C, Post-Pentecost 9 Proper 14 - Luke 12:32,37 Hebrews 11:12 "As Good as Dead"
Hebrews 11:12 (ESV) Therefore
from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the
stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
Abram was a rich man, but he was
as good as dead. He had faith in God,
but he wished to propagate his line, encouraged by his wife, Sarai, to take
Hagar, her servant, and secure a future through her son, Ishmael.
You might find it interesting that
Abram, come Abraham, after being promised by God that he would have his own
heir, listens to Sarai, Sarah, has genital union with her servant Hagar, and has
a son. The faith in which Abraham and
Sarah act, seems contrary to the faith they were credited with in the letter to
the Hebrews.
By
faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age,
since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man, and him as good as
dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the
innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. (Hebrews 11:11–12 ESV)
A world of hurt follows after
Hagar conceived and gives birth to Ishmael.
Ishmael receives the blessing God gave to Abraham, becoming a multitude
of peoples, but he does not allow Abraham and Sarah’s faith in themselves see
Ishmael as the heir. Instead, God allows
Abraham to cast Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness to seemingly fend for
themselves with bread and water that quickly run out.
Hagar and Ishmael too are as
good as dead, which appears to be not good at all. Imagine being Hagar and Ishmael. What would your faith be like in their
situation? The laughter and joy at the
birth of Isaac, I imagine, was not shared by Hagar and Ishmael having been cast
out into a certainty of being as good as dead.
The picture God paints for us in
his word as being as good as dead, is not as bad in God’s eyes as it is
ours! He allows Abraham, Sarah, Hagar,
and Ishmael to reach a point at which they are no longer able to act. Within each of these characters God kills all
faith, hope, and love, exhausting every human act, erasing every idea and all sentiment.
Not only was Abraham as good as
dead, but also, he couldn’t give faith to Sarah, Sarah couldn’t give faith to Hagar,
and nor could Hagar give faith to Ishmael.
God is the only one to give faith.
But first he seeks to see in us the complete annihilation and
obliteration of looking to the self. He
uses death for good, making us as good as dead.
Talking about death in this way,
is counter cultural. To be made nothing
and erased rightly fills us with hopelessness and helplessness. It may be your response to busy yourself, to
try to overcome the feelings of fear associated with this reality. Worry can drive one to work with a desire to
force these feelings out.
On the other hand, becoming
nothing and being erased may leave you struck with fear. So much so you are frozen by fear and are
overcome by the poverty of your hopelessness and helplessness.
In a society driven by the
pursuit of pleasure it is a strange paradox that we are faced by so much fear
and unhappiness. However, when faith in oneself
and the pleasing of oneself no longer pleases, fear and unhappiness must come
when our treasure of pleasure is dead.
This death of pleasure occurs
inside and outside the church, and it seems a terrible thing, but God allows us
to be as good as dead so goodness might come through death.
For you and me, inside the
church, we learn a valuable lesson. We
learn about being Christian is not necessarily about doing Christian
things.
In fact, there are many outside
Christendom that do many greater things than those inside the church. In the eyes of the world, philanthropists do
good deeds spending millions on selfless works in society. Humanitarians too, also seem to improve
society with the good work they do.
Their love for their fellow human is second to none, outdoing us in the
church doing “Christian things”.
Doing Christian things might
please some! But doing Christian things
to be seen as a Christian, does not please God.
One needs to prayerfully consider what one’s pleasure actually is, in
doing Christian things. If I do things
to feel pleased, am I not pleasing the god of myself? I am using the things of God to worship
myself. And what happens when the things
I do, no longer gives me pleasure?
Being a Christian, calls us to
be in the pleasures of death; to be as good as dead. That sounds strange. It sounds like an oxymoron, a contradiction
in terms. How can there be pleasure in
death? Death is about annihilation,
becoming nothing, obliteration, or being erased from existence.
Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.” (Luke 12:34
ESV) Where your treasure is, there is
your pleasure. If your pleasure is doing
Christian things, then your treasure is the doing of the deeds.
However, when we are as good as
dead, our pleasure cannot come from doing anything. But, when we are as good as dead, our existence or
having our being must come from God and this pleases him because he is the only
one who can truly do it.
In our Lutheran Confessions it
says… But before people are enlightened, converted, reborn, renewed, and
drawn back to God by the Holy Spirit, they cannot in and of themselves, out of
their own natural powers, begin, effect, or accomplish anything in spiritual
matters for their own conversion or rebirth, any more than a stone or block of
wood or piece of clay can. [Isaiah 45:9;
64:8; Jeremiah 18:6; Romans 9:19–24]
For although they can control
their bodies and can listen to the gospel and think about it to a certain
extent and even speak of it (as Pharisees and hypocrites do), they regard it as
foolishness and cannot believe it. They
behave in this case worse than a block of wood, for they are rebellious against
God’s will and hostile to it, wherever the Holy Spirit does not exercise his
powers in them and ignite and effect faith and other God-pleasing virtues and
obedience in them.[1]
It pleases God when he finds us
ready. We are made ready by the Holy
Spirit, and he readies us in the Word of God and the Sacraments. The Holy Spirit places us in the cycle of
faith, breathing life into that which is as good as dead.
In fact, he must make us ready
for the coming of the Bridegroom by making us dead. God finds us as nothing, so he can give us
everything and make us something, a Christian being, working and moving in the
being of Christ, doing the things of God as the Holy Spirit wills us. For “In
him we live and move and have our being”.
(Acts 17:28 ESV)
Jesus tells us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 ESV)
We see in war movies, when one
is injured on the battlefield and cannot escape the enemy patrol, looking to
finish off those who are still alive, some survive by playing dead, so the
killers pass by giving the injured a chance to escape.
Opposite to this is the
Christian who is ready for the Father’s good pleasure. He needs us not to play alive, as if we do
not need his help and can save ourselves.
We don’t need to play dead either, our reality is that we are as good as
dead. It pleases God when we know and
trust this in his word and make ourselves ready for his coming, because “our help is in the name of the Lord, who
made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 124:8 ESV)
When we ready ourselves in the
knowledge as being as good as dead, it pleases God to rescue us from the “no
man’s land” of suffering and sin. Jesus
tells us what he does for us, “Blessed
are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself
for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”
(Luke 12:37 ESV)
Faith that pleases God, is a
faith that places its pleasure in the death of self, the death of desire and
sin as well as the death of do-gooder righteousness. A faith
that pleases God is a faith that treasures Jesus Christ and his service to us
in the forgiveness of sin, giving life to sinners.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? (Romans
6:3 ESV)
It is better, to be awake and
ready to the reality of being as good as dead, than to be so busy pleasing and
saving the self that one shuts out Christ, knocking at the door of one’s heart!
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, as Jesus comes
and knocks on the door of our hearts, may he find us ready, enter, and serves
us with the bread of faith, hope, and love, in his word and in his body and
blood. Send you Holy Spirit to work the
death of faith, hope, and love in the things of this world, our sin, and our
sinful being, so he might continually serve us with your Son, our Saviour Jesus
Christ, that each of us may remain in the goodness and treasure of his
death. Amen.
[1] Kolb, R., Wengert, T. J., & Arand, C. P.
(2000). The Book of Concord: the
confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Formula of Concord, Solid
Declaration, 2:24 (pp. 548–549).
Fortress Press.
