Community Church Sermons

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B - November 26, 2000

"The Invisibility Factor"

Hebrews 11:1-3

This morning, our journey through the letter to the Hebrews comes to a conclusion with an almost revolutionary description of faith. But before we get to this new revolutionary description of faith, let's take a moment to dispel a few common misconceptions about faith.

First, faith is not some passive assent to doctrines about God, creation, Jesus Christ, the Bible, etc. One of my intrepid Bible students recently said to me, "I really wish I had the faith to believe that God created the world in six, twenty-four hour days - but I don't. I guess I'm just not a very good Christian." Another friend of mine sort of agrees with that, and says that unless you believe in a literal six-day creation of the world, you're not being faithful to the Lord. You see, there is a sense out in the world that faith means believing certain religious doctrines. But that's not what the Bible tells us faith is.

Second, faith is not simply accepting someone else's word "on faith." In fact, there's too much of this in our world today. You have probably all received in your email this week a message about the Federal Communications Commission's plans to take the TV show "Touched By An Angel" off the air. According to the email, the FCC doesn't like the fact that it mentions the word God so much. In fact, not only has this message been received in our community, but about a million and a half of us have already signed the petition and forwarded it to the FCC, as well as to all our email buddies. And I guess I'm on everybody's list! Trouble is, it's a hoax. And a pretty old one at that. It's what's called an urban legend, mixing a tiny smidgeon of fact with a whole lot of bull. But because this hoax hits us in a place of great sensitivity - our religion - there is something inside us that urges us to drop all our critical reasoning skills, and accept the claim on faith. But blindly believing everything that comes down the pike is not what the Bible tells us faith is.

Neither is faith a vague kind of spirituality. A believing attitude towards life. Some "modern" forms of Christianity often foster the notion that faith is chiefly an emotion, a positive outlook, a readiness to `believe.' It doesn't much matter what you believe, or perhaps even what kind of behavior your belief leads to. The main thing is to be a believing person. And so we assure each other that we're all climbing up the same mountain toward God, and we'll meet each other at the top. But the scriptures do not in any way equate faith with such `believing-in-believing.' That's not what the Bible tells us faith is.

Which brings us to this new revolutionary description of faith found in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. Listen to the words: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith, our ancestors received God's 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."

Now here's what's interesting to me. Our Hebrew ancestors did not believe most of the doctrinal things we Christians believe. And yet, our text tells us God approved them as people of faith. Similarly, our Hebrew ancestors did not blindly accept anything. Which is why it took them forty years to make about a seven-day journey. And yet, God approved them as people of faith. Likewise, our Hebrew ancestors were not the best "believers" around. In fact, their relationship with God was always contentious and full of questions and doubt. And yet, God approved them as people of faith.

So, if faith is not believing in doctrines, not blindly accepting things, not just being a religious person, then what is faith?

I wonder if you might listen to another translation of today's passage. It's from Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Version of the Bible, and it goes like this: "Now faith is the turning of dreams into deeds. It is betting your life on the unseen realities. It was for such faith that men (and women) of old were martyred. And by so relating our lives, we become aware that history is woven to God's design so that the seen event is a projection of the unseen intent."

Koininia Farm, in Americus, Georgia was the bold enterprise led by Clarence Jordan whose Bible translation I just quoted. The Farm was started in 1942 when Jordan and his wife Florence, along with Martin and Mabel England came to Sumter County to try to live out Jesus' teachings in the real world of poverty and racism in the rural south. Their dream was to form an interracial community where blacks and whites could live together. And others caught hold of their dream too, and joined the effort. Despite firebombs, bullets, KKK rallies, death threats, property damage, excommunication from churches, and economic boycotts, the community grew. It became a powerful living witness to the promises of God.

Now, what would cause ordinary people like you and me to strike out on such a daring enterprise? In the face of a world whose visible reality at the time was a segregated society whose division was enforced by violence, what would cause people to dare try to build a community of racial unity and nonviolence?

Why, faith would!

You see, the first part of faith is the art of the invisible. It is the practice of peering into the way things are, and discerning something yet invisible - the promise of what God is trying to accomplish. And then the second part of faith is this: daring to step out and move toward that yet-invisible promise!

As Clarence Jordan translated, "Faith is the turning of dreams into deeds. It is betting your life on the unseen realities"

Now, the book of Hebrews tells us that this is what Abraham and Sara did. This is what Moses and the people of Israel did. This is what Joshua did. And Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jepthah, and David, and Samuel, and the prophets.

They discerned within the harsh realities of their own circumstances, the invisible promises of God. And they believed those promises. For wandering Abraham and childless Sarah, it was a promise that there was a homeland out there for them, and a child, too! And so they went to find them. For Noah, living under the gathering storm clouds of great evil, it was a promise that God would save his family from the Flood. And so he lived a righteous life and went and built an ark. For Moses and the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt, it was a promise of freedom from slavery - so Moses went to Pharaoh and demanded, "Let my people go!"

And the Bible tells us to look at this invisibility factor. This is what faith is! Locating God's invisible promise within the visible reality you face. And then betting your life on it by living in anticipation of the promise coming true!

I didn't realize it at the time, but this is the very faith that brought me into the ministry. When it began to occur to me that something - or someone - was nudging me toward the pastoral ministry, all of my friends thought it was pretty comical, and I myself was deeply skeptical. I've told you stories about my youthful misadventures with my best friend Dennis Astrella, and many of you have responded to those stories by noting that I must have been a pretty rotten kid. That makes me chuckle a bit because the only stories I've told you have been the good stories -the stories I can tell you because they're either not so bad, or the statute of limitations has passed. Oh, if you only knew the stories behind the stories!

So when God started whispering in my ear about Christian ministry, my first reaction was, "God, you've GOT to be kidding!" As my youthful co-conspirators often said, "We know what you're REALLY like!" There was this pretty obvious reality in which I lived.

But there, within the reality of my life as it was, appeared this promise of what God could make my life become. And so, without even knowing it was faith, I told God, "Okay, I'll take the next step, and we'll see what happens." And a few steps, skips, hops and jumps later, here I am, still pursuing that promise, and discovering that God can even use people like me to once in a while touch others with grace and hope and the healing love of Jesus.

"Faith is the turning of dreams into deeds. It is betting your life on the unseen realities"

But an even better illustration is found today amidst the terrible violence in the Middle East. Once a week in Jerusalem, while bullets fly, and bombs explode, and people turn against each other, two families - one Jewish, the other Palestinian Christian - meet together to eat and talk. One week, the meeting is held at one home, and the next week, at the other home. And when these two families from opposite sides of the conflict meet, others join them - mostly Jews when in the Jewish neighborhood, mostly Arabs of various religious backgrounds when in the Palestinian home. And they discuss the current situation and try to understand each other.

And recently, when a newspaper reporter asked why they bothered to take the risk to sit down and talk, this is what the Palestinian man said: "God has promised that one day we will sit down together in peace, and we're just trying to push that promise along."

"Faith is the turning of dreams into deeds. It is betting your life on the unseen realities"

I witnessed a true personal example of this kind of faith last Wednesday. I was at Wal-Mart picking up a few last minute items for Thanksgiving. When I got up to the cashier, I asked her if she was all ready for the holiday, and she said, "Yes." I asked, "Are you staying home, or going out?" She looked at me with a funny kind of look and answered, "Well, my ex-husband - and his wife - are picking up me and my son - and we're going over to their house for Thanksgiving."

Well, that seemed kind of different! So, pressing on, I asked her, "Oh? Do you all get along?"

She sort of paused for a few seconds, as if to think about the question, and then she replied. "Well, it's not so much 'Do we get along?' so much as it is 'Do we want our son to have a mom and dad who can set aside their differences to be there for him when he needs us?'"

And that's faith. Taking hold of, and living out the larger promise in the midst of the hurt, and anger, and disappointment of our lives.

And so as you and I go out to live each day this week, we are challenged with this invisibility factor. Within every circumstance we encounter – whether facing an illness, or dealing with a loss, or raising kids, or trying to figure out what in the world to do with our lives now that retirement has come – there are the dreams and promises of God. And the most exciting life you can ever discover is one in which you identify those dreams, and bet your life on them – daring to turn the dreams into deeds.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Friends, go this week, and live in faith!