Now Faith...

Hebrews 11: 1-3 and 8-16, page 851
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for God has prepared a city for them.
Sermon
Every summer for five years now I’ve spent a few days in Montreat, North Carolina on a study retreat. I read books mostly, books that I’ve not gotten around to reading during my normal schedule.
This past week while I’ve been away, the most memorable book I read was a book on funerals by the great preacher, Thomas G. Long, professor of Homiletics at Emory’s Candler School of Theology.
It is morbid to read a book on funerals, but the funeral is something that every pastor wants to do well, but rarely has a book come along to give any kind of instruction on the subject. On the chapter on preaching at a funeral Long gives the following advice:
The indispensability of shouting out the good news at a funeral gets highlighted when we realize that there are actually two preachers at every funeral. Death – capital D Death – loves to preach and never misses a funeral. Death’s sermon is powerful and always the same: “I win every time. I destroy all loving relationships. I shatter all community. I dash all hope. I have claimed another victim. Look at the corpse; look at the open grave. There is your evidence. I always win!
The congregation, then, must choose who to listen to at a funeral – both preachers are telling you how to respond to what you see. Will you listen to death’s sermon and embody the fear that death is truly the end of all things? Or will you listen to the pastor, who, based in the promises of God charges you to have the faith that beyond death comes new life – that in fact, in Christ Jesus death has lost its sting.
The congregation doesn’t all know for sure who is right – judging by the corpse, the open grave, the reality presented, it would seem as though it were death, but the congregation has a choice – listen to Death and give up or have faith.
I believe that in all of life these are our two options: fear frames reality in one way while faith frames it in another.
I learned last week by reading a framed copy of a wanted poster for Billy the Kid in a Mexican restaurant that this cold blooded killer was 5 foot 7, 125 lbs, and 18 years old. Now I haven’t seen 125 lbs since 9th grade or so, and I can tell you it would have taken a whole lot for anyone to be afraid of me – but the right amount of preaching from the wrong pastor can do amazing things. The whole world can be chilled to the core by what we would normally not take a second look at. The whole world can be thrown into fear, can give up, and can lose faith when bad things happen, Death’s in the pulpit telling you how to understand it, and the Good News is nowhere to be heard.
This past week we were reminded of the greatest culmination of national uncertainty that I have ever known. There has been so much talk of a mosque being built so close to ground zero and our nation has been brought back to all those feelings from that horrible day in September, our anger at those who took so many lives not only in destroying the Twin Towers but the two wars that have followed, and our fear of what is going to happen, who have we become, what will they do next has flooded TV, radio, and email inbox.
It’s all about a mosque – and our choice is how we respond to it.
Like the body at a funeral it’s something that our society has been told to fear so we are all around looking in, we know it’s there, and there are two preachers telling us what it means.
One is there telling us that our world is threatened, that we are in danger, that Christianity is dying, and that the powers that be who have let it happen must be out to get us as well.
But there is another voice.
“Do not be afraid,” Christ said. “Do not be afraid.”
Fear tells us one thing – that the future is uncertain and not dependable and the only thing that is sure is that things are getting worse, that you should be afraid, and that you have reason to despair and worry.
Faith tells us another: that we may be sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Or, as Marilyn Eckman put it so profoundly on a yellow sticky note she handed me right before this service: “Faith is learning to live in peace in the very center of all the things that don’t seem to make sense.”
We read in verse three that God spoke the world into existence out of nothingness, and verses 8 through 16 focus on Abraham, the great patriarch of monotheism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claiming him as their own. Here Abraham’s faith defines him – By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
He was looking forward to something he had no assurance of – he was looking forward to a city while he lived like a stranger in a foreign country – he lived in tents without any place to call home.
Abraham could have looked at that tent and thought to himself – this is as good as it’s going to get – he could have looked in the mirror and in taking in his wrinkles and gray hair been sure that he would never have children – forgotten about that promise from God sure that God must not have known what God was talking about.
Faith is the assurance of what’s not seen – confident in what you can’t see or know or touch or measure.
Taking uncertainty, doubt, fear, violence, and understanding it all, not according to what the preacher Death has told you, but according to the faith of our forbearers, the faith of Abraham.
What we have when we are presented with reality is an option.
When we are presented with death, when we are uncertain about the future, when our world is changing for what may seem to be for the worst – we can be afraid, we can give up, or we can try to change things on our own by taking up arms, fighting, voting, and protesting – but Abraham’s example offers us something else that is more important than all of that.
We can have faith.
Abraham had faith – and so he didn’t have to do it on his own.
He believed that God was at work and so when all he had was tent with nowhere to go he still knew that God would take him to the city.
Death would have told him to give up and he’s a pretty good preacher.
But he’s wrong.
Have faith. Believe that what you can see is not all that there is. That what you can do is not all that matters. That your power may be weak, but our God is strong.
Our God is strong enough to speak creation into existence with words. Strong enough to make a great people out of an old man, strong enough to save the world, redeem a people, and take your burden from you.
You don’t need to worry – you need to believe.
Amen.