your own flesh and blood will be your heir, not your servant.” Then to prove his point, he takes Abram out into the starry, starry night and, in what I have always thought was one of the most mysterious and quietly dramatic expressions of promise in the Bible, says, “Look at all those stars. That’s how many descendants you will have – more than you can even count.”
And then I think the most unbelievable statement in the Old Testament: “He believed the Lord.” Abram believed! When there was no reason in the world to believe, beyond God’s word, Abram believed. He’d been out since the crack of dawn watching for those whales, and nothing, but God said it would happen, and so Abram believed.
Faith. This moment is one of the most enduring expressions of faith we have in scripture. It is so significant, in fact, that the author of Hebrews used it as the example in his or her own homily on faith, which we also heard today. It is a beautifully poetic piece of scripture, in which the author also defines what faith is:
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” I have long loved this definition of faith, but the way our world is right now, hearing these assuring words feels like salve to my heavy and wounded heart. On the one hand, we see brokenness, and violence, and hunger, and dishonesty, every day on the news. Everyone has found someone to hate, someone to tear down. We watch out for ourselves, while compassion, empathy, mercy and humility seem to be in increasingly short supply, and those most on the margins – the ones Jesus explicitly told us to care for – suffer the most for it. Everyone seems to be so good at finding everyone else’s brokenness and darkness, their very worst thoughts, intentions and traits, and there doesn’t seem to be enough grace to go around.
In the midst of all this, the question that keeps arising for me is: how is a faithful Christian supposed to respond to this? How do we engage with each other in productive ways, in our dialogue and our actions? How do we respond in our prayers? Sometimes, it feels like we pray and pray for resolution – for kindness and goodness to prevail, for God’s will to become clear, for mercy and understanding and forgiveness and reconciliation – and it doesn’t make any difference. The next day we get up and there is something else on the news that breaks our hearts, or makes us feel sick. And we keep on waiting for those whales to come. How do we continue to be faithful in this climate – not to mention in any number of personal struggles in which all hope seems to be lost, and everywhere we look is just more discouragement?
Into this heartbreak and discouragement come these words from Hebrews: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It is, as I said, a salve to a wounded heart – encouragement to continue hoping, encouragement that our hoping, though it may not result in just what we had planned, will ultimately not be in vain.
Some years ago, during Vacation Bible School in my previous call, we were raising money to help build a well that would provide fresh water to a place that doesn’t currently have access. One day, as we wrapped up for the day, one of the preschoolers came up to me, very distraught. She had conflated Jesus’ story, with the well-building, and thought that Jesus had fallen into the well and couldn’t get out! Through tears she told me how concerned she was about Jesus. As much as I assured her, she was so shaken. I told her, “Jesus is so good, he will win every single time! Even when he died, he came back to life – nothing can beat him! Even if he did fall into a well, he would be just fine.” She was unconvinced. I gave her a hug, which seemed to help a bit. But I was struck how this worry and fear begins even at this early age: even when we do have faith, it is hard to hold onto hope when life seems dismal. In this 4-year-old’s world, the situation was hopeless: that well was so deep, so how would Jesus survive it? But Hebrews invites us to hold onto hope even when things do seem impossibly bad.
But Hebrews is not only about encouragement to keep hoping. I read these compelling words from Hebrews also as a challenge, urging us not just to quietly hope in our hearts, but to actually practice hope, to let it compel us to get in there and do something: to give money to build a well, to speak words of love into a world of hate, to support someone who is stuck in that dark place. Practicing hope could be building communities of belonging even for those who hold different views, and practice having respectful dialogue (this is work, by the way, that I believe the Church is uniquely suited to do!). Sometimes practicing hope looks like kindness, sometimes it looks like educating yourself about both sides of an issue and then speaking aloud a difficult truth, sometimes it looks like getting physically and emotionally involved in a cause that is important to you. Whatever it is, I believe that hope has the power to motivate us, to move us, and to change us.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith is actively watching for the whales, even when it seems unlikely they will ever show up. Faith is not an “out,” not a reason to say, “Oh, God’s got this under control, so I’ll just sit back and wait” (though to be clear: God does have this under control!) Faith is understanding that God might be using us to bring about the kingdom promised to us in our Gospel lesson, when Jesus tells us, “Have no fear, little flock, for the Father has chosen to give you the kingdom.” It’s hard to believe it, sometimes, when that kingdom seems so far off in the distance. But hold fast to hope, my friends: God might be using us to share that news with others, or to get out there and work for peace, or to share love and kindness instead of hate and exclusion.
God might be using us in any number of ways, but as we act for and with God, we are also assured that someday, somehow, the kingdom will come, and God will win. The whales will come. Jesus will get safely out of the well. Love and justice will prevail. Meanwhile, we continue to live in the assurance of things we hope, to be convicted in the things we don’t yet see, but that God has promised. God be with us as we live in this hope and this faith.
Let us pray… Faithful God, when life seems dismal, grant us faith: assurance in your promises, hope in the things we cannot see, and hearts to work to bring about the kingdom you have chosen to give us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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