What in the world is “faith”? When I was a young adult in First Baptist Church, Apopka, there was an elderly gentleman who had a saying about faith—when you would ask him about what he should do or what the church should do, he would always say “keep on keepin’ on”. I hope that when he died his children thought to engrave that on his tombstone because it summed up his feelings on God, on life, and on the church. No matter what—whether we live to see the promises of God fulfilled or not—we’re to keep on keepin’ on. This is, in fact, exactly what the writer of this letter to the Hebrews is telling us. The verses in between the passages that we read today list the heroes of the faith—both men and women—a long list of folks who lived in faith believing the various promises that God gave to them throughout their lives. This list simply illustrates, for the author, the truth of the first statement: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.”
When Christians and Jewish people talk about being sure, we often use the word faith. The problem with that is that there are so many subtleties to the common meaning of the word faith that I am not so sure that we truly know what we mean when we use it. “Keep the faith”, “have faith”, “walk by faith”, are just a few examples. Here’s a recent example from numerous conversations in my own life. Let’s talk about roundabouts—more specifically let’s talk about the kind of roundabouts found here in The Villages. Unlike the roundabouts I painlessly navigated for 25 years in New York and Massachusetts where the rules are obeyed by all and enforced by vigilant law enforcement officers—the roundabouts in this lazy, dazy, kick-back community are just a little bit different. When we first arrived in The Villages, I expressed my concern about these wild and crazy intersections and was told on more than one occasion, by more than one of you, that I just had to pull into the roundabout and have “faith” that no one would hit me. You meant well, knowing that crawling around the roundabout as you had seen me do, was certainly no safer. Going to the “welcome home” event for newbies, I came home with the prize I had been looking for. (Holds up a Roundabout Brochure). Who knew—there’s a brochure—fairly plainly written—followed by almost no one. Having “faith” that no one would hit me has been replaced with an ability to twirl my head around in almost all directions as I now navigate the roundabouts with appropriate speed and expertise. Faith, in this case, might not have been what was called for.
If you are familiar with Oprah’s magazine, you may know that the last article in every single issue is called “What I know for sure”. Now I will admit that this short article is the first thing I read in every single issue that I look at. Why—I think we may all be just a little fascinated with what folks say they know for sure—certainty being something that most of us wish we had more of. Sometimes for Oprah, it feels a little trivial as in the issue where she acknowledges that she more than likely owns too many shoes (and to be fair to her, her conclusion about living responsibly was far more significant) or it may have great consequence as in the article where she discusses turning away from anything that encourages her to feel badly about who she is as a person. Whatever, the case, she ‘knows it for sure’ and we are drawn to it. Oprah says that she includes this article every month because some 12 years ago, film critic Gene Siskell asked her in an interview what she knew for sure and she couldn’t answer him. She set out that very week to identify what she knew for sure.
We, living out the assurance of the first sentence in our passage today, have many examples to follow as we identify what we know for sure. Although I shortened our passage for today, the full passage lists Abel, Noah, Jacob, Issac, Essau, Abraham and Sarah and others. In this passage, faith is presented as something that is lived and lived longly—not a rash or heroic one-time act, but a history of living into the promises of God. Faith, for these ancestors of ours, undergirded their lives as people individually, and as “a people” of God—a series of actions, if you will, taken together over decades which totally and truly changes who we are and how we live. It might seem as if living a life of faith needs a good PR makeover—televangelists of today and some of the circuit revivalists of the past have made “faith” into one time “believe in my ability to heal and you will be healed” events. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that those sudden and isolated acts of faith never come true, but the kind of faith that this passage calls us to cannot be lived in a televised instant, it can only be lived out over time in real life. Faith then, lived out over time, becomes a part of the fabric of who we are, not something we experience every once in a while.
Throughout my ministerial and theological journey, I have been required several times to write out my so-called “statement of faith”. Wanting to say first of all, “is this a trick question?” I have made peace with the process primarily through some concepts which I believe describe my personal faith. First of all, and I am gratified to find my thoughts aligned with this scripture—is my adherence to the word steadfast. I believe that God is a steadfast God, sure for all time—even those times we are just barely hanging in with our relationship with God. But the steadfastness works both ways, and I believe that I have walked a life of steadfastly believing that the promises God made to me and to all of us as children in the faith would someday come to fruition. What has changed is my knowledge that, just as Abraham and others “only saw the promises from a distance”, that I may have only glimpses of the “promised land;” but I will know, nevertheless, that God is steadfastly working the divine purpose out in my life and in the life of this church.
Several of you, maybe even many of you, have spoken with me about all that you want for this church and for this church to be. And I have often reminded you that we are on a journey, a journey full of ups and downs, trials and successes, and that, in fact, we are a new (dare I say it? “baby”) church just learning to walk. We have come so far, so fast that we may sometimes forget that we are only a little over six months into this journey. We must remember, even as we celebrate what God has so richly given us right now, right here—and I invite you to look around and sit for just a brief moment in silence in this beautiful space that God has given to us in which to worship! (PAUSE) We are indeed blessed beyond measure, but we must never forget that we are in Abraham’s tents, singing songs in a land that is still strange for us. We ask ourselves to focus not on our “homeland” that we have left behind, but on what lies ahead for this people of God. I invite you to become an integral and faithful part of this journey—becoming familiar with all the struggles and joys. We do not often remember that building a church community—a faith community—if you will, requires steadfastness, patience, and hope. We have been given these blessings in abundance—it is up to us to remain faithfully focused on the “land” promised to us when the first tiny little group of people sat down and said, “we believe that God is calling us on a journey—a journey to build an MCC church, right here—right now.” And so, I prayerfully and lovingly say to you and to me, on this day when we sit in a beautiful and large room surrounded by sunlight and God’s presence, when you experience frustrations (and you will), remember that our faith comes from the knowledge that God has called us to this journey and that we follow in the footsteps of the faithful of all time. And when you experience great joys, remember that God is calling us to more, and that those joys are markers along the way that we are on the right path. Let us go forward in faith with God and with each other. Amen and amen.
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