"Looking Forward - Looking Back"
Sermon Presented August 12, 2007
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Last week I purchased a Global Positioning System for my car. As some of you know, I am "directionally handicapped", and when I thought about driving alone to Tennessee - then to Arkansas and finally to Missouri, I decided to bite the bullet and get one. I saw the value of this instrument when some friends from Missouri visited earlier this summer. We used their portable GPS in my car and after entering the addresses of the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Southeastern Wisconsin, away we went. It was wonderful. Because of this experience, I am convinced I can travel with only minor detours. I have faith in the system.
We develop faith because of our experiences - not because of what someone tells us. I first heard of GPS several years ago, but until I operated it, I never considered buying one. In the same way that my faith in that system grew, my faith in God grows as I experience God's faithfulness.
The writer of Hebrews spends a lot of time on the topic of faith. The author is unknown, the audience is unknown, and the date of writing is unknown, but Hebrews was written before the end of the first century because Clement of Rome quoted from it about that time. It has the genre of a sermon rather than a letter and the preacher was in all likelihood, a well-educated Jewish Christian.
The preacher addresses real pastoral concerns. The congregation is exhausted - tired of worship, tired of serving the world, tired of being different, tired of the struggle, tired of praying, and tired of waiting for Jesus' return. (Interpretation Hebrews by Thomas Long, p. 3) They are tempted to leave their faith because of hard times. The preacher wants to encourage them by building their faith. To do this, he first looks backward. Hear this treatise on faith from Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 (Read text.)
We describe the Bible as a faith history. What is faith? The author of Hebrews says it is the "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Abraham is the primary subject of this treatise on faith. As you may recall, Abraham is considered the father of the faith of Jews, Christians and Muslims. At the age of 75, he leaves his homeland for an unknown land because he believes this is what God wants him to do. He has faith that God's promises are true, but he has no proof! His faith is tested further when God promises that he and his wife Sarah will have descendants as numerous as the stars, but they have no children and Sarah is well past the age for childbearing. Faith ebbs and flows - even for the biblical giants.
Both Abraham and Sarah die before they can settle in the Promised Land. They wander in a strange land - with only promises to accompany them - no city, no houses with foundations and no descendants. This looks like a sad story of an unfinished journey and misplaced hope, as they left the familiar and embraced an uncertain future. And it would have been sad if we didn't know the rest of the story.
What gives people the faith to start fresh - with a new spouse, school, home, community or job? How do we acquire an attitude of patient waiting when we believe we are on the right track and yet see no results? Is optimism the same as faith? These are questions all of us have asked and continue to ask.
Many preachers give people false hope that if they just claim something, God will give it to them. The driving force of this theology is to have faith. If a person has enough faith, she or he can be healed, pay off the mortgage, get out of debt, purchase the desired vehicle, obtain the right job, or be accepted into the best university. If the prayer is not answered as desired, then the one who prayed didn't have enough faith, thus piling on guilt. I saw this happen when a friend was dying of MS and an acquaintance of her mother told her that because she wasn't healed, the family's faith was not great enough. Some friend!
We need spiritual mentors to nurture us in our relationship with God - someone who will help us to be grounded in our faith - because we all have times when we wonder if God cares. This person might be a pastor, a parent, a spiritual director, a teacher, or a trusted friend. Spiritual guides can help us understand the blocks to our faith, answers we don't see, and God's presence in the upheaval. They can also help us to hold onto our faith in God when life around us seems to be falling apart.
Faith doesn't calculate results, and it can't be measured by our success in life. We sometimes hear comments or inferences that "If you live a Christian life, you won't get a divorce, you won't have an out-of-control child, you won't be poor or sick or jobless" - or whatever word you would like to use to complete that sentence. But as we live a life of faith in God's promises, we experience both triumph and tragedy, success and failure. The author of Hebrews offers portraits of God's people who are human - like us - and not always faithful. Abraham didn't arrive at the Promised Land. Sarah had only one child and both Sara and Abraham laughed at God's promises. The text says they died in faith without having received the promise, but they kept their eyes on a city built by God. They kept their eyes focused on God - who made the promises. And they died - still believing - but never seeing the promise become reality.
You see, even though it's important to look back and remember the faith of the biblical personalities or that of our parents or grandparents, we can't live in the past. At some point we must put our own faith into action, take down our tents and move forward in the direction we believe God wants us to go. If we keep thinking about what we left behind, we can't move forward. We know that many abuse victims return to their abusers because they don't have the faith or courage to move on. If we look backward with longing, we won't be satisfied with the newness God offers.
As many of you know, I love the T. S. Eliot poem The Hippopotamus. I asked Jean to make this banner depicting it for me. The poem is about a hippo that rests in the mud making only feeble steps, while God's Church does nothing except sleep and proclaim its oneness with God. However, at the end of the poem, it is the hippo that rises to God to the music of angels singing God's praises. The hippo is washed clean and welcomed into the presence of God, while the Church remains below content to do what it has always done. It's important to move forward, even though our steps are feeble.
Not long ago, I preached a sermon, closing with the words "I refuse to lead a dying church" from a book by that title. My friend Jean read that sermon on line and immediately had the inspiration for this stole. According to the church year, we are in ordinary time and the liturgical color is green. Jean named this stole "Leap of Faith" - a sign of what we are doing - taking a leap of faith. She began with Paul Tillich's statement that God is the ground of all being. The three strands on my right represent the Trinity as they begin in the brown and follow around until you see the pear on the left side. The pear is a symbol of the fruit of our spirit and the fruit of our faithfulness. Inside the pear are future pear trees as the seeds drop to the ground so another tree can form. This stole represents the seeds of faith - the circle of life. Everything has a season and our role is ongoing creation. How blessed I am to have this friend who helps build my faith.
It takes faith in God to look beyond our circumstances. Frederick Buechner said that faith is better understood as a verb than a noun, as a process than a possession. It's on-again-off-again rather than once and for all. Faith is not being sure where you're going but going anyway. It's a journey without maps. Almost nothing that makes any real difference can be proved. We can't prove that love is better than hate or that life is better than death. When we begin to consider faith as a process, our ideas and ideals will change. (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, pp. 24-26)
When does your faith come into play most prominently? From my experience and from the shared experiences of others, I find that faith comes when we most need it - usually in times of crisis - usually after we hit the bottom. When we haven't anything else to hold onto, God is there. Faith in the reality of God's presence helps us through our trials - not eliminating the trial, but giving us strength to endure. Faith discerns realities and prospects we can't see with the naked eye.
In his commentary on Hebrews, Thomas Long said: "Inwardly faith moves hearts; outwardly faith moves mountains" (Long, p. 131.) Given the harsh realities of our world, we can see with our inner eyes what can't be seen with our outer eyes. Faith begins when we can see that the hungry in Milwaukee can be fed or that the homeless can have safe places to stay. Faith helps us see that opening our hearts and homes to those who are different than we or displaced will change us. Faith in God's presence helps us see that a move that appears to be foolish has merit and will make a positive difference. Faith helps us to keep going when our desire is to turn back. Faith sees the possibility of moving mountains, bucket full by bucket full.
Our faith usually begins in the past - with a biblical story or an experience of God's intervention or faithfulness. However, we can't stay there, but must exercise our faith by taking the steps necessary to plod through the miry bog like the T. S. Eliot hippo. I believe that God has something great in mind for us individually and for the life of this congregation. Let's feed our faith and not our doubts - expecting that God will raise us up to new heights. God is faithful! Are we?
