Invisible Structure – Hebrews 11

A text – Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the convictionof things not seen. ² Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. ³ By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he set out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹ By faith, with Sarah’s involvement, he received power of procreation, even though he was too old, because he considered him faithful who had promised. ¹² Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

¹³ All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, ¹⁴ for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But as it is, they desire a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

A reflection:

Faith is a challenging word to describe. Faith is not quite the same as belief, or it’s the sort of belief that you also hang other things on, a structure that supports several coat hangers with important things hanging on them. Yet, all the suspended items, and the coat hangers too, for that matter, are invisible, and the thing you have faith in, the reason you want faith in the first place, is also invisible.  

There is a wonderful brief scene in “The Chosen,” a flashback to Jacob and his sons digging their well, in which Jacob speaks to a man living near Jacob’s newly pitched tents. The neighbor asks which god Jacob’s family worships, and after some dialog, the neighbor sums up Jacob’s description: “Of all the gods to choose from, you pick an invisible god whose promises take generations to come true, who makes you sojourn in strange places, and he broke your hip? That is a strange choice of gods. Ah, immigrants.”

Jacob says, “We didn’t choose him. He chose us.”

Faith in that very God is what Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob hung all their subsequent actions on. The object of their faith remained invisible, but the choices those families made were very visible. Their faith in their invisible God produced a whole culture unlike any other. Partly because their God chose them.

We who believe in the Triune God also believe that the Holy Spirit comes to us and helps us to believe. Maybe the Spirit, once invited in, creates the invisible structure of faith upon which we hang our thinking, our ways of talking and treating people. Maybe when the Spirit, who never forces us, is invited into each life, the engineering task in our hearts and imaginations begins. The Spirit’s work is supplemented by those in the faith who have led the way, like our grandparents and other elders from our childhood – the great cloud of witnesses the writer of Hebrews references elsewhere in this letter. However it happens, however faith is built and supported in your life, I hope that you hang your important stuff on it and grow it forward for your children and theirs. Faith is a gift of God that we in turn build forward in the lives of the folks who see us and know us. Therefore, as in verse 16 above, “…God is not ashamed to be called [our] God; indeed, he has prepared a city for [us].”

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us faith, a framework for choices in our lives. Help us to rejoice in this gift, and help us to pass it along to help others build their faith. Amen.