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 Faith Is… |
12 August 2007 During the pre-kids phase of our marriage, John and I accepted the invitation of a friend to go backpacking in the ruggedly stunning mountains of Kings Canyon in the high Sierra. It is breathtaking country—in every sense of the term: exfoliating granite outcroppings and foxtail pine—a close relative of the long-lived bristlecone pine, gnarled by extreme elements into bonsai form. But these dramatic sights are accessible only on foot, and the friend who led us on that venture soon heard the words familiar to every parent: are we there yet? Are we almost there? How much farther is it? To which his standard reply was: it’s only a little farther. He lied. It wasn’t just a little farther. It was miles. Uphill. And it was hot and dry. But Robin knew what John and I did not; he knew where we were going. And because Robin had spent far more time in the high country of the Sierra than we, we knew we could trust him, we could place our faith in him to lead us, even if we couldn’t trust that our destination was just around the next bend. Knowing where you are going even if you have never been there; knowing whom you trust to guide you, to lead the way, that is the ‘stuff’ of faith; and faith is the primary subject of our reading today from the book of Hebrews. Personal confession—I don’t spend a lot of time in Hebrews. It reads like the finely-argued treatise that it is, and I am much more inclined to the stories of the gospels and of the Hebrew scriptures. That said, this book is right up there with the gospel according to John in its high Christology. Its language is majestic: Christ is greater than the angels, greater than the prophets with their varied witnesses to faith and covenant and justice. From the beginning, Christ is of God and with God. The text is well-written: Christ is the one through whom God speaks definitively; the messenger is the message.[1,41] In the chapter we read from today, the writer tackles the issue of faith by drawing a parallel between the faith of that great patriarch Abraham and great matriarch Sarah in their seminal act of commitment to God’s call. Hebrews tells us that “faith is…the evidence of things not seen,” or as Eugene Peterson translates, “faith is…our handle on what we can’t see.” Hebrews reminds us that even the created order, in all its tangible, visible glory, is composed of things that are not seen. But for the writer of Hebrews, faith is even more than the invisible taking visible form, like the picture on the front of our bulletin cover. For the writer of Hebrews, faith is our active response to call and to covenant, our active engagement and partnership in living that call and covenant into being. Abraham and Sarah would not be “reckoned as righteous” by God had they decided that even if God’s call sounded like a good thing, they didn’t have the energy. Didn’t have the resources. Didn’t want to take the risk. Might just as well stay home…which of course is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be. But Abraham and Sarah were not armchair quarterbacks. Even in their advanced years—they’re charter members of the Grey Panthers—Abraham and Sarah place their trust, their faith in God and hit the road. Millennia later, we still speak of them as role models…to a point. And for many of us, the point is one of total discouragement when we compare ourselves to these role models and agonize over our own sense of direction, our own call. Ruth replied, “I’m a birthright Friend, and in sixty-plus years of living, way has never opened in front of me…But a lot of way has closed behind me, and that’s had the same guiding effect.” Parker concludes, “there is as much guidance in what does not and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does—maybe more.”[3,10] Over the years, way has opened in the United Church of Christ and its predecessor denominations. You are familiar with the litany of firsts: the first anti-slavery pamphlet, first act of civil disobedience (commonly known as the Boston Tea Party), first ordained African American pastor (Lemuel Haynes, 1785), first integrated anti-slavery society (1846), first woman pastor (Antoinette Brown, 1853), ordination of first openly gay minister (Bill Johnson, 1972), to mention a few, along with scores of other important testaments to faith. But we are still on the journey. The struggle for racial equality still demands faithful witness in a culture where some ways open as others close, and we have miles more to journey in the struggle for justice in matters of sexual orientation and sexual equality. That journey is made all the more challenging by fellow travelers who deny funeral services to a veteran—after initially offering to host them—simply because the man’s life partner was listed as a survivor, which made it clear that he was gay. Don’t ask, don’t tell is a repugnant policy in the military—it is abhorrent in the church. Making nice by denying blatant discrimination and demurring that the church loves the family only rubs salt in wounds opened by grief and deepened by a lack of the very compassion Jesus so consistently demonstrated. And if ever we as a congregation needed a sign as to why it is still vital to openly declare ourselves Open and Affirming, this one is lit up in neon. It doesn’t matter if we are Abraham and Sarah—whose way opened before them—or we are Ruth and Parker, guided more by what closes behind us. The important part is that we are open to God’s presence, which hems us in behind and before. The important part is that we seek to walk in God’s light of compassion and justice. The prophet Micah summed it up: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8) * * * [1] Preaching Through the Christian Year B, Fred B. Craddock, et al, Trinity Press International, © 1993. |