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Pentecost 9C
August 7, 2022
Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12
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. As you may remember from Sunday School, Abram, later Abraham, 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. 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 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.
We have a wonderful children’s book called If You Want to See a Whale. The child narrating gives advice on what you need to do if you want to see one of these incredible creatures: not too comfy a chair, don’t get too distracted by very small or very pink-and-pretty things, and be prepared to wait, and wait, and wait… At the end of the book, as this small child sits in his rowboat in the ocean, the reader sees an enormous blue whale come up underneath the boat, and poke his nose out of the water. The excitement gets me every time!
Of course, anyone who has been whale-watching knows, there can be a lot of waiting, and not many sightings, and sometimes, the trip ends and that whale never did poke his gigantic nose out of the water.
Faith can sometimes be like that, 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, and sometimes, the response never seems to surface.
That’s why Abraham is the classic biblical model of faith; we see the height of both his doubt and 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 that proverbial whale to show up for so long already, and it’s getting to be too late; and he is losing hope, and tells God so. Amazingly, God does not rebuke him for this. Instead, God assures him, “Don’t you worry, Abe. I’ve got this. 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: “[Abram] 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. 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: when conflict between individuals or groups or countries cannot be resolved; when climate change brings deadly floods and blistering temperatures; when the illness doesn’t respond to treatment; when despair keeps creeping into our hearts, leaving us breathless and hopeless.
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, although it may not result in just what we had planned, nor when we had planned it, our hoping will ultimately not be in vain.
Some years back, during Vacation Bible School at my previous call, 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 building of a well, 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 climate justice, to speak words of love into a world of hate, to listen to those in pain without judgment, to support and be present with 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 it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” It’s hard to believe it, sometimes, when that kingdom seems so far off in the distance. And indeed, we may not see the fullness of God’s promises in this lifetime – as Hebrews points out, Abraham and Sarah didn’t! But hold fast to hope, my friends: 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 catch glimpses of those promises, and we are also assured that someday, somehow, the fullness of God’s kingdom will come, and God will win. The whales will appear. 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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