I don’t know if you have received one of these at any point in your life, but very recently I received what is called a “Notice of Reassessment” from Revenue Canada. It was about last year’s tax return and was the most innocuous thing that I have ever read. Your heart always pounds a little harder when Revenue Canada sends you a reassessment. I opened it up, and the contents of it simply said that what I had put down as a number on Line 31 I should have put down on Line 52. Does it make a difference to any bottom number? No! Am I required to pay more tax? No! Do I get an increased refund? No! It was just that I should have put on Line 52 what I put on Line 31, and they felt it was important to let me know. Here was the dilemma for me: I had no idea what Line 31 was for or what Line 52 was for until I went back to the original document. I actually got it out to re-read in order to understand why what should have been on Line 52 was put on Line 31 – and I will never do that again! How absurd, I thought, to waste so much time, but someone felt it was important.
What was interesting was had I only read the reassessment and not the actual tax return itself, it would have made no sense. Someone who read the passage from Romans this morning last week in preparation for today, made the comment that they had no idea what Paul was talking about in our passage from the Book of Romans. We know the content of it, for sure, but does it really make any sense without the original document and story on what is faced? In other words, can you read Romans Four and thoroughly understand it without understanding the Book of Genesis, which incorporates the story of Abraham? I don’t think you can. In fact, I think a reading of Romans Four without an understanding of the story of Abraham makes no sense at all. The original recipients of Paul’s letter to the Romans however would be very familiar with the story.
Whether you were a Jewish Christian or a Gentile, you would have been aware of the story of Abraham. It was part of folklore; it was part of the oral tradition; it was part of course of the Hebrew Scriptures. But many people do not know the story of Abraham, so when Paul said, “His faith was credited to him as righteousness” we think: “Really?” or “What does that mean?” or “How does that affect us?” I think the great fact of this matter is that this glorious Book of Romans is without doubt the greatest statement, the greatest articulation, even the greatest apology for the Christian faith that we have. It is the very reason why we come to Church in the first place! If it wasn’t for the Book of Romans, if it wasn’t for this understanding of faith as Paul explains it, we would have no reason to worship – it is that important!
Let’s try and understand what Paul is saying. Why is he spending so much time here on Abraham? Well, the story of Abraham of course, has been interpreted by different religions, for example, in different ways. Judaism has read the story of Abraham and sees in him their background, their ancestry, that they are a nation because of Abraham. He is the father of their nation; they are connected to him; they are in the line of Abraham; they are born as people of Abraham. As Abraham was promised to be the father of a nation, so they look back and they see father Abraham as their source. For Muslims, Islam has historically seen Abraham as a great prophet, who received a divine revelation, and that the ideal Muslim can be seen in Abraham. Abraham is a way for a Muslim to live in honour and recognition of the one God.
Christianity has had a different approach to Abraham, because it states in the Book of Genesis that Abraham would be the father of many nations, as we are going to look at in a little while, and that Abraham was a man of faith above all. His faith, says Paul, was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham then was a man of faith, and his faith – and this is critical – was in the promises of God. In a sense, that very promise of Abraham being the father of many nations is fulfilled in the death and the resurrection of Jesus. As Abraham believed in the promises of God and had hope in God because of those promises, so too those of us who have faith in that God and what he had done in the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus also have faith in the promises of God. Therefore, what links us to Abraham is faith. What brings us into a relationship with Abraham is that he believed. He believed in the promises of God, and those promises are what constitute the fact that we are children of Abraham, not by descent, but by faith, and therefore all the nations, regardless of ethnicity or tradition or language, can in fact have that very faith in God.
The Apostle Paul starts to develop his argument from there, and it is from there that we derive our understanding of faith. To look at the story of Abraham is to look a little deeper into what kind of faith we should have, and if that is the kind of faith that Paul is stressing here in the Book of Romans. Abraham, as I said, really showed his faith because, first of all, God approached him. God made a promise to Abraham, and his promise was that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky, that Abraham if he was faithful to God would bring other nations and the world to the God that he believed in. The very fact that we are here today is testimony to the fact that there is truth in what was promised. But Abraham looked at things logically, and when he was given the promise that all these nations would come from him, he saw himself as an old man. He is way, way beyond the age of being able to father a child. He looks at his wife Sarah and he thinks that his Sarah is probably beyond the age of being able to give birth. He looks at this situation and of course you would think he would be incredulous, but he believes in the promises of God. He nevertheless believes, and yet it seems almost hopeless.
There was absolutely no ground at all for any physical legitimacy to the promise that God made, but Abraham believed it was credited to him as righteousness. Then Paul almost seems to get carried away with himself – a bit of hyperbole! He suggests that Abraham never showed any weakness in this faith in the promises of God. Yet, when I read the story of Abraham and Sarah, it seems that at times there was some weakness. For example, he didn’t want people to know that Sarah was his wife, so he pretended she was his sister. At another time, he took another woman, Hagar, and he had a child with Hagar, thinking this would be the fulfillment of the promise. He was also like Sarah, when he got the news that she was pregnant, he rolled around laughing! He and she could not believe that this God could possibly be giving them a child. It was beyond reason and expectations. And yet, nevertheless, Abraham did believe.
Abraham did step out in faith, and maybe what Paul is getting at is that type of faith that Abraham had was not such a linear and a pristine faith, but nevertheless in the midst of what seemed hopeless, hoped. And that actually is the phrase that he used: “He hoped even when it seemed hopeless.” He persisted. He stepped out in faith. He did the right thing. He followed God even though he laughed at it, even though he tried to circumvent it by bringing another woman into his life, even though he himself had disowned his own wife, nevertheless Abraham believed. Abraham’s faith was what I call “a messy” faith. It is not all nice and clear-cut and perfect. It is not idealized; it is messy. He had some doubts. He decided to do things on his own without God’s approval. He did all kinds of things wrong, but still, deep down he believed, and it is that, says Paul that was credited to him as righteousness.
When you look at faith, when you look at the reality of faith, is it not often a messy and a complicated thing? Is not Paul’s life one of messiness? Is his faith not borne out of something that is sort of unclear and imperfect? There are times when Paul says, “I have my doubts.” There are times when Paul complains about his physical ailments and his “thorn in the flesh.” There are times when he is thrown into jail, when he is rejected, when he is shipwrecked, when those that he loves in the Church let him down, when there are people who turn against him from within his own Church. There are times in which other Apostles seem to let him down. He enters into arguments publicly with Peter and James. This is not a nice, clean, crisp faith where everything goes his way. On the contrary, Paul himself knew the power of faith: Hope when it is hopeless, and you believe even when you yourself are not perfect.
It is the same with Jesus’ life. If you look at the life of Jesus as we lead up to Holy Week, is it not one of messiness? Is it not one of problems? Jesus being betrayed; Jesus being put on trial falsely; Jesus asking that the Cup of Suffering be taken from him because he doesn’t want it; Jesus on the Cross crying out, “Why have you forsaken me?” Jesus in his own life and in his own walk with his heavenly Father as the Son of God had a messy faith and a messy life. It wasn’t as if everything had gone ideally and perfectly and serenely. On the contrary! Faith is not like that. The faith of Abraham is not like that. In the end, Paul is right. He showed no weakness because he went right to the end even when he was to sacrifice his son Isaac, he was willing to do it, only of course to be told he didn’t need to. But he was willing to do it. He had that kind of faith. He believed in the promises of God, and he would go to the very end to be faithful. He was a remarkable man! And Sarah was a remarkable woman! They hoped when it seemed hopeless. They believed when all evidence was to the contrary.
It is incredible when the faith the produces hope changes lives. The reason why I think humanity for these thousands of years has turned to Abraham is because we see in him something of ourselves. We know there are times when events in the world or in our own lives seem hopeless but we must nevertheless believe and cleave to the promises of God. I was reading a most touching story about a school in a city in the U.S. I understand we do something similar here. The city had a policy that if a student was sick and was going to be in hospital for a period of time, the school would set up tutoring for the student, so that even though they were in hospital they would not fall behind. There was this one particular story about a boy called Brian. A teacher was brought in to the Principal’s office to get instructions as to what to teach Brian, who was in hospital. It just so happened that in English grammar they were studying nouns and adverbs. So the teacher was told to go to the hospital and to teach Brian nouns and adverbs.
The teacher went to the hospital only to see a boy who has been badly burned. He was in great pain. She looked at him and she realized he was very discouraged, very frightened. He didn’t have any hope at all. She had to go in and teach him nouns and adverbs. Anyway, she did as she was told. The lesson went reasonably well and he paid attention. He did his work and seemed to know the difference between nouns and adverbs. The next day, she calls back to the nursing station to see how Brian is doing. The nurse says, “This is absolutely remarkable! This young boy is completely turned around. He is enthusiastic; he is cooperative; he is communicative. He wants to get better. He is going to physiotherapy where before he didn’t want to go.”
The teacher said, “Well, I don’t think it is anything to do with me!”
The nurse said, “No, it is you!”
The teacher said, “What do you mean? Nouns and adverbs have changed the boy’s life?”
The nurse said, “Well, something changed the boy’s life.”
Some weeks later, the boy was asked why he was doing so well. He said: “I don’t think that they would have sent me someone to teach me nouns and adverbs if they thought I was going to die.”
The boy figured out that there is more to this than meets the eye. His life was valuable, he was important, and that because of that, he had hope. Look what happens to Brian as a result of the hope that the teacher coming and treating him well gave him. He was able to do what previously he hadn’t done. That is the power of hope.
G. K. Chesterton, a magnificent writer that I quote a lot because he is just so good, said the following: “Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude. It is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to give strength.” He is right! This is because that is the faith of Abraham. That is exactly why Abraham is important and Paul knew it. That is exactly why the Christian interpretation of Abraham is so powerful and so winsome, because it shows that this faith that we have is based on the promises of God, and the promises of God are true, and can be trusted. “Greater is this faith” said Paul, “than even the law.” Why? Is it because it preceded the law? Is it because Abraham came before Moses and the Decalogue – which by the way, we are looking at next week? Is that why? Well, yes, to some extent, but even more because everything that we do and every moral response, even to the law, is predicated on our faith in God, who made promises to us. Faith precedes law just because the law wouldn’t mean anything if there was no faith, and the only way to fulfill the law is, first of all, to believe. Credo: I believe precedes the doing of the law. The fulfilment of the law is simply a response of faith that you already have. That is why Abraham is so important. That is why his faithfulness is so magnetic! But what I love about this faith of Abraham is that not only is it greater than the law, it is greater than all obstacles that we put in God’s way.
If there is something that bothers me today within our own culture, it is this sense of inevitability. I think it is fair enough to say that we can predict that certain things will happen, but the inevitability of everything just sort of fatalistically happening no matter what, seems to take God out of the equation of the human existence. I think people of faith and people who follow Abraham know and believe that sometimes even though it is inevitably a hopeless situation to those who look on, to God there is hope in the midst of that hopelessness, and there isn’t always an inevitability. I think back to the 1960s and I remember reading the Cuban Missile documents. In Political Science, I studied what happened in the sixties, and there really was this almost inevitable sense that there would be a nuclear holocaust. So many of the documents, so much of the rhythm of the times, and even the nihilism of the times was predicated on the belief that something would happen. Thank God that it didn’t! And, I mean that when I say, “Thank God it didn’t!” It can always happen, because the technology is there. The inevitability of things is something that Christians don’t always believe in, because sometimes we have faith in God, and that faith in God says that it doesn’t always have to be so. Even when everything seems lost and seems dark and dreary, leading inevitably into a pit, Abraham comes back at us, Paul comes back at us, the Resurrection comes back at us, and says, “Hope beyond hope!”
The events in Moscow the last few days took my mind back to something that I read in Christianity Today a while ago about the death and the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev in November of, I think it was, 1982. Leonid Brezhnev’s funeral was a classic Communist Soviet Union funeral. At the closing of the casket there would be the singing of the National Anthem, and there was no reference of course to God at any point within the service. His wife, Viktoria, was at the funeral. George Herbert Walker Bush, who had been sent by Ronald Reagan to represent the United States government at the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev observed something: just before they closed the casket, after this service of glory to Brezhnev, glory to the people of Russia, and glory to the Soviet Union, after what was essentially a service devoid of anything supernatural, Leonid Brezhnev’s wife who had put up with all kinds of things, decided to reach into the coffin and make the sign of the Cross on top of him. When everything seemed hopeless, even God-less, she had some hope. What she did was what Abraham and Sarah did. What she did is what Paul is talking about in Romans. What she did is point to the power of faith even in the midst of death, which is what the Resurrection of Jesus is. It is hope beyond hope. And that is our faith! Amen.