Closer to Home
“Closer to Home” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! I am happy to be back with you at Creekside. Thanks again to Anne Griffith and Mike Kauffman for their leadership last week.
Our text from Hebrews chapter 11 probably has some stuff in it that you’ve heard before, although perhaps not in this version. I have been inspired to dip in to the Common English Bible because that is translation used in the Anabaptist Community Bible. I was a little late to the 500th birthday party of Anabaptism, but was inspired by a presentation about this Bible at Annual Conference. In short, is a Bible with commentary from Mennonite and Brethren communities who studied passages together and offered their group reflections. This offers a perspective which is very much in the tradition of reading, listening to the Spirit, and discerning the message of the Bible together. You can learn more about this Bible at Church of the Brethren District Conference next month, if you’re interested.
You may be more familiar with Hebrews 11:1 in the NRSV version “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Or perhaps the King James Version is what lives in your memory: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” However you know this verse, or even if you’ve never heard this statement before, the message is the same: faith is trusting in God, even when we can’t see what we are hoping for.
I have sampled a couple verses from the beginning and middle of Hebrews chapter 11, because what is in-between are examples of faith from the stories of the Old Testament. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the children of Israel, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets . . . these are all women and men who had faith, but did not fully receive God’s promise. In verse 13 the author of Hebrews says, “All these people died in faith without receiving the promises, but they saw the promises from a distance and welcomed them.” These are people who were longing for home, but have only been able to see it from far away. People who are looking for a new homeland are immigrants; immigrants are people who are longing for a better country. So in this context, whatever our earthly status or citizenship, we are all immigrants, because we are all longing for a heavenly home; the home which God has prepared for us.
For those of us who have lived all our lives in the most prosperous country in the world, longing for a home anywhere else may not resonate with our personal journey, either physical or emotional. But of course, the Hebrew story and the story of the Jewish people is one of transition from one place to another, beginning with Avram, later called Abraham, being called to leave his home and go where God called him, through Jacob being forced to leave home because of his brother Esau; Joseph making his home in Egypt; the Hebrews in Egypt being forced to flee in the night and wander in the desert for forty years until settling in Caanan. These are many of the stories referenced in Hebrews chapter 11: part of Hebrew identity is they are people who trusted in God to provide them a home, even though they couldn’t see where that home would be.
There are likely immigrant stories in our family histories, whether we know them or not. In some families these stories are told and treasured; in some families they are not mentioned, or silenced. The United States, and before that the colonies which would become the United States has a long history of immigration and welcoming immigrants, and a history which is almost as long of being suspicious of or hostile to immigrants and foreigners. Some of those immigrants came as indentures servants, because they were charged with crimes or couldn’t pay their debts; some immigrants were forcibly removed from Africa and enslaved in this country; some, like the founders of the Church of the Brethren were escaping religious intolerance and persecution in Europe; later waves of immigrants were escaping poverty or famine, religious persecution, war or genocide.
Hebrews 11 does not whitewash the stories of some of these faithful folks, nor try to make them out to have special merit. One of the faithful mentioned is Rahab the prostitute — I wonder how she felt about that professional title following her throughout the Bible? Hebrews says Abraham started the family of Israel when he was “as good as dead” — which is not a very charitable description of an elderly man, but it certainly makes the point that being faithful and being perfect are not the same thing. One of my grandmothers was born in Germany and came to Pennsylvania in the first decade of the 20th century. That family history has always been a bit hazy, and it wasn’t until much later that I learned that my grandmother’s mother was probably not married when my grandmother was born. That part of the story was not shared much, maybe not even with my grandmother herself. We don’t know if the man who immigrated with my grandmother was her biological father. If anything, knowing this part of her story increases my respect for my grandmother. She was put out of her house at age 12 when her mother died, and she had to make her own way in the US during the first World War — a time when a lot of folks were not very welcoming to German immigrants.
It is important to know where we came from, but our deepest identity is where we are going, and the place we call home. The Chistian story is that we came from a flawed assortment of folks and we are a flawed assortment of folks, but by the grace of Jesus Christ we are going home to be with God. This conviction resonates clearly through the music and prayers of people who have willingly left or forcibly been taken from the countries they knew: slaves and refugees and immigrants. These are the people who could not see what they were hoping for, but trusted in God to lead them home. We have a lot to learn from people who are living as immigrants; they have an experience of faith which most of us do not. Hebrews 11:16 gives these people high praise and says, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” God does not abandon or forsake those who trust in Him, and God has a special place for faithful people who are immigrants and strangers. That place is called home, and home has a powerful emotional pull, wherever we are starting from.
This home which God has prepared has conventionally been known as “heaven.” We are all strangers and immigrants here on earth, and we are invited to do more than just wait for God to take us home to heaven. These faithful people who have gone before us, named and unnamed, are the cloud of witnesses who bore hardships and suffered so that we could get closer to home. We are called to live lives of faith, witness, and encouragement so that others can get closer to home, too. We will have our own hardships, heaven knows, but because of Jesus Christ and what he endured for our sake, we are given the chance to be safe at home. It’s a home we cannot see — no one still living on earth can — but we must live like that home is there, because we know God has promised and prepared it for us.
Trusting God is more difficult for folks who are comfortable and secure than it is for those who remember that we are all are strangers and immigrants. People who are comfortable and self-sufficient in this world don’t have to rely on hope for the world to come. Being people of faith means hoping for something we cannot reach on our own; it means longing for a home which is better than what we know on earth; a home which we will find only through trust in Jesus.This morning we will have the service of anointing. The oil which I place on your forehead is a sign of the Spirit’s presence with you, and also of the prayers of this community of faith for you. That ministry begins with accepting the invitation to come forward and acknowledging that you are in need of prayer — prayer for confession of sin, prayer for strengthening of your faith, prayer for healing of body, mind, or spirit. God already knows what you need, of course, but your willingness to come forward is an acknowledgment that you need other people to pray for you. We don’t need to know the details in order to pray that God will provide what you need, even if that is different than what you want. Coming forward for anointing is an act of hope in an outcome you cannot see or control.