Sermon for August 11, 2019 - Proper 14C - The Rev'd Elise A. Feyerherm

Genesis 15:1-6 – Psalm 33:12-22 – Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 – Luke 12:32-40

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This passage from the letter to the Hebrews is one of the most well known in the Bible, oft-quoted as the classic definition of Christian faith. According to this classic definition, faith is about believing in the existence of realities we can’t see in this world – things like the existence of God, or grace, or salvation, or life after death. Believing, if you will, in things that are impossible.

Lewis Carroll, in his book, Through the Looking-Glass, perhaps said it best: when Alice says to the White Queen that “one can’t believe impossible things,” the White Queen responds confidently, “I daresay you haven’t had much practice…When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”[1]

Is that what faith is? Believing at least six impossible things before breakfast? Putting our heads in the sand and ignoring the reality around us? Is faith in God and the gospel about sustaining with sheer effort and determination the conviction that what we only wish for is really true? Is faith the religious equivalent of denying climate change?

Despite all the advances we’ve made in translating the ancient text of the Bible, this is one of those instances in which an earlier translation serves us much better, I think. You might remember the way the King James Version puts it: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Instead of assurance, substance; in place of conviction, evidence. The difference may not be immediately apparent, but it’s important. For one thing, it’s closer to the original Greek. The word that our most recent version of the Bible translates as “assurance” is hypostasis – meaning essence, substance – what makes a thing itself.

Why does this matter? I think that the King James Version shows us that faith is not just a subjective feeling or desire – faith is not just something we drum up inside ourselves to fool ourselves into believing what is impossible. Faith has a reality of its own, something outside of us. Faith is a real connection to what God is doing in us and in the world. Faith is not so much what we think or feel – it’s something like a stance of openness and eagerness for what God is already doing.

As I sit at the desk in the study in our new apartment, I can see out the window that our neighbors have a rain barrel, painted cheerfully with flowers and big blue raindrops. Day in and day out that rain barrel sits quietly, patiently, ready to receive the rain that flows down the gutters. This summer, thankfully, we have had a good amount of rain, and I imagine that the rain barrel is sufficiently full. But there have been other summers, no doubt, when the rain barrel had to wait weeks and months to be filled. Did the rain actually exist, in those times of drought? Would it ever come? The rain barrel’s stance was the same in any event – remaining open, waiting, ready always to receive the rain, to be filled to overflowing and to spread life-giving water to the garden.

In times of emptiness and times of plenty, it stands ready, open, actual evidence that water is and will yet be given. That stance of openness, of readiness to receive and to give, is one way of understanding what faith is. Rather than an intellectual theory, faith is a verb – a way of being that itself is the substance of what we cannot always see.

The example of the rain barrel has its definite limits; it is too passive, perhaps, to help us understand our own faith. What I love about the rain barrel is its steadfastness, its patience, and the way it takes what it has received and turns it into a blessing for the world. But for us human beings, faith is more active; it’s not just sitting and waiting (although sometimes it is that), but an active turning toward what gives us life, an intentional pursuit of what is just beyond our reach. One foot in front of the other, just as Abram turned toward the voice of God and followed it step by step toward the land of Canaan.

So what if faith isn’t so much something we have as something we practice, and in practicing we actually know faith as the very substance of what we’re moving toward? A rain barrel doesn’t have to practice to be what it is, but human beings do. The way we know who we are and where we are supposed to go is by going there, a little bit each day, each hour, each minute of our lives.

When I was about seven, I started piano lessons. I played my scales, and learned “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” and my child’s fingers began to find their way along the keyboard. My eyes learned to recognize half notes and quarter notes and eighth notes, bass clef and treble clef, three-quarter time and common meter, and gradually what my eyes saw, my hands began to play. I wasn’t very proficient at first, like anyone who learns a new skill, whether a musical instrument or a sport or sewing or a video game. But at every moment, from the first time I placed my thumb on middle C to the college recitals, I wasn’t just pretending: I was playing the piano. The practicing is nothing but the doing, at every stage, in every circumstance.

Faith is like that. Faith is not so much a thing as a verb – we are faithing our way along, and in the faithing is the very substance of faith – the real thing, not just a pretend belief in an impossible thing, whether before breakfast or after tea. All along, the real substance of what we hope for is there.

One of the hardest truths about faith is that faithing is mostly about letting go – of things, of money, of others, even of ourselves. The water barrel is filled with water, but it isn’t a water barrel, not really, unless it gives its water away. Abram’s first attempt at faithing was to leave his home, to let go of what he had in order to follow God’s promise of progeny and land. Jesus tells his disciples – that is, us – to sell our possessions and give alms – literally, to do acts of mercy. I think this wasn’t a metaphor – I think he really meant it. I haven’t figured out yet what to do about it, but I actually think he meant that faithing requires the act of releasing everything that has the potential to capture our heart – which means just about everything.

Letting go – letting go of our ego, as we sit in silent prayer waiting upon God. Letting go of the accomplishments the world expects us to have, as we take time every day to praise God, pray the psalms, read Scripture, and intercede for the world. Letting go of others’ expectations as we choose to worship on Sunday mornings instead of sleeping in or playing soccer. Letting go of more entertaining activities to serve lunch and read books with kids from the inner city.

Faithing often makes itself known through risk – through acts whose outcome we cannot know or control but whose essential goodness we instinctively understand. The risking, the letting go, these are not just signs of faith – they are faith itself. What we seek, that is, the presence of God and the blessings that presence entails, is in the risking and the letting go actually within us and around us, like the water in the rain barrel. And it is ready to flow out of us into the world.

“Faithing” is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” What we seek is already here, in our midst. The kingdom of God is already here, at least in part. God, through our faithing, has made it so.

[1] Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass. London: Chancellor Press, 1982, p. 173.