18th Sunday in Trinity
Hebrews 11:1-39
"How do you recognize faith?"
Many years ago, a pornography case came before the United States Supreme Court. Justice Potter Stewart said this:
“I shall not today attempt further to define [obscenity]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it….”
This is not, by the way, a sermon on pornography. Justice Stewart’s comment points to something we run up against from time to time which is the point of today’s homily – the puzzle we face when we cannot define something very well, but we nevertheless know it when we see it.
I have dealt with this kind of puzzle for a long time in my work with ICGS. In attempting to lay out a Biblical exposition of masculinity and femininity, we have often found ourselves saying much as Justice Stwart would say – “masculinity and femininity are difficult to define, but we know them when we see them.”
In today’s Lesson from the Book of Hebrews we have yet another example of this puzzle, but the puzzle turns out not tp be about pornography, or the nature of manliness or womanliness, but rather faith – that quality, or characteristic, or feature of true spiritual life. The just shall live by faith, Paul tells us. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness. Earlier in Hebrews 11 we read that “ … without faith it is impossible to please [God], for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
If you have been a Christian very long, you will know that Hebrews Chapter 11 is “the faith chapter,” and that it begins with that fundamental definition of faith: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” When I read that verse, I do not doubt that it is true, but neither do I profess to understand what it is saying with very much clarity. The word “substance” bothers me – not because I think it is false, but because I do not know what to think when that word is used. Evidence is something one sees, but faith is evidence for something you do not see. It sounds like a riddle, and to judge by the writings of many learned saints over two millennia, I suppose it is a riddle. For this verse generates as many different kinds of exposition as there are expositors to expound it.
Are we then left with a puzzle to ponder and nothing more? Well, no. Hebrews chapter 11 is 40 verses long, and it is thick with examples of what the faith is all about. To be sure, it begins with a statement that is as close to a definition as one could hope for, but I am not going to dwell on that definition, mostly because this chapter of Hebrews, which is all about faith, does NOT dwell on the definition. Instead, it illustrates, demonstrates, and elucidates how faith works. Even though the author of Hebrews gives us a definition of faith, he does not give us an explanation of faith. Rather, he shows us many different manifestations of FAITH AT WORK in the lives of those who believe.
If we are going to know faith when we see it, what are we going to see? There are two answers to this question that are NOT correct. I want to mention them in turn.
Faith is not to be recognized because of the happiness or well-being of the one who has faith. Of COURSE, some of those who have faith experience great happiness and prosperity. This chapter mentions many such people. In the lesson we heard read a short while ago, we heard these words: “For the time would fail me to tell of … [those] who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35Women received their dead raised to life again.”
There’s one for you! Getting your dead loved one back from the dead. Perhaps the author of Hebrews was thinking of Mary and Martha, who got Lazarus back from the dead. Or, perhaps, the widow of Nain, whose son Jesus raised from the dead when he happened to come across her son’s funeral procession. Or, perhaps, the Shunnamite woman whose dead son ELISHA raised from the dead.
There’s a very cheap and tawdry version of this view of faith common on the television sets today. You will also find it littering most of the shelves in Christian bookstores. It’s evidently a very appealing view of faith, to judge by the kind of exposure it gets in the Christian market place.
It goes by many names: Word of faith, the propserity gospel, name it and claim it Christianity. The idea is simple: if you have faith, you will propser. God wants you well, God wants you to be rich, God wants to shower you with blessings. And we will know that you have faith in God when we see you prospering in all sorts of material ways. We will know you have faith when we see all your diseases healed, and those of your loved ones.
As I said before, blessing of a GREAT many kinds – material as well as spiritual – does descend on the lives of those who believe God. But, it is a mistake to suppose that we recognize faith because of the richness, the wealth, the well-being of those who have faith.
Why? Well, the very chapter of Hebrews that shows us FAITHFUL people in the midst of victory and triumph ALSO shows us FAITHFUL people who are in the midst of terrible trials, misery, and death. Hebrews 11 not only shows us faithful people in the midst of triumph, it shows us faithful people like this:
“Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36Still others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-- … They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.”
Doesn’t sound very much like the properity gospel to me. And, yet, these are people in Faith Hall of Fame!
Whatever faith is, and however it is we see it, we do NOT recognize faith because of the happiness OR misery of those who are faithful. Among the faithful are those who are victorious; and among the faithful are those who suffer miserably. How do we recognize faith when we see it? It is NOT by looking at the happiness or lack of happiness of those who are faithful.
Nor is it by looking at the spiritual maturity or saintliness of those who are said to be faithful. Again, this chapter of Hebrews shows us why. Consider the individuals who show up in this roster of faithful people. Noah, Moses, Abraham, and Joseph. When we think of these people, we think of lives filled with spiritual power and faith.
But, saintliness is not the same thing as having faith. How do I know this? Because of what I find here in Hebrews 11 – for sure, the author of Hebrews mentions people like Noah and Moses and Abraham and Joseph. But look who else he mentions:
He mentions Sarah, who laughed in God’s face when he promised her a child.
He mentions Jacob, whose name means "deceiver". He mentions Gideon, a man who couldn’t find the courage to follow God’s leading until it was proved to him again and again and again. He mentions Barak, who warrior who couldn’t even find the battlefield unless a woman show it to him. And he wouldn’t go to that battlefield unless Deborah held his hand and went with him. He mentions Jephthah -- a judge of Israel so rash and intemperate that he either offered his daughter as a human sacrifice or (if you take a different reading of the passage) he consigned her to life-long servitude at the tabernacle.
He mentions Rahab the harlot. There’s a saint for you for you! The madam of the chief whore house in Jericho. He mentions Samson, for crying out loud! Here was a man thoroughly given over to trafficking with God’s enemies, marrying one of them, and getting himself completely overpowered and enslaved to them. And, the one mighty deed he is best known for resulted in his own death in a pagan temple.
I wonder – is there a feast day for Saint Jephthah? Ladies, would you be pleased to have your husbands join the Brotherhood of Saint Sampson? Have you ever heard of anything like the Barak Boys Brigade? Or how about naming your church female youth group Rahab’s Girls? I will say this: Gideon’s International took their name from the Gideon of Judges chapter 6 and 7.
Yes, there are some great saints in Hebrews 11, and there are some spiritual rascals there too. Both of them alike are named as faithful, and so I suggest that whatever it is we’re looking at when we see faithful people, their faithfulness is not the same thing as their saintliness. And, if they are not so saintly, that does not mean they are not faithful people, for many very unsaintly people them will be faithful enough to wind up being mentioned in Hebrews 11.
I don’t know about you, but this is a great help and encouragement to me. I remember one time that Chuck Colson is supposed to have thrown up his hands his hands at people who said we should strive to be like Jesus. “Jesus!,” he exclaimed. “I can’t keep up with Mother Teresa!”
So, what is it that we’re looking at when we’re looking at faith in faithful people? What is it that this chapter of Hebrews shows us over and over and over again? It’s simply this – you see people doing something, or sometimes refusing to do something, all because they are taking God at his word and counting on Him to fulfill what he has promised.
Over and over and over again, we here things like this:
By faith, Abraham obeyed …….. By faith Sarah bore a child … By faith Abraham offered up Isaac … By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau … By faith, Moses’ parents hid him.
By faith, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter … By faith, Israel passed through the Red Sea. … By faith, the walls of Jericho came down … By faith, Rahab the harlot received the spies in peace …
By faith, people subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Others were tortured, 36Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, … were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted,[6] were slain with the sword … wandered about … destitute, afflicted, tormented … in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
Repeatedly, this chapter of Hebrews does NOT show us faith in its bare essense – in its spiritual nakedness, as it were. Instead we see faith with its clothes on, and the clothing worn by faith is always something the faithful man or woman is DOING.
If we were to apply this chapter of Hebrews the way that modern subjective Christianity usually does, we would exhort one another to have faith, to conjure up belief, to look inside ourselves and try to fire up something to feel, something to sense, to set about chasing our spiritual tails until we catch them in our jaws. But, that is not what the author of Hebrews tells us.
We are supposed to be faithful people too. We are supposed to grow in our faith, to mature our faith, to finish our lives more faithful than when we began it. We have a multitude of examples of such people in the Bible, and even more of them outside the Bible, in the history of the martyrs of the Church, and in the lives of faithful Christians we meet in our own lifetimes.
And, after showing us such faithful people, doing things by faith, taking God at his word and depending on Him to fulfill his promise to us, the author of Hebrews says this:
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
God grant that we may take God at his word concerning his Son Jesus Christ. Let us depend on him who is the author of our faith to finish our faith as Jesus’ faith in His father was finished in the resurrection from the dead. God grant that these multitude of witnesses may encourage us to clothe our faith with works of righteousness, so that we too may one day join our Savior at the right hand of God in heaven.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
