On the Way to Otherwise
Photo by William Krause on Unsplash
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
This familiar verse introduces the great roster of those who lived in and by faith. It is an astonishing verse because it recharacterizes faith in a fresh compelling way. It suggests what faith is not:
Faith is not a cognitive proposition;
Faith is not the recital of a creed or formula;
Faith is not an institutional membership.
Rather, faith is an active, often risky investment in a future that is not yet in hand. The inventory of the faithful that follows this introductory verse concerns a variety of risks and investments. All of them, however, for all their differences are “seeking a homeland” (v. 14), and desire “a better country,” that is marked by the rule of God and therefore “heavenly” (v. 16). As “strangers and foreigners on the earth” (v. 13), they held the present loosely for the sake of that future toward which they were drawn in practical, concrete ways.
There are always two good reasons not to hope for a future that remains “not seen.” One reason not to hope is despair that concludes that the present circumstance of life is permanent and inescapable, and cannot be changed. Such a view of the present makes it impossible to entertain any thought or possibility for an alternative “homeland.” The other reason not to hope is that the present circumstance is so comfortable, enjoyable, and reassuring that it is impossible that it could be any better than it is. It is possible to think that in our society our refusal or inability to hope is an odd mix of these two stances, despair and complacency. In the recital of Hebrews 11, the practitioners of faith refused despair even as they refused complacency. Rejecting both despair and complacency, they looked to an alternative future that was better than any present circumstance.
So let us notice that we live in a society that is largely incapable of such daring hope. We are incapable of hope because the vexations all around us seem intransigent and beyond challenge. Or conversely, we are incapable of hope because we are reasonably well off and there is no use to rock the boat. Thus the outcome is a society devoid of energizing, enlivening hope. And then let us notice that Christian congregations are set down in the midst of such a hope-less society in order to be a community of hope, that is, a community that is engaged in risk-taking investments in an alternative future, alternative to the present defining circumstance of despair and complacency.
The practical question is, “For what do we hope?” Or more precisely, what would “a better country” look like? In the Old Testament we host a “better country” in the Promised Land. In the New Testament, the image of a “better country” is the “Kingdom of God” (or alternatively in the Fourth Gospel, “eternal life.”). It is essential and inescapable that any valid sketch of that “better country” remains open-ended and elusive, resisting any specific reductionist blueprint. Thus in the parables of Jesus, “the kingdom of God” is elusively sketched out in a variety of parables, none of which offer exactitude.
The durable insistent question is, “What is a better country?” What is it like and how is it to be configured? It is such a demanding prospect that propels faith, hope and risk in our chapter. And now, in a society sated in despair and complacency, the church is a community summoned to entertain that better country. It is the pastoral task (a) to empower the community to sketch out that better country for our time and place and (b) to help shape the work, risks, and investments that may effectively move us toward that better country. This hope (faith!) consists in a visionary possibility and specific practical steps toward the performance of that visionary possibility.
The practical question of hope can be variously framed in relation to any number of demanding crisis points in our society. In response to every such crisis point, the church can be deployed in two ways, first with hands-on face-to-face neighborly engagement and, second, with informed insistent policy engagement. For the most part local congregations much prefer the former; but clearly the latter is also urgent and requires sustained investment from hopers.
This two-fold engagement pertains to every such crisis issue before us:
It pertains to our climate crisis. Attentive engagement at the local level with good environmental practices is important. But of course policy formation for the protection of the environment and preservation of resources is urgent.
It pertains to our economic crisis. Attentive engagement at the local level concerns generous neighborly practices. In my own community this includes provisions of food and housing for the economically left behind. But clearly such local efforts, important as they are, are no real solution to the need. What is required is fresh policy that makes public resources available for those in circumstances of dire need.
It pertains to our crisis of civic order. Clearly we must have local efforts at shared community wellbeing, a sine qua non among us. But we also need policies that will protect public security from raging violence that turns out often to be aggressively racist.
The likely prospect is that Christian congregations, in time to come in our society, will be relatively small and lean. This is no cause for despair. In truth, church rolls have often been inflated by many names of those who have no serious intention of active risk-taking investment in God’s good future. When the church is lean it has a more likely chance to be focused, energized, and mobilized for its primal practice of hope.
The recital of Hebrews 11 consists in those who have invested in the future in risky ways who were altogether realistic about such risk-taking. Such hope very often does not come to fruition:
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them (v. 13).
The hopers “did not receive what was promised” (v. 39). Of course it will be that way with our committed hope concerning the environmental crisis, the economic crisis, and civic order. Our best efforts will not arrive at certain or full fruition. That recognition in verse 39, however, does not lead to disengagement of despair. It leads rather to verse 40:
God has provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect (v. 40).
What a phrase, “apart from us”! These committed hopers are not remote from us. They are linked to us; and we are linked to them. We are linked to each other in the “assurance of things hoped for.” The things “hoped for” among us include a viable environment, a workable neighborly economy, and a functioning amiable civic order. We are linked to them in “the conviction of things not seen.” Not seen yet among us is good environmental policy and practice. Not yet seen among us is good economic policy in which neighborly resources sustain and enhance the lives of all of the neighbors. Not yet seen among us is a reliable civic order that is not skewed by selfish or violent intent. These matters are not yet seen; but we have a “conviction” that they are promised and are on the way.
It is for good reason that at the end of chapter 11 and the move to 12:1, the writer looks back at the roster of hopers, and imagines all those hopers around us, witnessing to their faith and observing ours:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (12:1-2).
When we engage as risk-taking hopers, we are sustained by a “cloud of witnesses” who continue to be present and engaged with us. This is the real, functioning “communion of saints.” Thus the linkage of the generations as a sustained act of hope matters decisively. On the basis of that reliable company of witnesses, the writer issues a wondrous invitational summons:
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed (12:12-13).
We are on the way! We are on our way refusing despair, refusing complacency, on our way to what is hoped for but not in hand, on our way to what is not seen but embraced with conviction. Our way of being in the world is definitively unlike either the despair or the complacency to which our society is prone. Otherwise is promised; and we are on the way with our hands that need not droop, and our knees that need not be weak!
Isaiah 40 begins the great poetic scenario of homecoming from exile. It answers the despair that arose in the exile. Some concluded that they had been God-abandoned:
My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God (Isaiah 40:27).
Those who draw that conclusion of God-abandonment fall into the lethargy of despair:
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted (v. 30).
It is, however, genuinely otherwise for those who do not give in to such despair. The poet asserts the reality of the creator God:
He does not faint or grow weary,
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless (v. 28-29).
The chapter ends with this lyric of hope:
Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint (v. 1).
The verb “wait” in this verse is a bit tricky. In fact the Hebrew term, qwh, means to hope! Those who hope are not faint or weary! They are the ones with energy to fly, to run, and to walk. This expectation of vigorous energy is a complement to and an anticipation of Hebrews 12:12-13. Those who hope may fly and run and walk because they have no drooping hands or weak knees. All of that depends, however, on having an identity, a vision, and a company that is quite distinct from the large population that traffics in despair and complacency. It is the good, hard work of the church to maintain a different identity, a different vision, and a different company with whom to fly, run, and walk. These are the hopers. They are the ones who run the race with perseverance (Hebrews 12:1). It is not different in Isaiah 40 from the inventory of Hebrews 11, a company with a transformative, transforming legacy.
Walter Brueggemann
June 15, 2022
Looking for a theologically solid summer Bible study that requires no prep and will inspire great conversation? Check out Old & New, a 7-session study on Genesis from Church Anew.
