Sermon Archive
Readings for 12 August 07
Proper 14
Year C
Genesis 15:1-6
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.
Hebrews 11:1-3(4-7)8-16
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 Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain's. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and "he was not found, because God had taken him." For it was attested before he was taken away that "he had pleased God." And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.]
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."
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, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 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.
Luke 12:32-40
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."
Sermon
The Rev. Jack Zamboni
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
“I have questions about my faith.”
“I’m not what I believe anymore.”
“I’m afraid I might be losing my faith.”
“This is the faith once delivered to the saints.”
“Whosoever will be saved must hold the Catholic Faith.”
“The true faith must be defended.”
All these words about faith! – and there are many, many more. For Christians – indeed for all peoples of faith – faith matters.
But what is faith? That’s not a question that can be fully answered in a 10-minute sermon, of course – but I want to at least take a stab it in light of today’s Scriptures.
But before turning to them directly, I want us to notice a basic issue of language. The word “faith” is a noun – and that means we are likely to think of faith – or the Faith – as a thing: After all, that’s what nouns are: names for the whole variety of things in the world. Moreover, when we think of things named by nouns, we tend to think of them as fixed, static. So in the first set of examples I gave at the start, faith is a thing you have in your possession or don’t have, a thing that can be questioned or lost – as I sometimes lose my car keys or glasses. Or, as in the second set of examples, The Faith is seen as a set of ideas about God and the universe -- ideas perhaps enshrined in the words of a Creed – which you might or might not believe are an accurate description of God and God’s ways with the world.
The fact that the word “faith” is a noun and gets used these ways very often certainly suggests that there is some truth to these ways of understanding faith. Our sense of having faith – or not – matters. The degree to which the words and concepts of our Creeds point truthfully towards the mystery of God who is beyond words and concepts matters, too. But to approach faith primarily as a noun-like thing obscures something much more basic about faith: that faith is vital, dynamic, moving-- a way of living and acting in relationship with the Living God. In truth, faith is much more like a verb than a noun.
We see the dynamic, verbal nature of faith in today’s readings about Abraham, who in the New Testament is seen as the model Old Testament person of faith. God had promised Abraham several times that he would be the father of a great people who would take possession of the land over which he wandered as a nomadic herder. Today’s Genesis reading opens with another divine assurance:
"Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great."
But Abram isn’t buying it:
"O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless…You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”
God repeats the promise again:
“This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own child shall be your heir.”
God brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you can!”
Then God said to him, "So shall your descendants be.”
Notice the honest back and forth of this conversation between Abram and God. Abram challenges God; he voices his doubts about whether God will give what had been promised. We might thank that such challenge and doubt are acts of unfaith. In reality, this open exchange is faith in action. The living relationship between Abram and God grows before our eyes in this honest conversation – just as honest conversation makes relationships grow between human beings.
That kind of conversation builds an essential aspect of the living relationship that is faith -- the trust that the One with whom we speak is engaged enough with us and cares enough about us to take us – including our complaints and “doubts” -- seriously.
That’s what happens to Abraham by the end of this story. “Abram believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness. Abram’s trust has grown enough that when God promises once more that his descendants will be as many as heaven’s stars, Abram believes God. Note that Abram doesn’t believe something about God – Abram believes God. Abram trusts God to bring this promise to fulfillment. His faith is living and active.
Today’s’ passage from the Letter to the Hebrews makes the active nature of Abraham’s faith even clearer. Going back to the beginning of Abraham’s story, the author of Hebrews writes repeatedly that it was “by faith” that Abraham acted again and again:
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…”
By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered faithful the One who had promised.
Abraham’s journeys and resting places – even becoming a father – were, the writer says, the work of faith in action. Abraham does what he does by faith and in faith -- trusting God and acting on that trust, even when he doesn’t know where he is going or what would happen next. This is living faith.
In highlighting the unknown future, the author of Hebrews brings to the fore another critical dimension of living faith. Faith is fundamentally forward-looking; It is oriented towards the future – for it trusts that the future is in God’s hands. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not (yet) seen.
Abraham and the other Old Testament heroes “looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland… they desire a better country.”
Faith has built into it not just trust in God now, but a yearning towards God’s future. Whatever we know of God from the past and live with God in the present is incomplete and unfinished. Faith desires something more – and trusts in hope that the desire for something more will be fulfilled by and in God’s future.
The hope of living faith may well be rooted in our past and present experience of God’s trustworthiness. The Bible is full of instances when God’s people recall God’s past acts in order to remind themselves in the present that God can and will act for their good in the future. The Eucharistic Prayers in the Book of Common Prayer are structured the same way. They begin by recalling God’s past acts of faithfulness in creation, with the people of Israel, and in Jesus. They claim God’s present action in making the bread and wine the Body and Blood of Jesus; and always they point forward to the day of Christ’s coming, the future of God.
The same movement happens in our own lives: It is as I recall the times and ways that God’s love and care have been real for me in the past that my trust in God and yearning towards God in the future is renewed.
Living faith builds on what we’ve known of God in the past and present. But above all it yearns in hope towards the future – for it knows that the future is where God will be met again. That future may be the future of our individual lives; the future of the life of this congregation; the future of the whole world. Faith trusts that we will find and be found by God in all these futures, for “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not (yet) seen.” The future belongs to God.
For past week's readings and sermons, please visit the archive of sermons