“A
Better Country”
Genesis 15:1-18
Hebrews
11:1-3, 8-16
I want to begin today by
sharing with you something that Presbyterian minister and writer Frederick Buechner
wrote in his book, “Wishful Thinking.”
“When God told Abraham,
who was a hundred at the time, that at the age of ninety his wife, Sarah, was
finally going to have a baby, Abraham came close to knocking himself
out—"fell on his face and laughed," as Genesis puts it (17:17). In
another version of the story (18:8ff.), Sarah is hiding behind the door
eavesdropping, and here it's Sarah herself who nearly splits a gut— although
when God asks her about it afterward, she denies it. "No, but you did laugh,"
God says, thus having the last word as well as the first. God doesn't seem to
hold their outbursts against them, however. On the contrary, God tells them the
baby's going to be a boy and they are to name him Isaac. Isaac in Hebrew means
"laughter."
Why did the two old crocks
laugh? They laughed because they knew only a fool would believe that a woman
with one foot in the grave was soon going to have her other foot in the
maternity ward. They laughed because God expected them to believe it anyway.
They laughed because God seemed to believe it. They laughed because they half
believed it themselves. They laughed because laughing felt better than crying.
They laughed because if by some crazy chance it just happened to come true,
they would really have something to laugh about, and in the meanwhile it helped
keep them going.
Faith is 'the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,' says
the Letter to the Hebrews (11:1). Faith is laughter at the promise of a child
called Laughter.”
I keep thinking about one
particular phrase of Buechner’s, “One foot in the grave, soon to have one foot
in the maternity ward.” As I age, some
days I feel positively ancient. Not long
ago, I had occasion to call one of my health care providers to change an
appointment. The receptionist asked for
my birth date so I replied, October 16, 1959.
She replied, “Nineteen FIFTY nine?”
As if she could not imagine that such an ancient person could still use
a telephone. That day, I felt like I had
one foot in the grave. Good thing I was
going to see a doctor soon!
Having one foot in the
grave is a place where we can imagine ourselves when we are tired, discouraged,
in pain, afraid, uncertain. One foot in
the grave and the other on a banana peel, goes the old joke. Sometimes, the road we travel, feels like a
dead end.
A song called “Wonder” by
Natalie Merchant popped into my head this week as I was thinking about Sarah
and Abraham and having one foot in the grave and one foot in the maternity ward. The lyrics go,
“Doctors have come from
distant cities Just to see me Stand over my bed Disbelieving what they're
seeing They say I must be one of the wonders Of god's own creation And as far
as they can see they can offer No explanation.”
I wonder if that is what Sarah’s midwife thought when she was summoned
to assist at the birth of Isaac to a 90 year old mother? Can you imagine the
story that midwife told the next time she sat down with her colleagues?
But we read in the letter
to the Hebrews, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of
things not seen.” Having conviction in
things not seen, that’s the hard part. You
cannot logic someone into faith. You
can’t prove faith. It isn't logical.
What kind of logic is it
that proclaims that babies born to geriatric cases become the ancestors of
great nations? What kind of logic is it
that proclaims that God was born into the world, not in a palace, but in a
stable, born not to powerful monarchs or teachers of wisdom, but to a couple of
peasants with no place to lay their heads?
Is it logical to proclaim that same baby grew up to be put to a cruel
and painful death? Is it logical to
proclaim that death was not the last word?
That Jesus rose and in his life, death and new life that the world is
forever transformed? Is it logical to
proclaim that we live not just for ourselves and not just for this present
time, but for a better time? Is it
logical to proclaim that what we hope to build is a better country, a more
heavenly country? Certainly not! But it is faith, it is an assurance of things
hoped for, a conviction in things that can’t be seen. Or as Frederick Buechner wrote, “Faith
can't prove a damned thing. Or a blessed thing either.”
Faith is hard to hang on
to when we find ourselves in those “interim” periods in our lives. It’s easy to be faithful when things are
going well. Faith gives us something to
rely on when times are hard. But
sometimes we find ourselves in those times in our lives when we are neither
fish nor fowl, but waiting for something else to happen, something to
completed, someone else to say yes or no.
I know that for Benson
Church, this seems to be one of those times, an interim period, an in between
time. I know this whole process of
moving from what you used to be to where you are now, to what you will be has
seemed long and drawn out. But I
believe that Benson church is closer to a maternity ward, than a
graveyard. Whatever ministry is born
out of this remarkable group of people wherever it is, whatever it is called or
whoever joins in, will be a community of laughter and of joy, a community of
faith. God has caused birth and new
life in far more unlikely places and times than this!
It is my hope, my prayer
not just for this congregation, but for our denomination, for our sister
denominations in the mainline Christian tradition, to realize that our
tradition, what has been handed down to us, is a vibrant and living alternative
to the dead ends of either judgmental religious fundamentalism or mocking
disbelief. It is my prayer that we not
just realize it, but start living it.
Like Abraham and Sarah,
like all those others that Hebrews named that we skipped over in our reading
today, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Isaac and Jacob and so many others that Hebrews didn't record! Rebecca, Rachel, Leah,
Moses, Ruth, Naomi, David, Elijah, Peter, Mary Magdalene, so many others whose
names we don’t even know, won’t ever know, who handed down faith to us through
the generations, in order to build a better country, a more heavenly one. People who taught Sunday school, translated
the Bible into many languages, who started and strengthened schools and churches and
universities and seminaries, not for themselves, but that you and I, their
descendants, not just physical descendants, but spiritual descendants might
live in a better country, a more heavenly one.
And as I speak of them, I would like you remember who your people of
faith have been, who have passed faith and light onto you and brought you here
today, not for themselves, but to build a better country, a more heavenly one.
That has to be our goal,
too. Not to build this country for
today but for tomorrow. We know we will
not see this country in its completion in our earthly lives. But we can and we must do our part to add
our own bricks and mortar and dreams and words to build the City of God.
Amen.
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