19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wisdom 18:6-9
Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19
Luke 12:32-48
August 11, 2013
It’s all about faith.
We’re here today because we are drawn here in faith. We’re here because we seek God in faith.
We’re here today because we need faith.
The Israelites had faith when God came to save them. They felt secure when God bestowed the 10th plague on the Egyptians because God told them he would spare their children.
But what is faith?
Faith is not about factual knowledge. If you look the word up in the dictionary it will say ‘to believe in what cannot be proven.’ We’re human. We want proof in human terms but faith isn’t about human knowledge.
The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of faith as “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”
We do not put our faith in what we can see. We put our faith in the one that is unseen, God.
What about how Hebrews described faith as “the realization of what is hoped for”?
If something is already realized, then we know it to be. We have knowledge that it is real. We don’t need faith in what has already happened.
However, knowing the events of the past can give us hope for the future. The Bible is full of stories of how God has been present for his people throughout the ages. The Bible tells us of God’s promises to his people and how he has fulfilled those promises over the ages.
The Bible also has Jesus’ promises that he will always be there for us and sends us the Holy Spirit. Because the Bible shows us how God kept his promises in the past, in faith we trust in God’s help for the future.
Abraham serves as our example of faith. When God told him to go to another land, Abraham went without knowing exactly where he was going. In faith he trusted in God’s promise of an heir. Ultimately, Abraham had such great faith that he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac at God’s command.
We seek faith like that of Abraham.
Jesus says to his disciples “Do not be afraid.” We may face distress and difficulty in this world but we can do so because we put our trust in the “inexhaustible treasure in heaven.”
It isn’t easy to endure the things of this world but with God’s grace we do. It is by God’s grace that we can keep vigilant.
Vigilance is not easy. It takes strength. It takes patience. It takes faith.
After Jesus’ death and resurrection, people thought the second coming was going to happen immediately and they were very vigilant.
Two thousand years latter and the Second Coming still hasn’t happened. Do we relax our vigilance, saying there is always tomorrow?
No. Obviously, the Second Coming hasn’t happened but in those 2,000 years countless people have been born into the world. Some died young and some lived a hundred years. None of them lived forever.
Maybe the Second Coming will come today. Maybe it won’t. We might die today, we might not. We do not know the hour nor the day. Let us be vigilant in faith.