Humility is Best

 Rev. Debbie Cato
Luke 14: 1; 7-14
Fairfield Community Church
August 28, 2022

Let us pray: Eternal God, your Word speaks truth into our lives. When we humble ourselves to listen, you mature us with knowledge and strengthened our faith. Open us to your Word today, so we might hear and embrace the message you intend for us. Amen.

 

Humility is Best

 

At the end of Flannery O’Connor’s story “Revelation,” Mrs. Turpin, a stately, self-righteous Christian woman, has a vision that turns her world, and her prejudiced assumptions, upside down. A fiery streak in the dusk sky transforms into a bridge from earth to heaven. Climbing the bridge, a “vast horde of souls were rumbling to heaven” — souls Mrs. Turpin had earlier judged beneath her. Poor White folks climb to heaven, clean for the first time in their lives. Black laborers dressed in white robes proceed to salvation and behind them a bunch of, what she had considered “freaks” and “lunatics.” At the end of the heavenly procession Mrs. Turpin recognizes herself and her people, marching with dignity behind the others, “accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior.” Confused, Mrs. Turpin sees the “shocked and altered faces” of her people as, last in line to heaven, their esteemed virtues burn away in the light of the setting sun.[1]

 

The kingdom of God has its own social and spiritual order. To presume our place in that order is not only unwise but unfaithful.

 

At the beginning of Luke 14, Jesus gives a lesson on guest etiquette with

broader theological and ethical meaning. In the New Testament, the “banquet” is a metaphor for the kingdom of heaven and the coming reign of God. When we are invited to this banquet, we should not presume a seat of honor. As Paul reminds us in Philippians 2, we are to emulate Jesus, who “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave … he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8).  Jesus tells us that humility marks the model guest.[2]

 

In this parable, this set of parables actually, Jesus joins a leader of the Pharisees, who we know are keeping Jesus under surveillance.  The synagogue leader has offered Jesus hospitality by inviting him to his home for table fellowship at a banquet and Jesus accepts the invitation.  When Jesus arrives, he watches as the guests all rush to sit at the places of honor.  Jesus suggests, as only Jesus can suggest, that rather than distinguish themselves as honored guests and assume they belong at the seats of honor, they should sit at more humble locations where they might be invited to come and sit closer rather than be embarrassed and asked to move further away.  Or, even better, leave the seats of honor for those of more humble means.  What a surprise to think you are a “nobody” and arrive and find the only seats available are those that are places of honor!

 

I worked for World Vision for a while.  They are an international humanitarian aid organization, probably best known for their child sponsorships.  They also have ministries throughout the United States, mainly in large urban cities with areas of poverty and great need.  I was the Director of Finance for Domestic Ministries for several years and had the opportunity to travel to the urban ministry sites.  Wonderful experiences.

 

We had a ministry location in Appalachia where poverty was just astounding.  It’s beautiful country – possibly the most beautiful I’ve seen.  And yet the people lived in broken-down trailers without inside toilets or water.   Many had roofs missing with just tarps. They are truly destitute.   It was shocking to see these shacks, not really habitable on a beautiful, large piece of family, ancestorial land worth probably millions of dollars while the families are barely surviving.  They have been coal miners and the coal mines were shut down and there is no work.

 

I spent a week there with other leaders from the corporate office with the ministry team in Appalachia and we traveled around the area and met people and came to understand their needs and the work of the local ministries in Appalachia. 

 

In the evening, we would be entertained by local people playing their fiddles and singing blue grass music, we would have worship services, and just visit.  It was a wonderful time.  But the thing that stays in my memory the most were the meals.  The community fed us dinner each evening in a style I will never forget.  I have never seen so much food laid out.  Of course it was all homemade and so delicious.  They killed one of their pigs for us and BBQ’d it whole.  We had pulled pork and BBQ’d ribs.  Potato salad, baked beans, cole slaw, corn bread, and I don’t remember what else.  Everything was homegrown and homemade.  This was food for them to eat – to can and save for the winter.  But they fed us.  And they were so happy and excited to do so. They refused to serve themselves or eat until we were all seated with plates loaded up with food.  Finally, they would join us at the table.  There was so much laughter and talking as we enjoyed the meal together.

 

 At first, I was embarrassed.  Maybe even ashamed that these people who were literally dirt poor had made all this food for us.  It felt like too much.  They had killed a pig for us. We had chicken another night and they had killed their chickens for our meal.  They had harvested vegetables, cooked all day for us – who had so much.  I knew it was a tremendous sacrifice for them. 

 

Then I realized the joy it brought to them to have us there in their community, to meet us and talk with us and get to know us.  The pure love they put into their cooking and their ability to feed us and have us enjoy their food. 

 

The humility of the people I met in Appalachia was life changing for me.  They struggled to survive each and every day.  They were the poorest I have ever met.  Yet they appreciated everything they had and they absolutely loved sharing it with us.  And when we worshipped together, they worshipped like I had never seen before.  They needed God.  They needed his provision in their lives.  And they believed that He was present and working in their everyday existence.  This was 20 years ago, and the magic and love and lessons of those days in Appalachia have stayed with me.

 

These meals in Appalachia were a picture for me of the practice of table fellowship and what it will be like in the Kingdom of Heaven when all gather together at one table.  Luke 13:29 tells us that “people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.”  There will not be social boundaries or unjust divisions at this table.  All will be welcomed, and all will eat together and enjoy table fellowship at God’s table.  That’s what it was like those 4 days in Appalachia.

 

It's human nature to want the best spot; the best seat in the house.  To sit by the most important or the most popular person.  We want to be popular and important too.  We want our lives to mean something.  We want to be in the know, don’t we?  But Jesus encourages us to forgo the presumption of privilege and assume a humble posture.  To assume that we are no better; no more important than anyone else.  And in God’s eyes, we aren’t.  We are all created in God’s image.  We are all loved the same by God. 

 

But we have to be careful!  Our human ego is very clever and it’s possible

we may unintentionally seek out lower seats in order to look humble while actually strategizing for self-exaltation.   Taking a  low seat because one is humble is one thing; taking the low seat as a way to move up is another.  This entire message can become a sort of cartoon if there is a mad dash for the lowest place, with ears cocked toward the host, waiting for the call to ascend!  Is our mind being sneaky?!  Trying to mislead the onlooker.  Look how humble I am.  But really, we are being manipulative.  Once again, Jesus looks to the heart.  Is our heart humble? 

 

Luke 14 bears witness to an ordering of life under God’s reign. At God’s banquet, all are welcome; seats of honor are not defined or doled out by class, race, nationality or group identity. Assuming “people like us” are the guests of honor will only lead to our disgrace. As we seek to follow and emulate Christ, let the flag we wave be one of humility, and the call we follow that of verse 11: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”[3]  Let us pray:

 

Holy God,  Help us to be humble of heart, remembering that we are no better, no different, no more loved than any other.  Help us to be more like Jesus each and every day and live with a servant’s heart, seeking to serve rather than be lifted up and honored.  In Jesus name, Amen.

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[1] https://pres-outlook.org/2022/08/twelfth-sunday-after-pentecost-august-28-2022/  Teri McDowell Ott.
[2] https://pres-outlook.org/2022/08/twelfth-sunday-after-pentecost-august-28-2022/  Teri McDowell Ott.
[3] https://pres-outlook.org/2022/08/twelfth-sunday-after-pentecost-august-28-2022/  Teri McDowell Ott.

What Are Rules For?

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Deuteronomy 5:12-15  and Luke 13:10-17 
Fairfield Community Church 
August 21, 2022

Let us pray:  God of Glory, open our hearts and minds to the hearing and receiving of your Word today. May we listen, discern, and follow wherever you call.  Amen.

What are Rules For?

 

I may have said this before so if I have, I apologize.  I’m old enough that I remember that on Sundays all the stores were closed.  You could not buy groceries, go to the mall (malls didn’t exit yet!), you couldn’t buy gas, you couldn’t eat out in a restaurant.  No one worked on Sundays.  It was the Sabbath. 

If Mom didn’t have what she needed for dinner, she was out of luck.  If we got sick and she needed cough syrup or aspirin and she didn’t have any, we waited until Monday to get it. 

Of course, in those days, pretty much everyone went to church on Sunday mornings also!  We got all dressed up in our Sunday best and we all headed to church.  No debate.  It’s what we did.

Times have changed.  Sundays are just like any other day of the week now.  You can shop wherever  you want on Sundays, eat wherever you want, do whatever you want.  And as we well know, fewer and fewer people view Sundays as the day to get  up and go to church and worship God.

But in Jesus’ time, the Sabbath was Holy.  The Law in Deuteronomy, given to Moses by God clearly laid it out.    “You shall not do any work - not you, or your son or your daughter, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as  you.” No one was to labor on the Sabbath.

This is the letter of the Law so to speak.  The intent of the Sabbath and human rest from work was to acknowledge the Lord’s consecration of the Sabbath.  God made the Sabbath holy.  The human activity of observing and keeping the holiness of the Sabbath is to honor and worship God alone and to render justice to the neighbor.  This understanding of holiness is at the heart of the Old Testament prophetic traditions. 

Jesus is teaching in the synagogue as he regularly did.  A woman comes in who is crippled and so bent over that she is unable to stand up straight.  For 18 years, she is bent over and can only see her feet and the ground.  She is unable to look up and see people’s faces or the things around her.  It doesn’t seem that she came in looking for Jesus or looking to be healed.  She just came into the synagogue, likely to hear the day’s teaching and to worship God.  It was the Sabbath.  The woman does not approach Jesus, she makes no request of him, and nothing is said of her faith.

Of course, Jesus notices her.  He stops teaching and calls her over to him.  Jesus takes the initiative, this woman still has not said anything to him. “Woman,” Jesus says.  “You are set free from your ailment.”  He puts his hand on her and immediately, she can straighten up and stand up straight.  After 18 years of being bent over, she can stand up straight!  She wasn’t looking for a miracle, but a miracle found her. She praises God. Fully aware that God Himself healed her. 

This is too much for the leader of the synagogue. He knows the Sabbath Law handed to Moses by God.  “You shall not do any work - not you, or your son or your daughter, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as  you.”

Here is Jesus, the Son of God, teaching in a Jewish synagogue, on the Sabbath, and he heals this woman – which is considered labor, breaking the Sabbath law, given to Moses directly by God.  No one was to labor on the Sabbath. The law is clear. I can understand the synagogue leader’s outrage.  Can you?

But, as usual, Jesus is after the heart of the law.  Remember, the heart of holiness of the Old Testament prophetic traditions was honoring and worshiping God alone and rendering justice to neighbors.  Jesus sees room for compassion in the law.  He saw a woman who was bound by her crippled condition.  For 18 years she could not stand up straight.  She caught His attention merely by entering the synagogue. Jesus, acting out of compassion, healed her and freed her from her bondage.  “You hypocrites!  Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it to water? ¹⁶ And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” 

You see, of course a person was allowed to take their animals to water on the Sabbath!  Not freeing them to be able to drink on the Sabbath would be abuse.  If the animal was not carrying a load, they were not considered working.  And taking the animal to water was not considered work under the Sabbath law.  So how, Jesus asked, was freeing this woman from her bondage any less?

Are rules meant to bind and oppress us or to give us freedom in the Lord and help us to honor and worship Him more fully?  What exactly does worshiping God look like?

 We’ll be asking that question on the 5^th Sunday in October and most likely the 5^th Sundays of other months in the coming year – they come about once a quarter.  Your Church Council asked the question – could we spend the 5^th Sunday outside the walls of our church building doing community service rather than holding our “normal” worship service?  Could we worship God by being His hands and feet in the community rather than the way we normally worship on a Sunday morning – sitting in our church, reciting responsive readings, praying, singing, and listening to a sermon?  Can community service become our way of worship in the few months a year when there are five Sundays?

We call ourselves Fairfield Community Church and when I was called to be your pastor, I was told that we were the Community’s church and that I would be the pastor to the community.  But what does that mean?

In June, when we sat around these tables and talked about what the values were of this church, it was unanimous that community was one of our values.  What does that mean?    What does it mean that we value community? How do we live that out?

Council recognizes that we have not identified action steps or ministries to match our values yet.  That will happen on September 11^th when Katie Stark comes back, and we share lunch and meet around these tables again and share what God has put on our hearts.  How do we live out our values we’ll ask.

But Darcia raised the question at Council a few months ago.  Could we spend the 5^th Sunday in the community doing a service project instead of having our regular worship service?  And the rest of the council really liked that idea.  Let’s put our values into action, they said.

So, on Sunday, October 30^th, we will meet at the Community Center.  We will open with prayer and thank God for the opportunity to serve the community.  We will pull out shrubs and bushes and plant new plants that the Conservation District says will grow well in this environment and be low maintenance but provide beauty to the front of the Community Center.  Those of us who can’t do the physical labor will be inside the Community Center washing windows and blinds.  When we are all finished with the projects, we will close in prayer and hopefully share a meal together. (The eating part is my idea. I haven’t brought it up yet!)

I’m hopeful people from the community will join us.  There was excitement when I presented it at the Town Council meeting on Tuesday.  Regardless, we will be worshiping in the “doing”.  It’s not how we normally meet on Sunday mornings and it’s not how we normally worship.  I hope you will consider it any other Sunday and come and join us and be a part of our 5^th Sunday of October Community Service Outreach Worship.  Perhaps even some of your family members who aren’t regular attenders will come!  Seems to me we will actually be “being the church” instead of just going to church.  Seems to me we will be honoring God and rendering justice, meeting the Old Testament prophetic definition of the Sabbath.  What do you think?

  

Let us pray:  Holy God, thank you for setting aside the Sabbath for us to worship you and remember that you alone are Holy.  In today’s world, where the Sabbath is no longer set aside, help us to find ways to set aside time to worship you through word and deed, remembering that you alone are worthy.  Amen.

Teach Us To Pray

Rev. Debbie Cato
Luke 11:1-13
Fairfield Community Church
August 14, 2022 

Let us pray:  Open our ears and humble our hearts as we approach your Word read and proclaimed today, Great God. May we listen, discern and follow the path you intend for us. Amen.

 

Teach Us to Pray

 

I started out, planning on just preaching on the first 4 verses.  Just the verses about Jesus teaching the disciples to pray.  I did that because the rest of this passage, the rest of this Gospel teaching, is full of teachings that are mis-interpreted, preached wrong,(in my opinion!) and used to make people feel bad. 

“Everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, for everyone who knows, the door will be opened.”  “I tell you, even though the friend whose door you bang on at midnight to ask for bread will not get up and give you anything because you are his friend, at least because of your persistence, he will get up and give you whatever you need.”

Debi Thomas calls these words “landmines.”  Not because Jesus’ words put us in danger but because interpretation matters.  Read the wrong way, Jesus’s teaching on prayer renders prayer transactional, inviting us to believe that God is like a vending machine into which we insert prayers like shining quarters[1] and expect the answers in return – our answers.

We are taught that if we pray hard enough and persistently, prayer will heal diseases, prevent car accidents, feed hungry children, prevent premature deaths, save broken relationships, and stop violent crimes.  So, we pray and pray and pray, and diseases do not always get better, car accidents happen, children starve, relationships break apart, and crime and war happen.  Too often  you are told you just need to pray harder or your faith isn’t strong enough, or God did answer your prayers and the answer was no.[2] 

This can be harmful and make you question everything about your faith, how you pray, and if prayer even matters.  I don’t think it’s good theology!  And I don’t believe it’s what Jesus was saying.  I think that asking what role prayer plays in the face of the ongoing tragedies, injustices, and oppression in our world is raising the hardest questions of our faith and I think that’s important to talk about. So, I’m preaching on this whole passage. What is prayer and why is it important that we pray?  What can we honestly make of Jesus’ teaching in this Gospel passage?  What can we carry away with integrity from these passages?

First, the disciples ask, “Lord, teach me to pray.”  It’s a simple request.  Have you ever asked God to teach you to pray?  Have you ever considered that asking might give God joy?

The disciples were not inexperienced when it came to prayer.  They were devout Jews who most likely grew up attending Sabbath services, lifting their hands in worship, or lying prone on the ground to make their confessions.  They knew how to pray.  What they were asking for was a better technique.[3]

They must have noticed something different when they watched Jesus pray.  Perhaps intimacy.  Belonging.  Trust.  Peace.  A closeness to God that was transformative and nourishing.  Perhaps they noticed that Jesus came away after praying with a renewed perspective, greater strength, and deeper empathy.[4] Maybe they even noticed that Jesus was at peace after He had gone away and prayed.

And what did Jesus tell them to pray for?  The Lord’s Prayer…. These 57 words, covers what Jesus thinks we need to pray about.   These 57 words gather up the whole of life.  

They encompass every dimension of our human existence. 

They encompass all of time – past, present, and future.

Nothing is left out.  Nothing is too big.  Nothing is too small.

I think that when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, he knew that we do not know what we need.  We THINK we know.

          We think we see the whole picture.
     We think we recognize all the factors involved in our circumstances.
                   We think we understand ourselves,
                             Our desires
                                      Our longings
                                                Our fears.
We do not.  But our Father does.

The Father of Jesus, who by grace is OUR Father, knows we need bread and sustenance  We need  forgiveness and reconciliation with God and each other.  He knows we need guidance and protections.  He knows we need to experience His name being Holy, and His kingdom coming now on earth.  We need His perfect will being done.  It turns out that our greatest need is the Father himself.  We discover that our real need is to see the Father’s agenda fulfilled.

But, back to the landmines as Debi Thomas calls them.  Jesus tells the disciples, “Ask, seek, knock.” 

What if we change those words to “yearn” or “hunger” or “want”?  What if Jesus’s lesson here is a lesson on permission?  Permission to name our longings?  To acknowledge the desires which drive and haunt us?  To state without reservation or embarrassment that all is not okay, that we are not yet full, that we are going to keep pounding on the door because we still need bread right now.[5]  That it’s urgent.  We are frantic.

Notice that there is nothing dainty or delicate about this teaching from Jesus.  It is a holy yearning insisting on itself to a God who can more than handle our ferocity.  It is imperative.  I wonder how our prayer life would change if we accepted Jesus’ call to prayer as a call to struggle with God.[6]  We can be  honest in our prayers – both with words and emotions.  After all, God already knows what’s on our hearts. 

And then, Jesus says, “How much more.”  If we read the passage carefully, we will find something that is surprising.  There is only one promise in this teaching.  Jesus finishes his teaching on prayer with a striking sentence:  “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” 

What Jesus promises us in answer to our prayers is the Holy Spirit.  That’s it.  That’s all there is no other promise or guarantee.   But that’s SO huge!

God will never fail to give us His own abundant, indwelling, and overflowing self as the answer we actually need.  When we struggle in prayer, God will not withhold His loving, consoling, healing, transforming, and empowering Spirit from us.[7]

Richard Foster, in “The Perpetual Flame of Devotion”, says, “So why pray?  Not out of obligation.  Not out of a desire to “get” things from God.  Not in the hopes of enhancing our standing in the religious community.  No,  we pray because God in his amazing grace calls to us, seeks us out, and urges us to respond to a love that will not let us go.  This is why we pray.”

Perhaps praying is more about being with God than wanting quick answers and being impatient and wanting to transact business with him.  It’s a releasing of our will and flowing into the will of God. In prayer we learn to walk with God day by day, and we learn a simple love for Jesus. [8]   What if it’s about resting in God’s love and peace and presence and walking away transformed and filled with his peace and strength?

Prayer changes us.  It deepens our relationship with God and give us peace and assurance that He is in charge, and He is with us in all things and all times. 

So, we pray.  We pray because Jesus wants us to.  We pray because it is what God’s children do.  We pray because Jesus invites us to Ask, seek, and knock.  He invites us to be persistent.  We pray because we yearn, and our yearning is precious to God.  With words, without words, through laughter, through tears, in hope and in despair, our prayers usher in God’s Spirit and remind us that we are not alone in this broken, aching world. 

God’s Spirit is our yes.  God’s Spirit is our guarantee.

 

Let us pray:  Loving God.  Thank you for teaching us to pray. Help us to remember that there is no wrong way to pray.  You just want to hear from us. You just want to know us.  Help us to spend time with you and get to know you.  In Jesus name.  Amen.

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[1] Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ.  Debie Thomas.  Cascade Books.  2022. When You Pray. P151.
[2] Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ.  Debie Thomas.  Cascade Books.  2022. When You Pray. P151.
3] Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ.  Debie Thomas.  Cascade Books.  2022. When You Pray. P152.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ.  Debie Thomas.  Cascade Books.  2022. When You Pray. P153.
[6] Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ.  Debie Thomas.  Cascade Books.  2022. When You Pray. P154.
[7][7] Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ.  Debie Thomas.  Cascade Books.  2022. When You Pray. P154.
[8] Richard Foster, “the Perpetual Flame of Devotion.  As posted on Facebook.

Fear Vs. Faith

Debbie Cato
Hebrews 11:1-3; 8-16 and Luke 12:32-40
Fairfield Community Church
August 7, 2022 

Let us pray:  God our helper, by your Holy Spirit, open our minds, that as Scripture is read and your Word is proclaimed, we may be led into your truth and taught your will, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.  AMEN.

 

Fear Vs Faith

 

 Each week, I spend time just meditating on the Scripture passages before I even start to study and think about writing a sermon.  I let them work through my mind and my heart to hear what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to me through God’s word.  Hebrews 11 is in my top 10 or so favorite Scripture passages; I just love it. And when I read this passage from Luke, it really struck a cord.

 “Do not be afraid, little flock,” it begins. That phrase kept coming to mind as I thought about preaching today.  Do not be afraid, little flock.

It seems there is so much to fear these days. All the mass killings in this country.  Homelessness continues to increase as the cost of rent and housing escalates.  The cost of food and gas is challenging all of our budgets.  We are seeing the impact of climate change.  The continued war in Ukraine and how it is affecting the world economy. It’s beyond comprehension how hate seems to have taken over our country. And of course we continue to feel the impact of Covid. The media and our culture seem to encourage us to be afraid. It seems we have lost any common decency toward one another.  Reasons to fear surround us.

It is into this that Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock.”  Do not be afraid.  I found this calming this past week as I heard it repeating in my mind like a song stuck on just one phrase.  Do not be afraid.  Do not be afraid, little flock.

If you read all of Luke 12, you might realize that the first hearers of Luke’s gospel message also had reasons to fear things.  Luke 12 is filled with reminders not to worry or be afraid. 

You see, fear gets in the way of our perception of God’s way and we forget how He works in our lives.  We forget what He has done in the past and that He is still working now in our lives and in the world.

Given the harsh realities of the world, faith is the ability to see with the inner eye, to see what cannot be seen with the natural eye.  It is the ability to see God through the trustworthiness of His promises through all the past generations.  Our culture does not support our faith – “the assurance of things hoped for.” 

 It is thought that the Book of Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem to encourage them to persevere in the face of persecution.  Just like the hearers of this letter, we need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness because we forget.  To show us that faith is possible, the author of Hebrews gives us real life examples of people who believed without ever having proof; believed without ever seeing.

Hebrews 11 is a roll call of the faithful; naming those in every generation – a great cloud of witnesses – who courageously stepped out in faith based only on God’s promises. With his definition of faith in mind, the author of Hebrews starts leafing through the Old Testament if you will, stopping here and there to tell the story of faith’s heroes.  Face after face, name after name passes before the reader.  Names we recognize.  These Hall of Famers were righteous; they journeyed obediently in faith; they were tested by suffering; and they believed without seeing.  And hear this:  none of them were perfect!

We didn’t read the verses about Abel, who by faith offered a better offering than Cain.  We didn’t read the verses that remind us that by faith, Enoch was snatched from life, never to be seen again.  Because of his faith, God took him away so that he could escape death.

 And of course, Noah.  We all know the story about Noah and the ark and the animals and the flood.   The author of Hebrews lists Noah as a great witness of faith.  Why?  Noah lived at a time when the earth had become corrupt in the sight of God.  But Noah was a righteous man and walked with God.  So, God gave Noah the task of building an ark.  And he did.  Even though everyone mocked him.  They made fun of him.  Even his family.  But Noah kept building, based on his faith in God, and the ark saved his family and all the animals of the earth.   

But, let’s talk about Abraham.  Abraham was just living his life when God came to him and said, “Pack it all up, Abraham.  Leave this home of yours and go to a foreign land; a place you don’t know about and live there.”  And by faith, Abraham packed up his belongings and his family and his herds and took off.  Not because he had planned to move.  Not because he knew where this place was, and he always wanted to go there.  He went because God asked him to.  Abraham stepped out in faith.  In a big way.

 And if we kept reading the rest of Hebrews 11, we would find Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses and others.  Each of whom did something by faith though they did not understand and though they were each afraid. 

 Faith is a hard thing to explain, isn’t it?  It’s a human response of trust and gratitude that pours out of God’s unconditional love for us, built on a foundation of God’s promises.  Faith is often how we are able to cope with the challenges of life.  We have faith that God is in it.  Somewhere.  

Somehow. How do we know?  Often we don’t!  Faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”   Faith is trusting in the promises of God just because God is God. Because of what God has done in the past. 

Faith can also provoke hostility and ridicule.  People laughed at Noah for building the Ark. I have trouble believing that Sarah was thrilled about packing up her life and moving to a foreign place when Abraham told her the news.  The Israelites were consistently hostile toward Moses as he led them out of Egypt.  Whenever they were unhappy, they turned on Moses. “Take us back to Egypt.  It wasn’t so bad there!” they cried.  And Jesus, well he was certainly mocked and tortured for his faith.

I think faith is a kind of seeing.  We see something compelling in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus and in the communal life of his followers.  I think faith is the perception that the way of Jesus is the way I want to be; the way I was created to be; created in the image of God.   Faith is the awareness that the meaning of life goes way beyond the creation of wealth or power or privilege; but rather it is about loving God and loving one another.[1]

Faith puts us at odds with the dominate culture when culture is telling us that it is O.K. that some people are marginalized and excluded from positions of power and privilege.  That it is O.K. that some people are treated as sub-human and hostility and ridicule and economic discrimination become legitimized.[2]  That it’s O.K. to encourage and spread hate toward people that may look or believe differently than you or I.  Do we believe that everyone is made in the image of God or not? Here, faith becomes courage.  “Do not be afraid, little flock,” says Jesus.

In our passage in Luke, Jesus reminds us several times that we must always be ready.  Do we stand up and speak and put our faith; the teachings of the Gospel into action, or do we stay quiet and be safe?

It is for times like this that we need to be able to remember the persons and events from the past who were faithful even when they did not understand; even when they were afraid.  Our story is a great story that reaches back farther than Abraham.  Abraham who trusted God and left his home without knowing where he was going.  None of these ancestors fully received the promise that God offered.  They remained strangers and foreigners, sojourners and pilgrims, even in the land of promise.  They died in faith without seeing the promise fulfilled.

We cannot watch every part of our own lives and those we love.  Fortunately, we do not have to, for we know from Scripture and the Holy Spirit that God is watching over us.  What gives our faith a firm foundation is that Jesus Christ is Lord and holds our future, come what may on earth.  Faith is ultimately a gift of the Holy Spirit.  Our opportunity is to respond to God’s initiative of this incredible grace.[3]  

Let us pray:     Gracious and Loving God, your forgiveness is unshakable.  Thank you for never seeking to find fault in us, yet always going before us and getting our attention with your gracious way.  Thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit and our faith to believe that you are always with us and always in the world regardless of how  much there is to fear.  Continue to help us to have faith even when it is hard to believe and hard to see your presence.  Help us to be the hope that others so desperately need.  Help us to be the hands and feet of Jesus by living out our faith the way Jesus lived out his ministry in the world.  In your Son’s holy name we pray.  Amen. 

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[1] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 3.  Hebrew 11:1-3;8-16.  Theological Perspective.  Page. 330.  John Shellby.
2 Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 3.  Hebrew 11:1-3;8-16.  Theological Perspective.  Page. 330.  John Shellby.
[3] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 3.  Hebrew 11:1-3;8-16.  Pastoral Perspective.  David E. Gray.  P. 332.