GREAT EXPECTATION

 

Sermon delivered on the Tenth Sunday after Trinity the 8th August 2010 by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes in the congregations of St. Alban's, George Town, and St. Mary's, CB, Cayman Islands in the service of the Holy Eucharist.

Scriptures:        Genesis 15:1-6             Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16              S. Luke 12:32-40

 Hebrews 11:1  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

 Faith appears to be given here a very wide definition. Someone who undertakes an oil painting, for instance, or any other work of art, would be included. Those first strokes of the brush are done in trust that they will contribute something to the final result, and there may not even be a pre-drawn pattern to be followed. Any number of things could go wrong before the picture is completed, but only the artist who perseveres, keeping the vision or the concept of the final result in his mind, will get from the first few strokes of the brush to the final picture in all its simplicity or complexity. The same might be said about an undertaking to build or establish one's home, or to write a book. The author of the book of Hebrews seems to say in what has been read today that the creation of the world is a work of art, with God Himself being the Artist. “By faith we understand,” he says, “that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which appear.” In other words, it was made out of what is  not evident. It was in the mind of the divine Artist, who then brings it into being.

 

Our second lesson today then goes on to illustrate this idea from the examples of Abraham and Sarah, who carried out the divine Artist’s intent to make of their lives something that did not appear possible to them or to any other human person. They became the ancestors of Israel, and we ourselves through Jesus Christ are their children by adoption by God’s grace. The Epistle to the Hebrews says that by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. That was like the first brush strokes of someone painting a picture he has been given a vision for, but has not yet determined how he will be able to achieve the effect or the result he has in mind. Our first lesson from Genesis records Abraham’s puzzled reaction to the word of God to him in a vision, confirming the promises he had already received. Already God’s promises seemed to him to be incapable of fulfilment, because they were promises of his becoming a great nation, and of having descendants so numerous as to be like the dust of the earth; while yet at an advanced age, he still had no son. His wife remained childless. We will remember how the story goes on, how Abraham and Sarah try to resolve the contradiction between vision and apparent reality by begetting a child through a concubinage arrangement, but in the end, God Himself brought about the purpose He had promised, as indeed He always will when we wait faithfully for Him, and all they needed to have done was wait for Him to act in the time He appointed, even if it involved a seemingly impossible miracle.

 

It takes real quality of character and courage to hold on to something with the faith that Abraham and Sarah were called to have, and the account of them that we get in Genesis is brilliant in showing not only how they persevered, but also their frailty, and the questionable patch or two in their record. Our Old Testament lesson, today’s portion of their story, however, concludes with a ringing endorsement of Abraham’s faith. The Lord in the vision reinforced the promise of descendants, the number of which had previously been compared to the dust of the earth, by now comparing the number with the stars of heaven, and we are told, “Abraham believed the Lord, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” It is true they exhibited human frailty, and the characteristic of trying to work out God’s purpose in ways that were not always God’s ways. So are we all under such pressure so to do. Yet they were accounted righteousness through belief nevertheless. New Testament faith regards that as a paradigm for the way that, believing in the risenness of Christ crucified, we can be accounted righteous by God too, regardless of our frailties and our record. Abraham never ignored what God had declared to him. He believed, and ultimately his visions came true. We too are called to perseverance in faith in the Word and work of God, the Word made flesh and His manifestation of the glory of God. Just as Abraham stood on the promises to him, so do we stand on the declarations and promises to us. That is why we can with St. Paul make such a prayer as "God grant us, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, That Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith."

 

THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF FAITH

The Gospel today from St. Luke 12 gives some examples of such strengthening and transformation. The teaching is, first, that no other treasure compares with the treasure in the heavens that does not fail. The strengthening of faith changes our outlook with regard to possessions and material securities, such as our homes, our cars and our reputations. Faith enables us to pass beyond reliance upon them, and beyond the fear of their loss. We begin to become able to invest as we should in God's Kingdom and to be generous. Secondly, the strengthening and transformation of faith makes us Christocentric. As Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, so He causes our outlook to be transformed in the direction of watchfulness for Him. "Be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to Him at once when He comes and knocks." "You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour." The teaching may be  referred  not only to the final coming of Christ, but also to His appearance in the hour of crisis, challenge or commitment. We are to be prepared to hear the still small voice speaking with quiet authority within the cacophony of blaring and often contradictory ideas and impulses. We are to know what things to listen to less, so that we may the more catch His true command. With this, God is not ashamed to be called our God. We will be embarked on the journey and the watch of faith, and will win the record that is in God’s own mind for us to win.

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