'The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir." But the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir." He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.'
--Genesis 15: 1-6
'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 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. 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. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 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. 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."'
--Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-13
'Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."'
--Luke 12: 32-40
A great sage of 1990s once sang about the theme that runs through all of our Scriptures today: “Before the river becomes an ocean, before you throw my heart back on the floor, oh oh baby I reconsider my foolish notion, well I need someone to hold me but I’ll wait for something more, cause I gotta have faith, oh I gotta have faith.” God rest your soul, George Michael!
Voice of an angel!
Ya gotta have faith. We throw that sentiment around a lot, don’t we? Ya gotta have faith that this will be the year our team finally wins—story of my life as a Cleveland sports fan. In George Michael’s case, he’s gotta have faith that he’ll find that partner who won’t break his heart. It’s not just something that we preach on Sunday mornings. Faith is an underlying theme of so many aspects of our day-to-day lives, and we are often told, in one way or another, that if the thing doesn’t work out, then we just didn’t have enough faith. Is that, though, what biblical faith is?
Immediately our attention gets grabbed by the first sentence in the 11th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” That’s one of those sentences of Scripture that’s so popular that we see it on bracelets and bumper stickers; even Episcopalians can usually quote it. But what’s really going on with this statement? The Greek word is pistis, which is used 4,102 times in the Bible . It means “a firm persuasion”, which is based not on sight or knowledge but on trust. And it goes both ways; it is inextricably tied to the notion of covenant, of relationship. God has pistis in Abram – the exalted ancestor – which is why God makes him Abraham – the ancestor of a multitude – showing that being “faithful” is about making and maintaining a commitment to an other, rather than being assured that God – or whoever we’ve made a covenant with – will give us something; after all, even though God’s promise to Abram is ultimately fulfilled, Abram himself doesn’t get to see it.
As for that definition of faith, our translation muddies the water a little. The word that gets translated as “assurance” –“faith is the assurance of things hoped for”--is hupostasis, which is better translated as “reality” because it doesn’t have anything to do with personal belief. Also, the word translated as “conviction” –“the conviction of things not seen”—is elenchos, which again is not about personal conviction but is better translated as “proof.” We could, then, read this definition as: "Faith is the reality of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen." When we think of faith in this manner it becomes less about a personal assurance and conviction and more about the ever-truthful realization of the forward movement of God.
Even that word, “faith”’ has been hijacked and used in nefarious ways. Consider this: what is the first thing that pops in your head when you hear the term “faith-based?” I suspect, based on some of your faces, that it isn’t the story of Abram from Genesis or the definition given by Hebrews 11. There are “faith-based” movie production companies – even a streaming service called Pureflix, I swear I did not make that up – and their products are quite bad. There is the Ark Encounter in Kentucky that says it offers a “faith-based” approach to science and thus shows dinosaurs and humans living together, and some parents and even public officials have pushed for actual school curricula that follows similar “faith-based” models that ignore real science. And, of course, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a great many folks proclaimed “faith over fear,” arguing that their decision to not be vaccinated was “faith-based.” How ironic, given that for many of us the decision to be vaccinated was, precisely, inspired by our faith, our commitment to and trust in our neighbors to care for one another. A great many of my friends and family ask if I have kept up with the HBO series The Righteous Gemstones, a kind of satire on the “faith-based” entertainment industry of megachurches and celebrity pastors, and while I love me some Danny McBride and John Goodman, I can’t watch it when our culture continues to portray “people of faith,” as little more than self-serving content creators and self-absorbed consumers. What has modernity done to faith? Where is the faith expressed by God to Abram, or written by the author of Hebrews? Where’s the faith of Jesus?
I believe that the faith of Jesus is what stands between us and this neverending stream of false prophecies and heretical behavior that claims again and again to be “faith based.” Jesus makes clear in this teaching from Luke’s Gospel that faith in our God – the God of Abram whom Jesus called Abba – is not found by acquiring anything – be they power, prestige, or possessions - , but rather by surrendering everything. The entirety of God’s realm – a state of being that Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven – is ours if we are willing to give away our stuff and everything else that we fear to lose. Fear attaches to whatever we cannot release, becoming a ruinous mold in the dark isolation of our grasping and clutching for control. The capitalist, consumer-driven culture of ours says that we can have control over our lives, that everyone can be a Caesar, if we accumulate riches or rely on this new device we’ve marketed as something that will do the hard work for us. Fear infiltrates our life, alters our breathing and shows up masked as various anxieties and the overwhelming need to fix things. By surrendering that need and the things that give us that false sense of control, we make room for Jesus to shine a healing light upon our minds and hearts to clear the mold of fear away; what’s he’s commending in our Gospel this morning is faith – even if pistis is not used - the kind, that has its assurance in a future that is secured not by human wants and desires, but by the One who’s got the whole world in those mighty hands.
What can this kind of faith really do for us? It liberates us from our need for control, which itself is rooted in our fear of loss, the ultimate loss being death itself. But by living expectantly, unencumbered by the temptation for control, life becomes lighter, the burdens less self-inflicted. We find ourselves working with Jesus to create structures where all embrace his model of self-emptying love, even to those who trouble us; so much so that a thief coming in the middle of the night will not be able to alarm us. “Welcome!” we can say to the thief. “I’ve got plenty of stuff to offer you. I’m not afraid. Sit down at my table. Enjoy the feast!” Because, as one person in our bible study said this week, “God should be our only attachment!”
There is one great example of this kind of faith in fairly recent memory. During the Apartheid days of South Africa, when the government tried shutting out any vocal opposition, Archbishop Desmond Tutu held a church service where armed police entered his cathedral in Cape Town in a move of intimidation while Tutu was preaching. At one point he finally addressed the police directly and said: “You are very powerful, but you are not gods. So, since you’ve already lost, I invite you to come and join us!” With that, the congregation broke out into singing and dancing. No one knew then that Apartheid would eventually be defeated, but Tutu’s faith was in something bigger, in the Kingdom of Heaven and the ultimate victory of God. When we place our faith in that Kingdom, in that victory, we will want for nothing, we will fear nothing, and we will do far greater things than we could ask or imagine.
This is what I believe it means to live lives of faith, lives that are oriented toward something so much bigger than ourselves; our desires, as well as our fears. From Abram the exalted ancestor and Jesus the Christ, to Desmond the bishop and you, may we be faithful, as God has been and continues to be faithful to us. And know that there’s an angel out there somewhere, singing for you and encouraging you along……
