Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Pentecost +11 - Year C

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Take 1

By faith Abram and Sarai set out. If you are not up to the faith standard, there are still hope and love and additional ways to journey.

Try this variation: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the love of things not seen. Even without assurance that hope will be fulfilled, one can still hope and still love.

Whether by faith, hope, love, or some other path, we can still desire a better world than we currently find. Of course it will require changing ourselves as well as the world, since we are still very much connected. It does open the possibility of modeling the changes we desire.

Whether working from a position of assurance or hope or love or something else, have at it so that you can be grounded in this place and not need some other in which to live and move and have your being - here is enough.

Take 2

Yes, yes, yes, faith is directly connected with assurance and conviction. That is exactly the problem. Anything outside of faith must be prohibited for assured faith is convicted and convinced that it is the totality of what is possible.

Faith is the source of approval, so faith must be secure for all time.

It is in this sense that faith is connected with an other-worldly heaven. Faith and Heaven - between the two of them there is no other option than the option of what is currently understood to be faithful and heavenly by those who control access to either (as either implies both).

Watch out for an unashamed God insisting on faith and offering a heaven, someday. There you will find an idol, secure, never-changing, ever pure. There you will find Crusades and Inquisitions.