Memories

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Beginning note:  The “Letter to the Hebrews” might not have been a letter at all, but rather, a sermon.  So for this sermon on a sermon, I put myself in the ancient preacher’s shoes.

 “I’ve been reading all my old letters,” the grey-headed, wise woman told her pastor.  “They are the letters that I wrote when I was on the mission field.  And you know what I’ve figured out?  I have figured out how faithful God was to me through all of those years.  It is amazing, really.  Because I read my words and I see how powerless I felt in so many different situations.  I remember thinking how hard it was, how impossible some situations seemed to be.  But now, when I remember and look back, I see how God’s hands held all of it.  I see how God managed to pull me through.  And now, all these years later, I can remember and find encouragement.  It is such a surprise, but remembering my past makes me excited about my tomorrow.”

 Her words were all the preacher needed to hear.  He immediately went back to his study to work on the sermon.  He had been wrestling for days with what God was calling him to preach.  His people were not due for a hellfire and brimstone sermon.  Besides, that wasn’t really his style, though he did like to throw in a few one-liners in from time to time. It was always good to keep them on their toes.  But today was not the day for that. 

 The preacher also knew that the sermon was going to need some umph to it.  The last thing his congregation needed was some sermon’ette—a paltry, thin “message” filled with stories about his kids and sports metaphors.  That was not going to fill them up at all.  It was like serving them cucumber sandwiches when what they needed a thick slab of red meat.  His people, his congregation, needed something with some substance, something that would give them energy, something that could pry them open for a fresh infusion of the Spirit.  Because when it came right down to it, his congregation was tired.  And not just normal, Sunday morning drowsy.  His people, his congregation, were bone-tired, empty, exhausted. 

 The preacher’s congregation was made up primarily of second-generation Christians[i].  Most of them had been raised in the small, early church.  They had watched as their parents had openly wrestled with the Gospel and the new life they were now called to live as followers of Jesus Christ.  Some of them had overheard their Jewish-Christian mothers and fathers as they had talked about moving from circumcision to baptism as a sign of the covenant.  A few of them had listened in as their once-polytheistic Greek parents tried to make sense of the Trinitarian mystery.  But because their parents had been so invested in learning the faith and in teaching it to their children, they had been able to receive it rather easily.  So the task of learning the essentials of the Christian faith was not what was wearing out his current congregation.  Rather, they were just tired of having to live it.    

 They were tired of serving the world, tired of worship, tired of Christian education, tired of being peculiar, tired of the spiritual struggle, tired of trying to keep their prayer life going…they were just plain, worn out, bone-tired.  And as their preacher sat in his study and mentally looked out onto his congregation, the preacher saw their hands drooping and their knees growing weak[ii].  And that vision was a wake-up call for him.  For he realized that if something did not happen and soon, his people who were tired of walking the walk might start considering taking a walk away from the church.  So yes—he needed to preach something and soon.

 That is why the retired missionary’s words had sparked such excitement in him.  Because he knew she was on to something—something deeply biblical.  She was onto the importance, no, not just importance, the imperative of memory.  She, herself, had remarked that as she remembered the events of her life, she found herself deeply grateful for the way God had been so faithful and attentive, even in those moments when she, herself, had not sensed divine presence.  She could look back and realize that even in those moments when she felt lonely or forsaken or fearful, even in those times, God was surrounding her and guiding her forward.  And that act of remembering gave her such courage for the present.  And it gave her such energy for the future.  And her reflection gave the preacher something to chew on.

 “Faith,” he wrote down, “is the assurance of things hoped for…”  He nodded his head as the words flowed from his pen.  That is good, he thought, and so true.  One simply cannot sever faith from hope.  It is impossible.  For that is what faith is all about—possessing in the present what God promises to do in the future[iii].  Living on an island of already in a sea of not-yet.  He picked up his pen again to finish the thought

 “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  As he wrote the second part of that sentence, the preacher remembered some of the other discussion in the Bible study.  Some of the folks who had gathered had talked about how they were constantly having to look at their lives and the events of the world through the lens of their faith.  They were constantly needing to remember that what they see is not all there is—that there is an unseen reality in the world that is the reality of God’s presence.  Faith, they told their preacher, was about having the capacity to discern God’s activity of salvation and healing in a world that often only testified to brokenness and injustice.  Faith was a way of seeing life, a kind of corrective vision. 

 “Okay,” the preacher thought as he wrote, “now we are getting somewhere.”  But the preacher knew he needed to put some meat on the sermonic bones.  So he once again turned to memory.  What if, he thought, part of what my people need is to remember God’s faithfulness in our collective past?  And then, what if, he wondered, they could take some time to consider how God has been at work in their lives and in the life of this congregation from the very beginning? 

 If his people would practice the vital spiritual discipline of remembering, they might rediscover their energy to participate in God’s mission right then and there.  And that kind of remembering might just be the preparation they needed to be ready to perceive what God was calling them to do in the future. 

 The words were really coming quickly and furiously now.  I need to help them remember, he thought.  Let’s start way back-- We need to get back to basics.  “By faith,” he wrote, “Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place…”  He knew he needed to mention others before Abraham, but he would start there and then fill in the blanks later.  For more than anything else, he needed to help his church remember that they were a part of a long line of people called by God to be about God’s work in the world.  And he knew there was no better place to focus than on the journey of Abraham and Sarah! 

 His people would remember how Abraham and Sarah had left everything behind and set out for a new land and a new start, trying their best to rely on the promises of God, even if they messed up and forgot rather often.  And yet, the preacher remembered, even when they really made some disastrous decisions, God still worked with them and through them.  Shoot, God raised up nations from Abraham and Sarah, even when they and everyone else thought they were too old to do anything anymore.  God had not been through with them.  God had work for them to do!

 And those are just two of our ancestors in faith, the preacher reflected.  He realized he could go on and on and on with people who had come before them in the long line of the faithful.  He could remind his people of Moses.  How, by faith, Moses had heard the voice of God and answered the call to lead his people into freedom.  The preacher could remind his congregation how, by faith, the Israelites had thrown off the yoke of their slavery, passed through the Red Sea into the wilderness, and into their future.  

But that was not all.  The preacher could remind them about Rahab’s acts of bravery by faith. He could remind them of Gideon, of Samson, of David, of Deborah.  The preacher could speak of Ruth, of Naomi, of Samuel, of Hannah.  The preacher could remind his people about the courage of the prophets—of Isaiah and Joel, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  He could remind his people of the stories of all those faithful ancestors in faith, who, by faith, conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight[iv]...  As all of these ideas flowed on to the page, the preacher quickly realized he was going to need to start editing or his sermon might never end. 

 But as he wrote down the names of all of those people in the past and the bits and pieces of their stories—stories about people just like him and just like those who filled his pews, people who followed God’s call in their very human and often very fallible ways—as he wrote and reflected, the preacher found his own energy for discipleship being renewed.  For as he started listing all the ways God had been faithful to God’s people throughout history, he realized his missionary sister had been right:  His deliberate act of remembering God’s faithfulness in the past was sharpening his vision for seeing God’s faithfulness to both him and to his people right then and there.

 He saw God’s faithfulness in the way his people came to worship Sunday after Sunday, bringing to God their honest gratitude and their honest need, practicing Kingdom living, and reminding themselves how their story was a strand in God’s larger story. 

 The preacher saw God’s faithfulness in the way his congregation sent their youth off to camps like Triennium, Montreat, and Massanetta, so that their children would also know and experience the claims of faith on them and would start growing up into God’s call for their lives. 

 The preacher saw God’s faithfulness in the way that so many in his congregation got out on the front lines in the battles against poverty, against injustice, against hatred, against intolerance. 

 The preacher saw God’s faithfulness in the way his people circled around one another in times of need or in times of loss, always providing food and prayer, shoulders to cry on and moments of unexpected laughter.

 The preacher saw God’s faithfulness in the way that his congregation tried to be as open as they could to new people and to new ideas, trusting that like Abraham and Sarah, God was not nearly through with them yet either.  The preacher saw God’s faithfulness in the way that his congregation had responded to him and to his ministry, with such enthusiasm and support.

And again, as all of these ideas quickly flowed on the page, he knew he needed to start editing or his sermon might never end.

 But, all in all, as he began to wind his sermon down into benediction, the preacher realized that on that late Friday afternoon, he was leaving the task of writing more energized and more full of faith than when he started.  And he hoped that when his sermon was preached, his congregation might feel the same way.  So that they would once again be ready to run with perseverance the race that was set before them, trusting with the full assurance of faith that they were surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who rejoiced in their journeys.

 And then, perhaps they would all be ready to charge off into the future trusting that God had much more ministry and mission for them to do in their neighborhood and across the globe.  And he looked forward to charging off with them.