Things Hoped For

Sermon — The Rev. Greg Johnston
August 10, 2025
Lectionary Readings

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1)

 I spent the last few weeks in a place that’s relatively good for stargazing: a few hours east of New York, a few hours south of Boston, with water on both sides, in a town far enough from any big city that on a clear night, you can look up and see the night sky pretty well. And one night I was standing on the porch and I had a moment of cosmic vertigo. Looking up, I could see the Milky Way, and the reality suddenly snapped into focus that I wasn’t standing at the center of the universe: I was standing on one planet orbiting one star, in a three-dimensional field, looking head on into a galaxy that stretched so far that the light of all its stars was just a blur through the sky. And I was reminded of the words of Psalm 8:

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
        the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
What is man that you should be mindful of him?
        the son of man that you should seek him out?” (Psalm 8:4–5)

It’s a feeling Abram might have felt, as he looked out at the stars. He was more familiar with them than I am, because he’d been journeying under those stars for years by that point. But you can still feel the sense of awe in the story. In fact, there’s a little narrative device in Biblical Hebrew that makes it clear.

The narration in conversations tends to alternate back and forth: Abram said this, then God said that, then Abram said this. But on occasion, you’ll get, God said this; then God said that. And it’s a way of indicating a pause: so where modern English prose might say, “Abram sat in silence, looking away,” Biblical narrative just does this double-“then he said” and lets us imagine the rest.

So God brought Abram outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And Abram looks up at the stars. And he’s speechless. We’re supposed to hear the pause. And then God says, “So shall your descendants be.” (Gen. 15:5)

“And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (15:6) And this moment becomes the paradigmatic example of the great faith of Abraham.

The word “faith” is a popular one these days, in part because it’s become a catch-all replacement for the words “religion” or “spirituality.” We talk about “people of faith” and “faith communities,” and sometimes “faith-based initiatives.” It’s become distilled into such a technical term that it’s occasionally absurd: I receive a “City of Boston Faith-Based Newsletter” from someone with the title “Senior Faith-Based Advisor.” But in the Christian context, “faith” isn’t a synonym for “religion” or even “belief.” Faith means a very particular thing. For the Apostle Paul and in the Letter to the Hebrews, Abraham is the paragon of faith. And the faith of Abraham is very specifically “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1)

We only read a snippet of Abraham’s story this morning. And you might think that his faith is relatively simple: he believes what God says, and that’s faith. And that’s not wrong. But it misses the scale of the thing.

We enter the story today half-way through. Abram’s story with God had begun when he was already seventy-five years old. God spoke to him and said, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation.” (Gen. 12:1) And Abram went! He brought his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot, and they left home. They arrived in Canaan, and God appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” (12:7) Abram had no offspring, but there was plenty of time for that—he was only, what, 76?—and so he journeyed on. And many adventures later, Abram had grown into a powerful and influential man. But still no kids. And he began to worry about God’s promise. And so, in this story today, God takes him out, and shows him the stars, and pauses long enough for him to feel that sense of awe—and then promises that so shall his descendants be.

But there are still no kids! Moye years, filled with more adventures. Abram and Sarai try to come up with their own plans, which are not God’s plan. And finally, when Abram is ninety-nine years old, God appears again, and makes his promises again, and God gives them new names—they will no longer be called Abram and Sarai, but Abraham and Sarah. (In case you were wondering.)

And there are still no kids! God sends three angels, and there’s a whole aside about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and more adventures, and then finally, when Abraham is a hundred years old and Sarah is ninety, Sarah gives birth to a son: Isaac is finally born.

Abraham isn’t an example of faith because he believes in a God or gods. It’s not because he’s committed himself deeply to a particular set of doctrines. It’s not because he has regular experiences of the Divine. The faith for which Abraham is famous is the unreasonable but undeniable sense that God’s promise is true, even though its contents are unbelievable, and its timing is unreliable, and there’s no evidence at all that it’s ever going to happen.

This elderly couple are going to be fruitful and multiply? Unbelievable. It’s not going to happen now, or on the next divine visit, or on the one after that, but just vaguely some time in the next quarter century? Unreliable. Years pass by, and nothing happens? It defies all the evidence of the senses. (On this definition of “faith,” the only truly “faith-based initiative” in the City of Boston is the completion of the North Washington Street Bridge.)

And yet Abram believed God, because God has given him the gift of faith: the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

We “people of faith” proclaim many unbelievable things that have been promised to us by God. And for each one of us, the emphasis is a little different. For each one of us, there is some unbelievable thing that we desperately need. Perhaps for you it’s the promise that on the other side of the grave lies not oblivion, but reunion; that we will one day rise again, in a world in which we share eternal life with those whom we have loved and lost. Perhaps for you it’s the promise that God is working all things together for good; (Rom. 8:28) that while the road of history is long and winding, God is leading us toward a Promised Land of peace and justice and love. Perhaps for you the hardest thing to believe is that even though the entire human species amounts to nothing but a tiny drop of matter on a single planet in a single solar system in one galaxy of trillions, there is a God who loves and cares for you.

We hold these things to be true because Jesus and the prophets have told us that they are. And they’re a source of great comfort. But they can be hard to believe. They seem incredible. They aren’t fulfilled on the timelines we would like. And sometimes, it feels as if there isn’t much evidence

But “do not be afraid, little flock,” as Jesus says. The truth doesn’t depend on the strength of our faith. Even faith itself is a gift from God, and “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32) Our work is not to prove them true, but to trust, and to journey on, reassured by the promise of the things we have hoped for, and strengthened by the reality of things we have not seen.