August 7th: "Faith"
First United Presbyterian Church
“Faith”
Rev. Amy Morgan
August 7, 2022
Hebrews 11:1-3
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
2 Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.
3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
10 For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."
13 All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth,
14 for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
15 If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
She was so disappointed. It was closing night of the play we had been rehearsing for our final project our senior year of college. My friend, Carrie, was the star. Her parents were planning to be there, but their flight had been delayed. They lived in California, and we were in New York. Because of this distance, they hadn’t been able to make it to any of her college performances. Carrie had worked so hard on this part, and she was so excited when her parents said they were coming. She wanted her parents to see how much she’d accomplished, how hard she’d worked, how much progress she’d made, in the four years of arts school her parents had been paying for.
Carrie kept peeking out at the house to see if they’d arrived. The stage manager kept reporting that they hadn’t picked up their tickets yet. The curtain went up on her disappointment.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
This is, in a way, where the Christians of the late first century found themselves. Jesus said he was coming back. They’d been looking forward to it with excitement and hope. They’d been rehearsing their part – learning their lines from scripture, remembering Jesus’s teachings, following the direction of the apostles. They practiced serving others, worshiping God, praying. They had given up everything, accepted a life of hardship and sacrifice. And they had put up with all of this because they expected that when the curtain went up on the final performance of their lives, Jesus would be there to applaud them.
But he hadn’t arrived yet. There was no sign of him. And some in their cast had already had to take their final bow. They were giving this their all. And Jesus, who had paid for their salvation with his life, has not even shown up to watch the show.
The early Christians addressed by the sermon “to the Hebrews” were exhausted and disappointed. The Preacher observes their drooping hands and weak knees, their sagging church attendance, their loss of confidence. And so the Preacher pulls out every tool in the rhetorical tool box to try to bolster their flagging faith.
Throughout the sermon, the Preacher employs pastoral compassion, complex theological arguments, and fire-and-brimstone warnings to renew his congregation.
But here, in chapter 11, we can see that he really gets what is going on with his people. He sees that they are just worn out from this journey. They don’t feel like they’re getting anywhere. They are homesick and losing hope. They don’t know where all of this is going, and they’re not sure they can carry on much longer.
Just before this chapter, the Preacher commends them for enduring so much suffering. And then he asserts, at the end of chapter 10, that “we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.” It’s kind of a first-century Christian equivalent of saying, “the show must go on.”
Despite her disappointment, that is how Carrie felt, too. She gave her best performance of the run. She was faithful to the play, the rest of the cast, and to everything her parents had given to her, whether or not they were there to witness it.
Because Carrie came to feel that their physical, visible presence wasn’t what mattered in the end. The performance she gave was a visible expression of everything they had given her and how grateful she was for it. Her performance itself was the fulfillment of all the promise and hope she had carried from the day her parents moved her into her freshman dormitory.
This is the definition of faith the Preacher of Hebrews offers to his disappointed flock. “Faith,” declares the Preacher, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
First, let’s notice what faith is not, according to this definition. It is not intellectual assent to a collection of doctrines or ideas about God. It is not blind and uncritical obedience or living by a set of platitudes. Faith is not cock-eyed optimism or the power of positivity.
Faith is the very essence, the actual manifestation, of the promises of God. The word translated as assurance means the substance or essential nature of a thing, it means reality, the ground of being. Faith, according to the Preacher, is the opposite of blind or ephemeral. Faith is all the promises of God, as real and tangible and present as that hard pew on your backside. Faith allows us to see reality for what it really is – a cosmic, eternal, and gracious movement of God that makes the show go on, no matter what. The great preaching professor Tom Long describes this kind of faith as an inward and outward reality, writing that “Inwardly, faith moves hearts; outwardly, faith moves mountains.”
Carrie’s faith moved her heart to know her parents loved her and were proud of her without seeing her perform; it allowed her to give a phenomenal performance in the midst of disappointment and bring the audience to its feet for a standing ovation.
The Preacher encourages the cast of Hebrews to know that they are loved by God, that Jesus cares about their struggles and progress, that the promises of God are trustworthy and faithful, and that all their sacrifices have not been in vain. The real and tangible sign of this is not just Jesus’s return in glory. The real and tangible sign of this is that the show is going on, and they are giving a remarkable performance.
And this show has had a very long run. The Preacher reminds them of their fellow cast members throughout history who have given amazing performances because of their faith. Abel, Enoch, and Noah are lifted up in the verses we skipped over today. And then he focuses on Abraham, who, as we heard in the reading from Genesis, continued performing in his traveling road show even when it seemed impossible that God would show up and give him offspring to keep the show running.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
This has been a long run, friends. Over the last several thousand years, we have been “rehearsing the reign of God,” as Rev. Jacqui Lewis likes to say. We have been worshiping and praying, studying and sacrificing, in the hope that Jesus will finally show up and applaud our efforts. There have been times when we’ve forgotten our lines, when we’ve had to improvise, when we’ve lost track of where we are in the story.
And right now, a lot of us are just disappointed and exhausted. The last few years have taken us entirely off-script. Props have gone missing, key actors have dropped out, and ticket sales have tanked. This is literally true in actual theaters, of course, but the metaphor stands for the church, for our society, and for our personal lives.
Everyone is disappointed with how the show is going. In a recent nationwide poll, 85% of adults in the U.S. think the country is moving in the wrong direction. The things we’ve hoped for have not materialized. We’re exhausted by inflation, violence, injustice, ineptitude. We’re disappointed in our leaders, and we’re worn out on broken promises.
We’ve endured so many disappointments in the last several years, from canceled weddings, vacations, and graduations to loved ones dying alone and horrific natural disasters. And every time it feels like things might be getting better, COVID might be in the rear-view mirror or leaders might be working on something that will actually have a positive impact on our society, we’re side-swiped by some fresh catastrophe.
Even if we didn’t live in such extraordinary times, such extraordinarily disappointing and exhausting times, every life has its own disappointments and broken promises, things that wear us down and expend our hope. The grief that stops us in our tracks, the lost opportunity that will never come around again, the betrayal that holds us hostage to resentment.
Combine this personal pain with our communal suffering, and what you’ve got are a bunch of people with drooping hands and weak knees, sagging church attendance, and loss of confidence. I’ve said many times over the last couple of years that I am eagerly anticipating Christ’s return. This seems like about the time Jesus should be coming back to set things right, redeem our suffering, and finalize his reign on earth. I’d be all right with that.
But every time we peek around the curtain and check the guest list, we don’t see him.
We have worked hard, rehearsed well, and sacrificed. As your preacher, I see that. I see the lost time and the lost relationships. I see the lagging energy and the throw-in-the-towel attitude. Why worship, pray, study, if this is all we get in return? Why vote, march, advocate, if nothing changes and it only seems to get worse? I see you, friends.
But we are not giving up. We “are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.”
Friends, faith is not going to make us holy and righteous. It is not going to give us 7 steps to a better life. It is not going to actually fix anything. But faith is going to save our lives.
Because faith is the thing that lets the show go on.
Faith is that whisper in the night that tells you that you don’t have to stay here, in this place of hopelessness, fear, and disappointment. It is that absurd impulse that makes you put one foot in front of the other and go when all you want to do is sit down and cry. It is that ridiculous stumbling on past all familiarity, past all reason, past all self-preservation, toward the total abyss because we know that this is not our home, this is not who we were meant to be or where we were meant to end up.
The Preacher of Hebrews talks about a better country, a heavenly home. But this isn’t something we’re waiting for in the great hereafter. We pray as Jesus taught us – ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. So there is someplace around here where that home is under construction at least, where that divine architect is hard at work. And faith, the conviction of things not seen, lets us perceive it.
Faith pushes us out into the limelight. It sends us packing and keeps us stumbling along. And what faith finally brings us to may be nothing more than a construction zone, a framework, a blueprint. But our ancestors saw from a distance and rejoiced. When we can see some fragment of our true home, even if it isn’t finished yet, we will rejoice.
When Carrie came out the stage door after that performance, her parents were standing there with flowers and hugs and enormous, proud smiles. Not just her parents, but her siblings and one of her uncles who came along as an extra surprise. They’d raced from the airport and found their seats just as the curtain went up. Carrie couldn’t see them past the stage lights, but they’d been there the whole time.
The Christians of the first century were waiting for Jesus to come back. And so are we. But what faith tells us is that, yes, Jesus promised to return, and we still hold onto that promise, we still see it from a distance, we still keep moving toward it. But faith also assures us that Jesus has been here the whole time. He’s coming back, but he also never really left.
So as we continue to rehearse the reign of God, as we continue along this journey toward our true homeland, a better country, we consider him faithful who has promised. We can endure disappointments, even rejection and suffering and loss. We can give the performance of a lifetime, because Jesus is coming back, and because Jesus never left us.
The eyes of faith can see that, not because we’ve got it right and figured it all out, but because we’re willing to keep stumbling along, keep searching, and not settling for less than what has been promised. May faith move our hearts and move mountains, but most of all, may it keep us moving, keep us seeking a homeland, keep us rehearsing the reign of God, knowing that Jesus is always with us, and always will be.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment