August 10 | Pentecost 9, Year C
Isa. 1:1, 10-20 or Gen. 15:1-6
Ps. 50:1-8, 23-24 or Ps. 33:12-22
Heb. 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40
Wishes are the raw material for dreams. But in the down-and-dirty world of cancer, divorce, war, unemployment, and evil, dreams are as ephemeral as the morning dew. For the high-school soccer player who has a dream of playing in the World Cup, planting her foot wrong and blowing out her knee will kill that dream in an instant, and no form of wishing it otherwise will revive it.
The saints of the church were people who did not spend their days in wishful thinking, but in following the One who had made them a promise.
A wish is a want, desire, or goal, while a promise is a declaration that gives the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act. We may wish that things were different than they are, but that does not change the reality. At best, wishes can only change one’s state of mind. When someone is breaking into your house, wishing it were not so, what we call denial, may be a good mental-health defense, but it will not keep the intruder out of your bedroom. In a crisis, wishing is merely refusing to acknowledge reality.
In contrast, relying on a promise is a declaration that reality will be changed by the reality of what is promised. Believing and acting on a promise is what we call faith. It is living as if that which was promised has already come to be. It is investing in a future reality. Faith is always based on a promise, whether it is implied, as in a bridge or an airplane, or explicit, as in the Bible.
Jesus was talking about investing in the future reality, that which has been promised, when he said: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:32-34).
Although Jesus is using the metaphor of money, he does so only because that is what we value most. The true and lasting treasure is Jesus himself. He is the Reality by which all other realities must be measured. Therefore, as members of his body, the Church, we must “Be dressed for action and have [our] lamps lit.” In short, like those waiting for their absent master, we need to live our lives with the promise of God informing everything we do and every reaction we make. It is our faith, our belief in Jesus, that will be reckoned to us as righteousness.
This faithful living is a God-centered, Church-focused response to all that we experience. God has expressed his promises and chosen the Church as the vehicle of their dissemination and execution. Through the Church we learn of God’s promises and we are encouraged by the repetition of those promises. But it is also in the Church where the temporal manifestation of those promises is meant to be executed. In the crucible of affliction, we are to call upon our brothers and sisters in the Church, not only to remind us of the promises of God, but also to walk through the furnace with us as the tangible presence of God.
And as we walk together, we point to Jesus and the promised reality that will ultimately and eternally eclipse our present struggles. For that reality has already been established. The cross and empty grave stand as witnesses to the reality that sin, death, and the devil have already been defeated by the One who is our true Treasure—the Promised One—“the assurance of things hoped for.”
Look It Up: Genesis 15:1-6
Think About It: Against all apparent odds, God’s promises are real, because they are his promises.
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.
