When I was growing up,
there was a cartoon on Nickelodeon called Hey Arnold about all of the mishaps
that a bunch of kids in the inner city would get into. One of the episodes that I remember well, was
one called “the vacant lot.” In this
episode, the kids get tired of playing baseball in the middle of the street
because they would have to keep stopping for cars and because they kept
breaking things. One day as a few of
them were walking home they saw an old abandoned lot, full of trash and debris.
These kids did not see a trashy lot however, they saw a baseball field. So each day these kids went to work clearing
out the debris and pulling up the weeds all while the adults looked on and
thought that they were nuts. But as days went by the lot became cleaner and
cleaner until the only debris left were a hub cap, a tire and other debris used
to designate bases. Finally as the kids start to play ball in the lot, the
adults start to see the potential of this empty lot. One lady starts a garden
in the outfield, The butcher uses the lot as a free range for his chickens,
some of the elderly adults set up checker boards in the infield, so much so
that the kids could not play ball anymore. To make a long story short however,
adults realized what they had done and came together to make the lot a true
baseball field with real bases and everything.
What the adults saw as an empty lot, the kids saw as a baseball field.
They put their hope and faith to action and created and made a fine ragtag
field, and even with the overtaking of the field by the adults, and may I say
even because of the overtaking of the adults, the lot eventually became even
more than what they had ever hoped for.
To see that empty and trashy lot turned into a real baseball field took
a lot of faith by those kids.
Faith is something that is so special, and yet something
that we often don’t truly understand. For many faith is simply their belief
system. After all one of the ways in which we describe different religions is
by calling them faith traditions. For
others faith means trust. Like when we say we put our faith into someone, we
are saying that we trust them. Still, others see faith as an expectation, I
have faith things will turn around, and still finally for others faith is
assurance; I have faith I am going to heaven. The tricky part about faith is
that all of these ways of thinking about it are in some way correct. And yet
all of these ways of thinking about faith are also incomplete by themselves.
This is why in this section of the book of Hebrews, faith
and understanding faith becomes the central theme. Before we dive into our
lesson for today, let’s have a quick lesson on this book of the Bible since we
will be studying for the next few Sundays. Hebrews is probably one of the less
read books of the New Testament, and with its name Hebrews, many would probably
expect to find it Old Testament. It is instead similar in some degree to many
of the letters that we have in the New Testament from Paul such as 1 and
2Corinthians or Ephesians. Except for those letters are obvious to whom the
audience it, churches in the those areas; Corinth and Ephesus and so on. This
letter which may have been written by Paul as well, but more likely someone
close to Paul such as Barnabas or Apollos, is vague on who is the intended
audience. The title Hebrews may make us
think it is addressed to some of the Jewish communities, but when we read the
book we find that many of the tenets of Christian faith are already assumed. It
is then likely that it is addressed if not to a community of Jewish Christians,
or at least to a community that understands and recognizes many of the Jewish
traditions. All of this means that the letters were not meant to convert, but
rather to teach and to instruct.
And so in our passage for today the author begins to
teach about faith and hits us right out front with the crux of the lesson.
Verses 1-3 tell us, “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.” Faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction things not seen. What deep and
profound words. Here we begin to see many of our definitions of faith merge together, assurance, hope,
tradition, trust. Let us break down verse one and try to understand it even
better. First the author says, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
Faith and Hope. This is hopefully not the first time that you have heard these
two terms used together. In fact over time these have developed into two of the
three what we call theological virtues; Faith, Hope, and Love. Now may be getting more and more familiar
with you now, you may recognize it from 1 Corinthians 13; a chapter very
popular at many weddings. " For now we see
only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest
of these is love. As we see these things, are inseparable,
faith, hope, and love, and so when we talk about faith here in Hebrews, it is
difficult to do it without talking about love and especially without talking
about hope.
The author of Hebrews makes this connection between hope
and faith by tapping into some of the familiar Biblical stories, especially
that of Abraham. For the author, the faith of Abraham centers all around the
covenants that God made with him. The first covenant was that of a promised
land that he would inherit. The second covenant was that of descendants. This
was the hope that Abraham had, a hope for descendants and a hope for a promised
land; and yet this was a hope that was nowhere near being realized. Hebrews
reminds us that as far as land, Abraham had stayed in the promised land as a
foreigner, not as the owner. It also
reminds us that the hope for children seemed ludicrous since Sarah was old and
seemingly unable to have children. This
hope seemed unfounded, this hope was something that seemed to be intangible,
and yet our passage today tells us that faith is the assurance of things hoped
for. Abraham had faith in God. Abraham
had faith that God would not go against his covenant, that God would not break
his word; Abraham had assurance that his hope was merited. Abraham had faith in
God.
There is a second part of that first verse that is
equally important to understand. It
says, faith is “the convictions of things not seen.”
Once again we see how faith and hope are so integrally tied together. Not only
is faith the assurance of things hoped for, but it is also the conviction of
things not seen. Once again going back to Abraham, we see that the hope that he
has of having descendants has no real tangible basis. While though he may have
been an alien in the promised land he as least could see and imagine what it is
that he hoped for. When it came to having a line of descendants that dream
seemed distant, impossible, even unimaginable.
How could he have descendants when he had no children? How could he have children with Sarah being
too old to bear them? Still, Abraham had
faith, he had a conviction in the promise that God made with him even if it
seemed unimaginable. After Isaac was born the dream seemed alive, until in
faith Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son.
If Isaac dies how could the lineage continue? And yet once again we Abraham had the conviction
that God would not fail on his promise even if it seemed that there was no way
it could come true. Abraham lived in faith, though he could not foresee that
the Lord would save Isaac, Abraham trusted the Lord and followed his commands.
And yet, sometimes it seems as though it doesn’t matter
how much faith we have, what we hope for
does not come true. It is like what we were talking about with prayer the other
week, What happens when you pray for something and it doesn’t happen? The same
question can be asked here, what happens when what you hope for is never
actualized? The author of Hebrews seems
to anticipate this question, because as he is talking about Abraham he shifts
and talks about Abraham’s descendants. He says, “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.” The author of Hebrews reminds us that even the
descendants of Abraham lived as faithful servants of God and never received the
promised land. We know that even Moses,
who led the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness never himself made it
into the promised land. So what do we make of this? What do we make of the fact
that there were so many who were hoping for that inheritance of the promise
land and yet never lived to see it? It seems easy to give up, quit, to lose
faith when our hopes and dreams aren’t realized.
We must ask ourselves
whose hopes and dreams are they? Are they the dreams that we desire, or do we
desire the dreams of God? Hebrews says about those faithful descendants, “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.” They desire a better country, a heavenly
one. We see that the hope that these descendants had was more than just an
earthly hope of land, riches, and power. Our passage tells us that if any of
them sought that homeland, they could have simply turned back; and yet they
continued on faithfully with the conviction of that which was unseen, a Kingdom
of God. In in the end we find that
though they died without seeing this come to fruition, that upon their death
they did receive a heavenly home.
And yet heaven itself can
become a stumbling block for many people’s faith. As I said we must ask whose
hopes and dreams do we hold dear; is it our own or is it the Lord’s. If you are
here this morning simply so you can claim your place in heaven when you die, I
am sorry but you are here for the wrong reasons. Heaven has far too often
become the reason for our faith, we become Christians so that we can avoid Hell
and get to Heaven. For many churches this is the crux their of mission and
evangelism. This is not why we become Christians. We become Christians because
we love Jesus Christ, and seek to serve and grow closer to him. Heaven of
course is of extreme importance, it provides us great hope, especially to those
who are marginalized or killed for their faith. Still, heaven is not the goal of Christianity; it is
the assurance of rest from our labors of Kingdom building here on Earth”
Through Christ we have been given a new hope, the hope of the Kingdom of God
here on Earth. Through his life, death,
resurrection and ascension, Jesus initiated the Kingdom of God, and yet the
Kingdom is obviously not fully here. It is what Wesley calls, “the already and
the not yet.” Through Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can
live faithfully, working with God towards bringing forth that Kingdom. We can
look around at a world full of terror and violence, and have faith; have an
assurance of that hope given to us by Jesus Christ. We like the friends in Hey
Arnold who can look at trashy empty lot and see a baseball field, are able to
look at a broken world and see the Kingdom of God.
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