1. A portrait gallery

An exploration in faith

8 August 2010

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Tonight here in the Wesley Theatre, we begin a short series which will take us through to the onset of spring. We shall be looking at the New Testament Book of Hebrews, which has been described as ‘a strange, rich, wonderful document of the early church’. Thomas Long makes the point that it is ‘Unique in style and content; as a piece of literature it is simply unlike any of the other epistles.’

Some of its phrases are among the best known in the New Testament.
Many contemporary Christians are simply unacquainted with the book.
The difficulties within need not prevent us from considering its usefulness for our lives.

The background to the epistle is very much that of struggle, but we are uncertain about its nature. However, we do know that the writer goes to great lengths to strengthen Christian believers on their journey. Therefore, such thoughts are relevant and helpful to each of us on our Christian pilgrimage.

Hebrews 11 has been described as ‘A Portrait Gallery’. A portrait, of course, is a painting, photograph, sculpture or other work of art which is a representation of a person where the face and its expression are predominant. It is intended to display the likeness, personality and even the mood of the person, who is often looking directly at the artist or the photographer – and, in due course, at the person viewing the portrait.

Each year here in Sydney our famous Archibald Prize for portraiture is awarded. I have managed on two occasions to enjoy a journey round our gallery here in New South Wales to study the entries. It’s always fascinating!

This prize was first awarded in 1921 following a bequest and, down the years, it has attracted a good deal of controversy, resulting in several court cases. The Archibald is one of the few prizes in which the artist’s signature is covered up so as not to be seen by the judges making their initial selection for the final.

It, therefore, follows that we could talk about Hebrews 11 as a portrait gallery of faith. We do not know the identity of the author, but the story of faith is revealed through the different lives whose mood and colour are there for all to see … a testimony to God’s grace.

In this gallery are some of the well known people of faith such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and so on. But there are also others whose names are less familiar, but who also tell their story of faith. Let us turn to one example as a starting point in understanding our journey of faith:

Text: Hebrews 11:8 –
‘By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.’

Faith which is our response to God

Throughout this book, there is an overarching theme of ‘the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ’. Our Lord is seen as more than a moral teacher or example. Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine … the true and living God.

The nature of faith is explained in terms of ‘being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’. (11:1) This is by no means exhaustive and encompasses but a few degrees of the circumference of faith… and is a useful beginning.

Some people see Hebrews as much more like a series of sermons – and the writer acting as a preacher. If this is the case, then he is striking a working definition of faith which he will expand by pointing to others who have displayed some aspects of this journey.

Hebrews 11 draws stories of faith using Old Testament figures. Abraham remains the chief exemplar of faith. Abraham and Sarah went out in obedience to God because they were ‘looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God’. (11:10)

It is worth noting that Abraham, like so many of the pioneers of faith, died without having received the fulfilment of the promises of God to which he was called. This is true in most of our journeys of faith. It is a mistake to assume that we are going to achieve great things in this life, which all our contemporaries will recognise… for the real proof of faith lies beyond our earthly life and what we contribute in the here and now. The test is in the present experience.

Our response is…

To the revelation which God has made

Abraham stepped into the darkness, being prepared to take the hand of God by faith… and trusting that God would come through with his promised inheritance. Faith has always involved stepping out with God into the darkness of the unknown.

There is no faith apart from journey. Faith is not a static state – or something we capture within ourselves. This is one of the errors of many people’s contemporary expression of their personal faith.

Faith is not something we gain, but it is that to which we give ourselves. Abraham is the example of one who ventured into the unknown land and uncertain life, but went nonetheless because of God’s call.

There are countless examples of people in every age who have, likewise, stepped out in faith, but it is always in response to the One who has made himself known to us in Jesus Christ.

Raymond Brown saw the responsiveness of faith as fundamental to qualities which he lists as sacrifice, courage, persistence and dependence. He writes, ‘In more than one context our writer is eager to point out that the obedience demonstrated by these great personalities of the Old Testament was surely due to the unwavering confidence in a God who speaks.’

In trust and obedience on our side

The name ‘Hebrew’ literally means ‘One Who Wanders’. We may not all be called to a physical journey, but this can serve as a useful metaphor for all our lives. It is not only the graphic and powerful backdrop of a people, but is an indication of what faith means for all of us.
God invariably calls us –

out of the comfortable and the convenient… into the risky and untried.
out of the security which the past gives us… into the uncertainty of the ‘not yet’.
out of the tried and trusted rituals of the known... into the spontaneous dance of the Spirit of God.

If Abraham were asked to explain his faith, he would point to the hills and the promise that one day they would be filled with his descendents.

If an ABC reporter were to conduct an interview, they might break in at some point and say, ‘Abraham and Sarah, you’re in your sixties and you’ve bought yourselves a baby buggy!’ They would say, ‘Yes, we’re going to use it as a coffee table in the retirement village until we require it.’

Putting the journey of faith in another way, they were living in tents, looking for a city. Abraham and Sarah had learned the difference between –

the passing and the permanent.
the temporal and the eternal.
short-term tents and established cities.

It is wise to remind ourselves of the brevity of life and the fragility of all we hold dear. I have some friends whose home was full of antiques and there came a time when they considered selling their house – and, to use the modern terminology, ‘downsize’. When it came to the push, they could not do it. Our homes and our possessions ought never to become so permanent that we cannot move on.

If we look beyond the current financial challenges of the world and go back to the ‘dot-com’ crisis, we see one of the pertinent examples of ‘boom and bust’. Many baby boomer billionaires with fabulous fortunes and frantic spending on expensive cars, homes and so on, came to a sudden halt. I recall reading a phrase which has remained with me… ‘They didn’t realise it was only on paper.’

Leon Morris made a very important point from ‘when called’ (v.8). He says that these words translate a present participle which ‘indicates a very prompt obedience’.

Generally speaking, people like to know where they are going and, if possible, to choose their own way. Morris once again says, ‘To leave the certainties one knows and to go out into what is quite unknown – relying on nothing other than the Word of God – is the essence of faith.’

This does not necessarily mean leaving where we are serving, but for all of us it does mean exercising faith rather than just being comfortable. I recall beginning my ministry with a man who was nearing the end of his – and finding people regularly turning to me to moan or to pass judgement on his leadership. I soon learnt it was too easy to try to be the hero… and what he was doing was the heart of leadership. We are always called to faith in a God who has made himself known to us.

Faith which opens up our resourcefulness

Continuing to use the example of Abraham, we remind ourselves that he was sojourning to a land of promise. Living in tents symbolised the temporary and fragile nature of his human existence. Like Abraham, we too are on a life-long journey of faith; by faith we view the place of promise, though we cannot lay claim to it while we inhabit our earthly skin.

Communities and nations need to recognise that we are not living for ourselves, but for those who follow. For those who are not living in Australia, I need to explain that we are currently in the midst of a Federal Election campaign – and in a couple of weeks’ time we shall be choosing our leaders for the next three years. If we can get beyond the rhetoric, we know that the most important issues are to do with the sustainability of our country and world beyond three… or even thirty years.

What Abraham was experiencing was the challenge which to some extent the early community of faith was also struggling with… and that is how tough circumstances help to mould us for the future.

The journey of faith is always one of transition:-

Shaped by new opportunities to live.
Signalled by new experiences of life.
Served by new moments of mission in the community and the world.
Spiritually formed by new growth.

Adequate to our needs

On our journey of faith, God is with us and, from beginning to end, he is alongside us. Abraham was a person of faith because he went where God told him to go, even though he could not even begin to understand where that might lead. We must be clear in understanding that his faith was not simply believing God, but acting upon that belief.

One of the bright lights of the Ugandan struggle in the 1970s was Bishop Festo Kivengere. Festo tells of three men who were about to be executed by firing squad on 10 February 1973. It was a sad day for the local people, who were commanded to go to a stadium and witness the executions. The crowd, who stood in silence, numbered about three thousand. Death permeated the atmosphere.

The Bishop and two fellow ministers had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they were executed. They were brought in a truck, handcuffed and their feet chained. Festo talks about thinking, ‘How can I give the gospel to doomed men, who are probably seething with rage?’

The three pastors approached the condemned men from behind. Something remarkable then happened. Before they could say anything, one of the men burst out, ‘Bishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart. He came in and forgave all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children…’ The other two men told similar stories.

The Bishop realised then that the people he had to talk to were not the condemned men, but the soldiers. The Bishop summed up the experience, ‘We stood in front of them, our own hearts throbbing with joy, mingled with tears. It was a day never to be forgotten. Though dead, the men spoke loudly to all the Kigezi district and beyond, so that there was an upsurge in the life of Christ, which challenges death and defeats it.’

This is the nature of faith, which is not handed down from heaven on a golden platter. Swindoll wrote, ‘Your faith ought to get you into trouble at times. If everybody thinks you are nuts, you may be. It’s OK if some think you are. You’re probably in trouble if no-one thinks you are.’

Proportional to life’s challenges

All of us have to exercise faith in the specific circumstances in which we find ourselves. In Genesis 12, Abraham was singled out by God. Of all the instances in the Bible of God choosing an individual, this could be said to be the most remarkable.

Richard Bauckham of St Andrew’s University saw this as an example of God’s ‘From the One to the Many’ and wrote, ‘From the one man Abraham and the one new nation that descended from him, God’s blessing will overflow to all other nations.’

In 1980, Lech Walesa was an unknown electrician working in the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland. He was not a man of deep religious faith… in fact he called himself a ‘delinquent worshipper’. He wrote, ‘I pondered upon God’s existence and looked for signs to confirm him, but faith did not grow in me until life grew harder.’ He added these significant words, ‘The more difficult my path became, the closer I came to faith.’

His story is well known. In August 1981, he stepped forward and founded the Solidarity labour union. This set in motion the eventual confrontation with the Polish government. Soon he found himself followed by the secret police and eventually held under house arrest, but during this time this rough and ready character was changed.

Overnight he became a symbol of courage. Walesa wrote, ‘I am convinced that my faith had a powerful impact on me during my time of confinement to my home.’ He was later part of the overthrow of the communist authorities and was elected president of Poland.

Faith which sees real outcomes

Faith cannot be generated from within… it comes as a gift of God and out of his free grace. It is based on the fact that all of life is in God’s hands and that he will never forsake us.

William Willemon, contemporary preacher and writer of the Methodist Church in the United States of America, tells about a woman who attended a church he once served. She said she began attending years before because it was the only church in the area where a black person could feel welcome. This pleased Willemon. She had had a difficult life and experienced first hand oppression, tragedy and hate.

Willemon was overwhelmed by this woman’s story. Her challenges were further compounded by the fact that her husband of many years had died a terrible and painful death. Her only son was in jail, after a sleazy banking deal. Now she was responsible for two little grandchildren and she was getting on in years. After one pastoral visit, he felt overwhelmed. He thought to himself, ‘What would become of her now? How would she hope to overcome her difficulties?’

She said to her pastor, ‘I know God will make a way for us. I’ve found that when I’ve reached out, he’ll be there. Not always when I wanted him, but always when I absolutely needed him. He doesn’t always come on time, but he always comes. I’ll make it, with his help, yes I will.’

Such faith challenges our educated and sophisticated way of looking at life.

In sensitivity to God’s presence

In our journey of faith, we find ourselves living close to God and the secret is to remain close to him as we continue. Faith is often born out of the difficult steps that we take in life.

There are so many instances of damage to people’s lives, both individually and in community. For example, at this time, we mark sixty-five years since the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There will be much painful storytelling. In a practical way, remembering the suffering caused by war is a vital part of what drives us to work for better ways to resolve conflict. As we listen to survivors, we wonder how it could have ever happened! We gain fresh resolve to ensure that we create the kind of world where such horror is recognised by us all.

However, so much of what people have been able to endure is directly related to their ability to live close to the heart and compassion of life. For the Christian, this means living close to God.

In a recent book on preaching, I read the fascinating and helpful comment, ‘...a lack of security is probably the most important motive for expecting something from a sermon.’

When we are no longer sure about life, we are in a position to hear what God wants to say to us. Journeying in the presence of the Lord is the key to faith.

In situations of God’s blessing

Abraham – and indeed the many in this gallery of faith – knew the outcomes which God’s blessing brings. Some will only be remembered by a brief mention, but they are all recipients of God’s grace… and all exemplified the need to listen for his call.

Robert Sutton gives another vivid picture of faith. A television documentary showed blind skiers being trained for snow skiing. Imagine that for a moment. Paired with sighted skiers the blind skiers were taught how to make right and left turns. When that was mastered they were taken to the slope, where their sighted partners skied beside them, shouting, ‘Left!’ and then ‘Right!’ and so on. As they obeyed the commands, they were able to negotiate the course and cross the finishing line, depending solely on the sighted skiers’ words. It was a journey of trust or catastrophe.

One writer described Hebrew 11 as ‘a vigorous exposition of what it means to have faith and obtain life.’ Times were hard and many were exposed to fierce persecution. Such a chapter of faith calls us to fresh encouragement for our journey.

During Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s eight years in Russian camps, his parents died and his wife divorced him. Upon release from prison, he discovered he was dying of cancer. It was at that point that he felt he abandoned himself to God and this was so beautifully illustrated in the incredible prayer which came in that dark hour:
‘Oh God, how easy it is for me to believe in You. You created a path for me through despair… Oh God, You have used me, and where You cannot use me, You have appointed others. Thank You.’

We are in a different place from Abraham, but we too are called to a journey of faith. Our journey may well be to choose the life of faith where we are – and to live within the orbit of God’s grace day by day.

Christian Life