Pentecost
12C (Proper 14)
Lectionary
19
August 11,
2016
Genesis
15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12
INTRODUCTION
I intended to preach on Luke today, but am so drawn to our
first and second readings, I couldn’t resist! They are very related to each
other, but otherwise may seem unconnected to the general arc of the story we’ve
been hearing this summer, so let me give you a little context.
First, the story about Abram. As you may remember from
Sunday School, Abram 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 will end up being his servant, Eliezer. But
God assures him once more that the promise will
be fulfilled, in one of the most mystical expressions of that promise in all of
scripture.
This moment is so important, in fact, that the writer of
Hebrews picks it up hundreds of years 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 Abram and Sarai 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 to try 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. I’m waitin’
for the whales to come. I paid my money, and I’m waitin’ for the whales to
come.”
This song was introduced to me by a
friend in seminary, who 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.
As I read the texts for today, this
song popped into my head, not so much as a metaphor for life, but as 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; 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 worried. He
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 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, and the
Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” 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. As much as I want to cling
to it, to believe like Abram, even when the promise seems utterly unbelievable…
I sometimes feel more like Abram at the beginning of the story, rather than the
end. It can be hard to keep being faithful when there is no hope in sight. Take
this week, for example – another mass shooting, and another, and all the
heartbreak, and big, empty promises, and finger-pointing that inevitably
follows. We blame everyone but ourselves and our own convictions, and demonize
everyone else – the president, the shooter, the Republicans, the Democrats, faulty
parenting, mental illness, video games, the dark corners of the internet. Maybe
a bit of each. And it’s not just this tragedy. Every day on the news, we see
brokenness, and violence upon violence. Another mass shooting. A crisis on the
border. Hate crimes and terrorism. Broken hearts, everywhere you look.
Everyone, it seems, has found someone to hate. No one has uplifting things to
say, only things that tear down others and divide us from one another, or we
just avoid talking about these issues all together, and are complicit in our
silence. People are so good at finding everyone else’s brokenness and darkness,
their very worst thoughts, moments 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 are we to engage with each other, and respond to each
other in our dialogue? How do we respond in our actions? How do we respond in
our prayers? Sometimes, it feels like we pray and pray for resolution – for
kindness to prevail, for God’s will to become clear, for 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 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.” They are 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 back, during Vacation Bible School, the kids 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 our 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. 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. But
I was struck how fear and worry begin 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 get in there and do something about it: to give money to
build a well, to call your representative with your ideas for gun safety, to
speak words of love into a world of hate, to listen to those in pain without
judgment, to support someone who is stuck in that dark place. Sometimes it
looks like kindness, sometimes like prayer for both victims and for
perpetrators. Sometimes it looks like educating yourself about both sides of an
issue and then speaking aloud a difficult truth, and 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.” No, 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, brothers and sisters: God might be
using us to share that news with others, or to get out there and call out
injustice, and work for peace, or to share love and kindness instead of hate.
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 out of the well. Love 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. God be with us as we live in this
hope and this faith. God will bring the new life for which we yearn.
Let
us pray… Faithful God, when life seems
dismal, grant us faith: assurance in your promises, hope in the things we
cannot see, and conviction 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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