St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-12
Hebrews 12:1-3
This sermon was part of The Year of the Bible—a yearlong initiative in which all sermons, classes, and formation for all ages followed a parish-wide journey through the entire Bible. With the bishop’s permission, we used a custom lectionary: two readings drawn from that week’s section of Scripture, plus a psalm and the regularly appointed gospel of the day.
It is hard to believe
that the Year of the Bible at St. John’s
is almost at its end.
You have all been such good sports
as we have plowed our way through the entire Bible
week by week,
book by book,
and next week it all comes to a close
as we wrap up our program year.
Just a reminder that next week
for our grand finale
in place of regular Sunday school,
we will have an all-ages, intergenerational game show
in Alfriend Hall
hosted by yours truly.
You do not want to miss
“Uncle Fr. Lonnie’s Bible Bonkers.”
Think of it as “pub trivia” but with the Bible,
and do not worry . . .
the questions will be easy.
There will be fun.
There may be prizes.
I may or may not be dressed
in a sequined tuxedo jacket
like a televangelist gameshow host . . .
you will just have to come and see.
Someone asked me last week,
“Wait, so I made it through the whole Bible
and on the week when we finally read Revelation,
you’re going to do a gameshow
instead of explaining to me
THE most bizarre book in the entire Bible?!”
and the answer is,
“Yep! You are welcome!”
But I promise it’s going be fun,
so y’all come.
* * *
But in the meantime,
let’s talk a little bit today
about Hebrews.
Now as I mentioned last week,
roughly the last quarter of the Bible
is made up of letters:
letters written by people
in the early years of the Church . . .
sometimes to various individuals,
sometimes to various congregations or groups of people.
A lot of these letters
were written by the Apostle Paul,
but several weren’t,
such as the letter to the Hebrews.
We don’t know who wrote
the letter to the Hebrews,
but we do know why.
They wrote it to help Jewish believers
who had become Christians
to understand
how it all hangs together . . .
how the God of the Old Testament
is also the God of the new . . .
how the God who once required sacrifice
has now become the sacrifice for us . . .
how the God who walked with Abraham
is the God who now walks with us all
in the person of Jesus Christ . . .
how it’s no longer about slavishly following the Law
but entirely about living freely and abundantly by Faith . . .
and, in fact,
it was always about faith.
The word faith occurs 242 times in the New Testament,
and 31 of those times is right here in Hebrews,
and yet I’m pretty convinced that a lot of Christians today
don’t really know how to define faith.
So we should spend our time today
talking about faith.
* * *
The writer to the Hebrews says,
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen.”
But the English word “faith”
comes from the Latin fides or fidelis or fidelity.
Think of great Christmas hymn “O Come All Ye Faithful”
which was originally written as Adeste fideles.
Or the motto of every marine:
Semper fideles:
always faithful.
Or the name people sometimes give their faithful dog:
Fido.
But above all,
if we’re going to talk about faith,
we should probably talk about . . .
fidelity.
According to the gospel according to Google,
we don’t really use the word fidelity like we used to . . .
it has been in steep decline since the 1800s.
So what is fidelity?
Fidelity means trustworthiness.
It means confidence.
It means reliability
and integrity
and assurance
and hope.
It means you can trust someone . . .
believe someone . . .
take someone at their word.
There’s a reason a massive mutual fund brokerage
named itself Fidelity.
They want to convey trust.
They want you to believe
that you can put your money with them,
that it will be secure,
that they’ve got your back
and that you don’t have to worry about your future.
But above all . . .
it means relationship.
These days, when we do talk about fidelity,
we most often talk about it
in terms of marriage.
For two people to live in fidelity,
they have to be in real relationship.
The kind of relationship built on love.
The kind of relationship that engenders trust.
The kind of relationship
where you do not worry about the future together
because you both know and believe
you will always be there for one another
and have one another’s best interest at heart.
If that’s what fidelity means—
if that’s what means faith—
faith . . . at its essence . . .
is a kind of love.
* * *
So often people talk about faith
like it’s some kind of currency.
Almost as if it’s a kind of money
that we have to find and acquire
to make God happy.
During hard times, some will say,
“Well they just didn’t have enough faith,”
as though God doesn’t care about you
unless you care the right way about God.
As though faith is the dollar bill
you put into the divine vending machine
to get what you ask for.
But y’all, that’s not it.
That’s not it at all.
When we say,
“faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen,”
we’re not talking about magic money in the sky . . .
we’re talking about love.
Faith is a kind of love that believes in the future
even against the challenges of the present.
When we talk about faith,
we are talking about the fact
that God loves you.
God reliably loves you
and God believes in your future
more than you believe in yourself.
In this lopsided marriage of ours
between God and us,
God is not the one who strays or gives up.
God is not the one who worries about our future together.
God is always, always, always faithful
even when we stray.
[Consider Abraham]
This comes in especially handy
when we stare into the future,
because, let’s face it,
none of us know
what the future holds.
Will I be sick or well?
Will my family thrive or fall apart?
Will there be enough money?
Will wars ever cease?
Will it be okay?
Faith doesn’t mean
you don’t think on these things
or ask these questions.
Faith merely understands
that while there’s a lot you can’t control,
you are in a living, loving relationship
with a God who loves you,
and even if your days
are numbered,
or clouded,
or uncertain
the God who made you
has your back
and will never forsake you.
That doesn’t mean you won’t get sick
or face trials,
or one day die.
It means that God is bigger than all those things,
and will always catch you on the other side.
* * *
At my last parish in south Georgia,
our church was right next door
to an assisted living facility,
and I would walk over once a month
to go do their weekly chapel service.
As the faithful Episcopal priest that I was,
I started out taking Communion over there,
but I quickly realized
that 90% of these sweet folks
were lifelong Southern Baptists
or United Methodists . . .
not Episcopalians.
While they were grateful for the Communion,
I could tell it just wasn’t their thing.
So, in time,
I decided instead
to just take my guitar over,
sit with them,
and sing good old fashioned Baptist hymns.
And you know what?
They came alive.
Those songs would reach right into their hearts
and bring them to life.
Now, of course,
I grew up Episcopalian,
and our hymnal
is a bit different from their hymnals.
There were a lot of songs I didn’t know well
and had to learn.
Honestly, there were a lot of songs
I just downright didn’t like,
but I learned that they loved them,
and in time,
I even came to love them, too,
just because they did.
One of my favorite residents there
was a man named Mr. Beard . . .
one of the last true southern gentlemen.
He always had cool socks and a kind word.
He was faithful . . .
he had fidelity . . .
to our little chapel group,
to the friends around him,
to the songs we sang,
to the Lord he loved.
He just never seemed worried.
One day, we sang one of their favorites.
God sent His Son
they called Him Jesus
He came to love
heal and forgive
He bled and died
to buy my pardon
An empty grave is there to prove
My Savior lives
Because He lives I can face tomorrow
Because He lives all fear is gone
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth the living
Just because He lives
When we were done,
and the final chord was still hanging in the air,
Mr. Beard leaned forward in his chair and said,
“Brother Lonnie?”
“Yes, Mr. Beard?”
“Brother Lonnie,
you know it’s all true.”
“What’s that, Mr. Beard?”
“Brother Lonnie,
it’s all true.
Because he lives, I really can face tomorrow.
Because he lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know he holds the future,
life is worth the living
just because he lives.
“We have nothing to fear,
nothing at all.”
Like the writer of Hebrews generations before him
and Abraham generations before him,
Mr. Beard knew
that faith wasn’t about getting what you want.
It wasn’t about appeasing God,
or believing the right thing,
or saying the right prayers,
or being the right kind of person.
He knew that faith
is about knowing a God who loves you,
and even if your days
are numbered,
or clouded,
or uncertain
the God who made you
has your back
and will never forsake you.
He knew that God is bigger than anything,
and will always catch you on the other side.
Shortly after that,
covid hit,
and it would be months before I could come back.
When I finally did, Mr. Beard’s chair was empty.
I wanted to be sad,
but how could I be?
Here was a man who knew
that he didn’t have to know everything.
Here was a man who knew
that God knew it for him.
Here was a man who knew
the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen.
He wasn’t worried,
and neither was I.
* * *
So on this penultimate week
of the Year of the Bible,
as we come into the short rows
and continue to puzzle out
how it all hangs together,
take a page from Hebrews.
Whatever your life looks like today,
whatever you worry it will look like tomorrow,
our God is steadfast, faithful, and true
and bigger than
all the pasts,
all the presents,
and all the futures
we can ever imagine
and will always catch you
on the other side.
Because we know he holds the future,
life is worth the living
just because he lives.
And as an old friend once said,
“We have nothing to fear,
nothing at all.”
Amen.