Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Laura Collins
August 8, 2004
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This sentence from the letter to the Hebrews is a familiar, memorable, quotable text. One that roles off the tongue with ease and can be held onto like a lifeline. It is a line I have always liked.
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
But the more I pondered it this past week, the less sense it made to me. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Assurance? Assurance sounds to me like certainty. If, for example, I have gone to a doctor following a biopsy to hear a report and the doctor assures me that the tissue was not cancerous, I expect that to mean that the doctor is certain that the tissue is not cancerous. I don’t want it to mean the doctor has faith that the tissue is not cancerous or hopes that the tissue is not cancerous. I want assurance.
Then there’s the second phrase of the sentence, the conviction of things not seen. Conviction, again, is something held firmly as truth. Or, in the other use of the word, a conviction, of course, is when one has been condemned as having certainly committed a crime. Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be convicted of a crime based on things not seen. I would hope a jury would have some eye-witness testimony, not just circumstantial evidence. I want a conviction to have some substance behind it.
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen.”
The writer of the letter doesn’t leave us just wondering what this means, however. The 11th chapter of Hebrews goes on to describe what such faith might look like. “By faith, Abram 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.” Abram left his homeland, his family, his birthright and began a journey of faith, not knowing where he was going.
We are into August, the month of Washingtonians taking journeys. Imagine a family vacation where you set out, not knowing where you were going. No road-maps, no reservations, no clear destination, just faith that you’d know it when you got there. Now, when you’re 22 and footloose, with no mortgage, job or kids, that sounds like fun. But not many of us here would set out on such a vacation, would we? Call up AAA and get the highlighted maps, get online and make those Expedia reservations, know how long it should take you to get there and what to expect when you arrive. Preferably, even have a virtual tour to make sure it suits your needs.
And really, don’t we travel life that way as well? If that’s how we relax in the summer, how much more do we operate with plans and expectations in the rest of our life? Now, I’m not saying we should all throw caution to the wind and never make another plan. I’m not advising that you throw out your will or your financial planner’s suggestions or give up a career that you’ve been building.
Unless, of course, that is what you need to do. Because sometimes life isn’t quite as neat as the plans we made ten years ago. And sometimes we are called to have faith in something other than our financial planner or our career counselor or even our own sense of direction. Sometimes we are called to have faith that God might call us somewhere new or ask us to behave in an unfamiliar way or offer a fork in the road with new possibilities. And in my experience, these moments of call never look quite as secure as the plans we’ve been busy making.
The Bible understands that, too. Abram, we are told, lived in tents, but looked forward to a city with foundations. Most of us, given the choice, would choose a home with foundations over a tent. Which is why, as life goes on, it gets harder and harder to move with the Spirit. Moving with the Spirit might involve pulling up camp. Which is hard to do when there are no stakes to pull up only concrete foundations to bulldoze.
So what does this mean for us, really? All these metaphors about journeys and dwelling places? What does it mean about our faith, our lives, our decisions?
Clearly, the example of Abram reminds us that faith is a journey, more than a destination. It’s like the way Maya Angelou responds when somebody tells her that they’re Christian. She says, “Really? Already?” Faith is a journey more than a destination.
And if faith is a journey, then we can expect the scenery to change along the way. My parents, in the first 50 years of forming their faith, never came up against the question of whether gay and lesbian people could be ordained. It really had never occurred to them as a question at all. They probably knew some gay people, but they didn’t know that they knew them. So, if their faith was set on concrete foundations, how could they respond? But if their faith was a journey with a tent, they could move a little. So they did what they always did when faced with a question of conscience. They read the Bible. They prayed about it. They talked to people they knew and they listened to people they didn’t know. And over time, not all at once, they found that their journey had taken them somewhere new.
Now, some of you will be going to college in a couple of weeks, either for the first time or returning. You are eager for your freedom, I bet. I know I was! And, oh boy will that freedom be fun. It really will. Until you get bronchitis during mid-terms and nobody brings you chicken soup. Or until you ruin a load of laundry and wish you didn’t have to haul those clothes off to the laundry room anyway! Freedom is nice but security has its benefits. The security of parents to worry about things like bills and groceries and doctor appointments and even curfews.
Scripture suggests to us that the struggles brought on by freedom are preferable to the bondage of security. Remember the Israelites wondering in the desert, thinking slavery in Egypt wasn’t so bad after all? At least they had food and shelter then! But here was this crazy Moses leading them in circles in a god-forsaken desert, where if he knew the destination, he sure wasn’t making it clear to the rest of them. Bondage didn’t sound so bad.
And I would suggest that all of us feel that way. Bondage to a bad job is at least a job with a paycheck and benefits. Bondage to a relationship where disrespect has become a way of life is still a relationship that is familiar. Even bondage to the good stuff: the house with enough space to spread out and get away from your other family members, enough money to travel when and where you want, even a church community where you’re pretty sure what you can expect from week to week. We like certainty. We like security. We like having a city with foundations.
This is not surprising. Because a city with foundations is exactly what Abram was seeking as well. Just because he was living in tents didn’t mean he liked it that way. But here’s what the text says: “ ... he looked forward to a city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Whose architect and builder is God.
There’s always a catch, isn’t there? The problem isn’t secure foundations per se. The problem is with who designed and built those foundations. Are we sure our foundation is the one that God set for us? Or did we set it through our own blood, sweat and tears?
I wish there were a fool-proof way to answer that question. Sometimes, if we can get quiet enough and honest enough we know the answer. But most times it’s a lot less clear. We’ve made each decision along the way and they seemed like good and faithful decisions at the time. But times change. Circumstances change. The world changes. And the plans we made ten years ago may no longer fit the person God is calling us to be today.
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen.”
How do we human beings, with all our insecurities and needs for reassurance ever get the guts to change our minds or change our plans or change our lives? Only by faith. By a conviction that even though a new direction may seem murky and shaky and weird, if we experience it as a tug from the Spirit, we can be sure that we’ll be OK. Maybe not OK in the ways that we think we need to be OK, but OK nonetheless.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
Faith is the conviction of things not seen.
This is what we stake our lives on when we come here and offer our prayers to God. That Somebody has a bigger picture in mind, a picture that sees the end of the journey and knows the destination. And this crazy Guide whom we choose to follow when we say yes to God, honors our willingness to listen and seek and try to find the path.
Hebrews tells us that Abram and others died in faith without having received the promises. This is not terribly reassuring. But it goes on, “but from a distance they saw and greeted them.”
It’s like the challenge poet Wendell Berry offers us: Plant sequoias! (i)
Put your life out there for something bigger than yourself. Plant seeds that you won’t see reach maturity. Have faith that the road less taken will make all the difference.(ii) Have faith.
And with that faith, rest assured. Assured. Certain that our deepest hopes, the ones underneath the hopes we can manage on the surface, will bear fruit.
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen.
Be of good faith and be at peace.
(i) Wendell Berry. Quoted in Earth Prayers from Around the World. Eds. Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. 1991. p. 122. (Back to text)
(ii)Robert Frost.“The Road Not Taken.” (Back to text)
Webmaster : Brian C. Monsell
Sermon Archivist : Jorge Montalvo