God has a dream for this world, a vision in which everyone can thrive, in which everyone doesn’t have everything they want, but they have at least everything that they need; that everyone can use the gifts that God has given them, and they can find joy and love and grace, have dignity and respect; that every person is given the honor due the image of God that is within them, the image of God in which they were made.
We have often talked about this dream that God has and that the prophets put so beautifully. The dream of God is a world so transformed that the predator and the prey can rest comfortably in each other’s presence. And the weapons of war are transformed into tools of agriculture. That which once was used to destroy life can now bring life. This is God’s vision, God’s dream for this world, for you, for me, and for all of creation.
This world, this dream, this vision can be called the Kingdom of God. That is what Jesus called it. It is very different than the kingdoms of this world, for it is full of the love that Jesus proclaims. Jesus proclaimed this Kingdom every where he went. He said it was near, it was coming, it was already among you, it was within you.
And yet it does not take much imagination to see that that Kingdom has not been fully realized. If we look around, we can see all the ways this world is broken, broken in all those big ways, the ways the powerful principalities and nations and empires and geopolitics of this world are creating more and more destruction, among nations and within nations. We can also see all the ways this dream has not been realized much closer to home. Maybe it is happening in your life right now. And if not, perhaps it is in the life of someone you know. Pain, suffering, tribulations of relationships falling apart, a medical diagnosis that is not what you wanted to hear, the grief of losing or having lost a loved one, of work that is not going the way it should. We see the ways this world is broken from abuse and trauma. It is a broken world. The dream of God is certainly not fully realized. We don’t have that fullness of peace that Jesus wants for us.
We can still cry out as we sang in the hymn this morning:
Our hope and expectation,
O Jesus, now appear;
arise, O Sun so longed for,
above this shadowed sphere.
With hearts and hands uplifted
we plead, O Lord, to see
the day of earth's redemption
that sets your people free.
This issue of the gap between God’s dream for this world and the reality we now live in is what the author to Hebrews was addressing. These were early Christians who might have heard Jesus himself proclaim this Kingdom, or heard it from someone who had heard it directly. They had been at this for decades, but they are not seeing this dream becoming a reality, so the author is trying to give them hope, some structure for understanding this period in which the promise has been proclaimed, but the dream has not been fully realized, and how they should live in the middle of it.
The author gives all kinds of explanations and arguments, and honestly, some of them are kind of weird for us today. But in the section we had for our second reading today, the author goes through all the ways our ancestors in faith had faced the same thing. The promise has always been out there, and they are not the first generation to wonder why it hasn’t come about, and wonder how to live in the midst of it.
The author says look to your ancestors in faith. What did they do? They acted in faith. The part of the Scripture we heard today is about Abraham and Sarah and the ridiculous promise they were given, that they would have more descendants than stars in the sky and sand on this earth. That is a promise as ridiculous as vegetarian lions, as Isaiah promises. And yet, what do Abraham and Sarah do? They walk in faith. They step forward, trusting in God. Not in faith that is in rituals and doctrines, but faith that is trust in God. They walk in that faith. Here is the thing: that promise did not become a reality within their lifetime, but they got little glimpses of it. They saw how it could come about, so they walked forward in faith, looking for that, trying to help make it a closer reality for this world.
Then the author of Hebrews goes on with the stories of other people, the story of Jacob, and the story of Joseph, and the story of Moses who stood up to Pharoah, the greatest emperor of the day, and told them to “let my people go.” Moses did not realize the liberation of all people in this world, but the liberation of those people is a little in-breaking of the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. And how did Moses do it? By walking in faith, by answering the call to this ridiculous thing of standing up to the greatest emperor in the greatest empire.
The author goes on to tell the story of other people, eventually getting to the point of name-dropping and expecting you to fill in the story yourself. He gets through the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the stories of the ancestors of our faith. But we can imagine ways the story could continue. By faith, Mary Magdalene went down to the tomb on Easter morning, in all the sorrow and darkness, and found the risen Lord. Then she went and proclaimed this Good News to the Apostles, becoming the apostle to the Apostles. By faith, Paul, who had been the adversary of Jesus, becomes the advocate of Jesus. By faith, Francis gave up all of his riches and started begging for his bread, proclaiming, like Jesus, the Kingdom of God in their midst. By faith, our ancestors throughout the ages have faced the very same question: God’s dream has not been realized, so what do I do in this moment? Do I give up all hope? And the answer, time and again, is no. Keep walking in that faith, that trust. That trust, the Psalmist says, is actually stronger than what a horse could give you. It is a vain hope to put your hope in the strength of horses, the Psalmist says. The powers of this world are not as strong as the power of God.
It is the same for us. Whatever challenges or difficulties we are facing, or in the many ways we see the gap between God’s dream and our reality, we are encouraged to keep walking in faith, trusting that God is working something out, and we are a part of that. We are to look for, and help bring about those little in-breakings of that Kingdom. Jesus said it is here. It is at bay. It is around you. It is within you.
The author of Hebrews says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. I think that is a good definition, as long as we understand that this is about things we cannot see with our eyes, because you can see the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom if you look at it with the eyes of faith, the eyes of your heart, the eyes of your soul. You can see this happening every day, and you are invited to be a part of that, as well. In every act of love and grace and mercy, in every way that you help bring about that peace of the Peaceable Kingdom, it is an in-breaking of God’s Kingdom in this world.
The promise is still alive, my friends, and one day it will be realized. In this in-between time, we walk in faith by faith, joining our ancestors who did the same, holding on to the hope and sharing the love, trying to live within the Kingdom today.
AMEN.
