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We are a people defined by hope
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 11, 2019
Brothers and sisters:
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for
and evidence of things not seen.
Because of it the ancients were well attested.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock,
for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.
At first sight it would seem that the second reading is entirely about faith. In fact it is more about hope, but we worry so much about faith - what we have to believe, how can you believe in this or that formulation of the teaching, whether anything in the teachings can change, how to teach the faith better, and so on - that hope does not seem relevant. But hope is about a promise God offers us; faith is our reply.
Hope is always about some future, a future achievement, happiness or fulfillment, which of its nature remains just a hope - never seen, never possessed.
It's really necessary today to read the whole chapter 11 of the letter to the Hebrews. It consists of a long list of people whose faith kept them going. They are praised for their faith, but the point is made that they were believing in a promise which they did not see fulfilled, and yet they still believed. That is hope, and hope is everything. Hope is God's initiative enticing us forward; faith is our problematic response.
Paul famously says, of faith, hope and charity [believing, hoping, loving] the last is the greatest (1 Cor 13:13). Of the other two I suggest that hope is the second greatest, with faith in third place. Perhaps we make too much of the faith questions; we need to cultivate hope.
Faith, hope and love are intimately connected, so if we sort out their relationship we will understand them better. Illustrations may help. Imagine a gold coin, and let the gold be love. We can now ask, between faith and hope which will be heads and which is tails. The connection is as close as two sides of the one coin.
Or, imagine a tree, a great old mango tree, for example. The delicious fruit of the tree is love; the great canopy of broad green leaves represents hope; the roots going deep into the soil illustrate the role and function of faith. But take note: what we would normally call 'the tree' is Hope, with Faith its roots and Love its fruit.
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Today's second reading from the letter to the Hebrews begins: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (KJV) In this couplet 'substance' stands in parallel with 'evidence', while 'things hoped for' is the same as 'things not seen'.
What does it mean? Translators struggle with it, offering a variety of words and expressions.
For 'substance' you have 'confidence', 'reality', 'assurance' for starters, coupled in various ways with 'evidence', 'conviction', 'certainty' and 'proof'.
Jerome set the tone in the IVth century Vulgate with 'Est autem fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium'. 'However there is faith, the substance of things hoped for; the argument for things unseen.' The King James version which most follow more or less closely has: 'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen'.
'"Substance'' is a problem here. Does it mean that faith already gives us a hold on the things hoped for, the unseen things? Do we actually grasp them by faith? I think not. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, the author writes in summary (vs 39-40), since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Christians of the first century were watchful for the coming of the Lord, thinking they would actually see it in their lifetime; but now we say 'not in my lifetime!" We've waited so long that doubting has become the fashion. For those who do believe, faith supports our hope. We live by hope in the promise of future things, things we will never actually see in this part of Life's journey. It unfolds at evolution speed.
The Greek word translated as 'substance'is hypostasis, and literally it means 'what is standing under' [sub-stans : hypo-stasis]. In philosophy the meaning is 'standing under/supporting the surface appearances' (substance is the “stuff” that stands under the properties of weight, hardness, texture, colour, etc.). But if, instead of this common applied meaning, we were to take the term literally, faith would be the underpinning of things hoped for, the foundation of the hope. While you construct a house on a concrete slab, a high-rise tower is underpinned by pylons that go deep into the earth, all the way down to bedrock. What those pylons do for the building represents what faith does for hope.
So my translation would be:
'Faith is what underpins the hoped for; the guarantee of things that remain unseen.'
Faith is the support mechanism. Love is the fruit. But what we would think of as 'the tree' - the trunk and the green canopy: that is Hope. As the root of the mighty mango tree, penetrating metres down and spreading wide, draws in water and nutrients, gives firm support and guarantees the tree's future, so Faith underpins Hope and guarantees it - but Hope is the thing that produces the fruits of Love.
The green canopy of the tree is Hope. It is the engine of the tree, fueled by sunlight, growing, building and transforming Faith-given nutrients into delicious fruits of Love.
Hope is not just an important aspect of the spiritual life; it is the whole of it. We are a people defined by hope.
If Christians say there is no sure hope, then I wonder what they believe in.
Try reading the gospel not as a challenge to believe but as a message of hope:
From Mark's declaration of the charter (1:15) Metanoeite - Do a U-turn in your thinking and face the other way: believe the good, trust the good, for God's enterprise is entering its final stages and moving towards completion.
Through Luke 18:33 And on the third day he will rise up alive again.
To Luke 24:5 Why do you look for the living among the dead? And Mark 16:7 Go tell his disciples and Peter: he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you.
Our place is not hiding safely in the holy city, but following Jeshua in his new dimension of life as he goes on ahead into the wide world. It is there we will find him. That is Hope!
Our identity as a people is determined by this, that based on God's promise we have hope in a future we do not yet see.
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These 'hoped for things' are 'promised things'. For the Jewish, Christian and Muslim peoples, it all starts with God 'speaking' to Abraham, telling him to leave his homeland and clan, and take his family westward 'to a place I will show you.' And Abraham packed up and set out, depending solely on his trust in a promise which had come from God. Of that he was certain, but with the certainty not of seeing but of faith. Leaving the fertile plains between the rivers to trek across bald stoney hills and hot desert sands, with just a hope to go by, that was Abraham's foundational experience. We continue the same journey. Along the way the promises have been conceived of in many different ways - a clan that would go on forever, a chosen people, a kingdom, a worshiping people whose God was dwelling with them, but always the hoped for is never seen. It is always 'in the future'.
Jeshua of Nazareth took the promise to a new level. For him it was time to include all the peoples of the earth in God's domain. This enterprise is being established not through scrupulous subservience to law but by self-motivating love. His disciples do not see themselves as a chosen people, set apart, but as ambassadors to every race and nation, with a mission to communicate the promises to them and show the way to love.
The Community of Christian people, the 'Church', is the sacrament of hope to the world, the saving sign given by God to counter our fear and bolster our timid efforts. If the world seems to be going down the gurgler of despair, Christians will more boldly live in hope.
In the last micro moment of cosmic time within the range of recent memory we've been privileged, thanks to the Hubble telescope, to peer into the vast reaches of an expanding universe, to see unimaginable numbers of stars and planets over incomprehensible dimensions of space and time, the 'heavens' ever proclaiming the greatness of God. Meanwhile we are becoming familiar with the smallest of particles, and with the intimate presence of God within the existence of every thing.
Our hope is that the force of evolution, mysterious like the force of gravity – both still unexplained – will be amenable to our intelligent guidance as we work more closely co-creating with the Divine. But it is in hope we live. We are defined by hope. We are people of Hope. And what will be, we simply do not know.
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Let's look for a moment at the believing that underpins our hoping. Faith has many dimensions. It is often thought of as an intellectual assent to some proposition. Another side of it can be seen when, rather than 'I believe that what you say is true', we say 'I believe you'. In this case believing is trusting – trusting that you are true in your word, that you know what you are talking about, and that you have no intention of deceiving me.
It might be time to get over our habit of saying: 'I believe in God' and say instead: 'I believe God'.
When God says the goal is for all people to live their lives fully, i.e., intelligently and willingly, wisely and lovingly, I believe him. And from that strong believing I am energised by hope: it will happen! This world is not going to end in an untimely cataclysim nor die in a whimper of despair. Each of us in due course, being fruitful in the many ways of love, move forward towards a fullness where everything will be brought to completion. I believe God is doing this. I trust God can get it done. I trust God will not change course and betray my trust, for God has made a promise! May we all be energised by hope, for God's work goes forward and my only question is 'Where do I fit into it? What contribution is mine to make?'
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It is very strange that we find many reasons to hold back from that step of trust, but it is tragic when we are gripped in the conviction there is nothing to hope for. If there is no future, then existence is an empty charade. Pragmatic realism taken to the extreme sees only the present moment to be lived, with dying a simple lights-out dead end. To adopt this I would have to deny my own experience of wanting to live on, my experience of invigorating hope, my experience of fruitful love. It would be to deny my life. It would be suicide.
A people who see no hope can in despair destroy their own children, but when we are faced with an epidemic of youth suicide our condition is even worse. Young people, teenagers, young adults, choosing to escape the bleak despair by ending it. Surely there is a great sin eating the heart out of the population that can allow its young women and men to have no hope.
Christians are a sacramental sign which shows in our hope that God will bring this enterprise to completion. We must be the anchor, the pillar, the fortress of hope for all people in this age of madness.
And a final word from today's gospel reading: