Faith in Action

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Preached 10/06/2013

Emma Dobson

Eugene was nervous.  He stood in front of the middle school classroom, looking out at the 59 sixth graders sitting before him.  He shuffled the notes in his hand. He was many years removed from sixth grade.   He was a successful business man, and yet he was still unsure of himself as he stood before these students.   The notes for the speech he planned now seemed painfully inadequate.  He contemplated the reality of the students in East Harlem.  Statistically, less than half of them were likely to make it to their high school graduation.  He had been asked to speak to them to motivate them to stay in school.  These students and their families were deeply mired in poverty, and desperately needed income.  Full time jobs that provided this income often took precedence over a high school diploma. Eugene felt he had to offer them something more than what he had planned to say.  He had to offer something radical if he expected something radical from them. 

So, dropping his notes, he looked up at the students.  “Stay in school,” he said “And I’ll help pay the college tuition for every one of you.”  There was a stunned silence in the room—and you know what a feat it is to accomplish silence in a room full of adolescents.  Eugene’s offer made no sense.  Statistically, most of these youth wouldn’t even finish high school—why would he talk about college?  What was Eugene doing? 

Well, perhaps as our scripture reading suggests, what Eugene was doing was being faithful.  And here’s a question that’s always good to ask—what does that really mean?  What does it really mean to be faithful?  Well, let’s start by figuring out just what our Hebrews is talking about when it uses the word faith.  The text laid out its definition in the first verse: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  So, faith is an assurance and a conviction.  This means that faith isn’t wishy-washy.  It can’t be swayed by the storms of life, or whatever difficulties life throws at it.  Faith doesn’t look at the classroom of sixth graders and figure that they’ll probably drop out at the same rate that statistics suggest. 

Faith, as Hebrews describes it, is absolutely certain that the bleak reality it sees is not final.  Remember, faith isn’t an assurance and conviction in the things in front of it.  Faith is about that assurance and conviction in precisely what it can’t see.  Faith is assured and convicted that success is possible when failure is all it can see.  It is assured and convicted that there is hope, when all it can see is hopelessness.  Faith is assured and fully convinced that God intends something better than what it sees.  And, not only CAN something better happen, something better WILL happen. 

But faith doesn’t stop there.  Our scripture reading does go on after that first, definitional verse.  And as it goes on, it shows us that faith can’t sit still on its assurance and conviction that there is more than meets the eye.  Faith acts.  Hebrews uses Abraham for the example of what faith in action looks like.  Maybe we don’t all have Abraham’s story memorized, so here’s a short synopsis.  As Hebrews says, God speaks to Abraham, and tells him to go to Canaan because God will give land to Abraham and his family.  Abraham, rather nomadic at the time, is on his way to Canaan already, and he obeys God as he keeps going there.  There is a famine, a family split, a battle. . . all kinds of bad things happen to Abraham.  And yet, Abraham keeps trusting God’s promises of good things to come.  And he keeps on going to the promised land, and doing the things God asks him to do. 

Now, this isn’t to say Abraham always believes God’s promises are likely, or does a wonderful job of doing what God asks.  In fact, he struggles and most definitely gets it wrong sometimes.  But, what is important to the author of Hebrews, and is important for us as we try to figure out this whole faith thing is that Abraham does not give up.  He keeps looking for God.  He keeps listening for God, and attempting to go about the work that God asks him to do. Our example of being faithful doesn’t sit around.  He acts.  He journeys to the promised land rather than waiting for it to drop in his lap.  And, in going about that journey, he participates in making that something better God has promised him a reality.

It’s probably unlikely that God is going to ask any of us to go to Canaan in order to inherit a vast amount of land for our ancestors.  We need a little more contemporary example of faith in action.  So, keeping Abraham’s example in our minds, what does this faith in action look like in more contemporary terms?  Well, it looks a lot like what Eugene did.  He had the conviction that those sixth grade students could do better than statistics told him they would.  He was sure that what he hoped for— those young people staying in school—though he couldn’t see it—could and would become a reality.  He had faith in them and faith in something better.  And then he moved to being faithful.  He moved to action, offering them scholarships.  This being faithful is what our Hebrews text challenges us to do, too.  Our assurance and conviction are like the gas that fills the tanks of our cars. If everything with the car is in working order, the gas will certainly make the motor run.  And the motor can run while we sit in idle, or while we move.  And as we read, Hebrews says we need to move.

 Even though when we look out at the world around us, it might look bleak, we cannot be discouraged by what we see as wrong.  If Abraham had given up at the first difficult time in his journey to the promised land, he would have gotten stuck in Egypt and lost his wife to the Pharaoh.  So in the face of difficulties, Hebrews challenges us to keep going.  To keep on acting.  To keep being faithful, and falling back on assurance and conviction in those results we can’t yet see in front of us, but, as the texts puts it, we can see from a distance and greet.

It is our assurance and conviction in those promises that we, like Abraham, have heard God whisper to us that will help us faithfully make it through to the promised land.  In the face of whatever discourages us—perhaps hunger, homelessness, or discrimination, we can be faithful.  We can feed the hungry.  We can shelter the homeless.  We can work for justice.  In the faith of illness, death, addiction, or depression, we can be faithful.  We can seek cures, comfort, peace, and freedom.  And in all these situations we can most certainly cry out to God with honest anger and indignation, while seeking the something better God intends.  In being faithful and living our faith, we participate in and help bring about the “something better” that we believe God promises us.

Let’s go back to Eugene again.  In acting on his conviction that there was something better for these sixth graders than dropping out of high school before graduating, he did indeed participate in making his conviction a reality.  More than 90% of those students in East Harlem went on to graduate high school, overcoming what seemed like impossible odds and insurmountable obstacles.           

 It isn’t just Abraham and Eugene.  For all of us, faith can accomplish what seems impossible too.  Of course, being faithful doesn’t guarantee the results we want to see.  Obviously, if 90% of those sixth graders in front of Eugene went on to graduate from high school, 10% did not.  Faith doesn’t fix everything.  But faith can keep us from getting stuck on everything that is wrong, and move us to seeing what could be right.  And in being faithful we can participate in the Godly “right” that we can see God promising us, just as God promised our ancestors.

And, even in the short time I’ve been here, I can see that this congregation is already doing this.  Calvary feeds the hungry, gives clothes and shoes to the needy, prays, worships, and seeks God’s presence.  And as a congregation, you have continued to do this through many hard times.  And I bet a lot of you are tired, but still, Hebrews encourages you to keep going, to keep doing God’s work on earth because this sacred work that you do is how all of us, and all of our sisters and brothers, will be able to see that holy city God has prepared for us.

Yes, God promised Abraham a place to live in.  And we are heirs of the same promise from the same God.  God promises us, too, that we can live in peace, in a place where there is enough for everyone, and through Christ, we are family with all around us.  Even though that isn’t what we see now, God promises us that what we see is not all that we get.  There is something better.  As our scripture puts it, there is a better country, a heavenly one, and indeed, God has prepared a city for us.

We have a whole journey of being faithful to make it to that heavenly city.  And, thanks be to God, we have a holy meal prepared before us to give us strength for the journey.  So as we ready ourselves to receive this holy meal, let us pray.

God, you are the master architect.  We believe you have plans that are far more incredible than we have ever imagined.  Open our ears and eyes so we can hear and see more and more of what you intend for us, and for all of our sisters and brothers.  Help us trust in your gracious promises.  Move us to acting on them, so that we can help make your plans, your promises, a reality.  Keep your gracious intentions for us before our eyes, and always in our hearts, as we seek to help you build that heavenly city that we now greet from a distance.  In the name of Jesus, who showed us that your plans can defeat even death, we pray.  Amen.