Strangers and Foreigners on the Earth
The famed 11th chapter of Hebrews came up in the lectionary this week, and I really am taken with how Abraham’s faith in particular is narrated. The language of movement bookends chapter 11: chapter 10 ends with an exhortation to be among those who do not “shrink back,” while chapter 12 leads off with the runner-athlete metaphor so common to the epistolary literature. Embedded in the latter is even a designation of Jesus as “pioneer,” the capstone of a discussion about the expatriate nature of faith in chapter 11:
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. ”
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them. (vv 8-16)
Uncomfortable Faith
I don’t know how I missed the refugee & migrant quality of this text! The faith which possesses Abraham doesn’t leave him comfortably at home but draws him out to a place of which he was — at the time — still unaware. When he got there, he didn’t found a town that might grow into a city-state, or even a ranch to hand on to his children. No soft, easy retirement for Abraham and Sarah…or for any of their lineage for quite a while. (Indeed, one might make the argument that when God’s people start building homes and suchlike to settle into, they get into real trouble. Go read Judges.) Nope, they lived in tents. Now, I’m a fan of backpacking and camping as much as the next guy, but at 30 I’m finding it harder and harder to lug my belongings about with me and sleep on the ground. Or even on a nice cot. I don’t care if a donkey’s carrying it or not, that’s a hard life. I don’t think it’s necessarily what Abram & Sarai had in mind when they were rudely interrupted by the divine call. But the bleak life and constant risk was balanced by something greater, according to the writer of the epistle.
Heavenly Faith
So we might fairly ask, what exactly is this city that Abraham is looking forward to, that his descendents are prepared for by God? Of course, one could read that a temporal city-state is what is alluded to here, perhaps Jerusalem, perhaps the entire nation of Israel. And for sure, many parents have made sacrifices so that their children and children’s children would have a better life. But the discussion of Abraham’s faith legacy redirects our attention: the faithful descendents of Abraham continually reject their earthly citizenship and look toward a heavenly one.
This isn’t to say that Abraham, his descendents, or the community of the Hebrews neglect earthly concerns. Reading both Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament demonstrate that faith is mundane in many ways. This understanding of heavenly is often mistaken for hoping for a gold star in the crown, or a celestial Cadillac to drive on the streets of gold. We must instead understand heaven through the gospels (and the epistles generally do), as the place where God’s will is done completely. No escapism here! It is a way of living in the world, rather than a rejection of the world. And yes, it will finally be fulfilled in the New Jerusalem, upon the new earth. But we live our life here today in continuity with our eternal lives–”your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.”
If that is the case, then these early saints who “saw and greeted” these promises “from a distance” begin to sound a bit less crazy. It makes us ask the question: If we’re living our lives in alignment with God’s will, does that result in immediate blessings and rewards that will manifest within our own lifetimes?
Unfulfilled Faith
Though the metaphor of refugee and migrant fades into the background through the other stories enumerated, we re-enter, at the end of the chapter, the Abrahamic metaphors:
And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. (vv 32-40)
I am here to confess that I don’t look like these desparate, messy, disturbing persons. I look for the easy out, the best grazing land, the way in which we can be enriched at some point before we die. We all live a shell of a life with God here, hoping for it to be different somehow in eternity. And I am afraid it doesn’t work that way. We — myself included — take far too few risks here and now, preferring our security to come from our comfort, our human defenses, our biases and prejudices, our idolized God-in-a-box.
“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a descendent of Lot, and I live among a people descended from Lot.” We have settled for something far less than the code and character of Abraham.
Expatriate Faith
These, then, are three characteristics of expatriate faith as embodied by Abraham and others in Hebrews 11: faith is uncomfortable, heavenly, and unfulfilled. There are more aspects to holding an expatriate faith than just these three; but they characterize the extremely risky nature of faith against which a domesticated (literally, “household”) North American Christianity is so robustly innoculated. From here a thousand paths and trails may diverge, each with a divine call. So I leave you with a blessing for the road:
May you be profoundly uncomfortable, wherever you are, always seeking the homeland of the Holy Spirit…
May you live as a celestial citizen, doing the LORD’s will on earth as it is done in heaven…
May your faith be unfulfilled, so that you will not be made perfect apart from me, apart from the Church, apart from all the brothers and sisters of Christ…
May you desire a better country…
In the name of the LORD, the Christ, the Spirit. Amen.
