February-8-2009-Click-Here-To-Play
The following was used as a guided meditation on Hebrews 11 (The Message version) on Sunday, February 8th by Winton Boyd. Meditation questions are in italics.
Hebrews 11 (The Message)
1-2 The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd. 3By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.
8-10 By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. … 11-12 By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
How has our journey taken us to unknown places…tested our trust in the One who makes promises…what do we see when we look back over our footsteps, our tracks, our lives…how do we live with trust and uncertainty…the knowledge that we have strayed off our path from time to time or for a very long period of time.
Can we hear the voice of the Holy One, our only Home…inviting us to say yes…yes to faith even in the unseen?
13-16 Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.
“Heaven country” isn’t about the life after death – but about choosing to embrace faith…even when it is confusing…even when we want to turn back to the known, the familiar, the comfortable…as transients we are committed to this place…these people…but mostly to the One, our Only Home who created it and us all.
Have we turned our heart, our activity, our thoughts, our lives towards this “better country” recently? Are we stuck in old ways that hold us back or are we trusting the Holy One to guide us if we only take the first step?
32-38 I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more— Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets….Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.
So many people left out of this list…women and children…the more humble and unnoticed…so much about this list is confusing and bewildering…the violence and the intensity…but beneath the official history lies the thread of faith…people like you and me ‘making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.’ It was certainly messy, and even at times not very pretty, but many before us found courage and hope and laughter and love at these very cruel edges.
Have we learned from their example, these prophets of our own lives?
Where is your faith taking you? What challenges or obstacles do you face that would be aided by greater trust, greater hope, greater assurances of completion or victory or possibility?
39-40 Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
This is when the story starts to get personal, starts to show up in our personal and family history. Who are those people whose faith you cannot live without? Who are those in your life – deceased or alive – whose faith helps make yours more complete? What grounded them and what grounds you? In spite of all that is uncertain and unknown…what holds you together?
How does the Holy One, our Only Home, show up in your life, in your prayers, in your yearning. Are you opening up to this Holy One today? Are you letting the faith of those before you carry you when you are discouraged or doubting? Out of energy or vision? Holy One, our Only Home, hallowed be your presence in our lives…
Chapter 12: 1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.
The old word was ‘cloud of witnesses’ …the new world is ‘pioneers who blazed the way…veterans who are still cheering us on…
Do you see that this is all about us… and not at all about us? About God’s work in the world through us and God’s work through the world in us…
Holy One, our Only Home, be hallowed in our lives this day. Amen.
