Faith’s Hall of Heroes (Hebrews 11)
We’re taking three weeks to look at what Christian faith looks like according to
the great “faith chapter,” Hebrews 11. I wonder: how would you describe what
Christian faith looks like? Political commentator and television host Bill Maher has
very clear opinions about who gets to call themself a Christian. He himself is antireligion—he’s against all religion. And—just to warn you—he’s also not afraid to
be crude. So we’ve had to do some editing. But I’d like you to listen to what a
non-Christian has to say to us Christians about what our faith should look like.
(This is just after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.)
[BILL MAHER: NEW RULES]
What do you think? Is Maher right? Notice the title above Hebrews chapter 11:
“Faith in Action.” That’s what Bill is talking about: faith in action. Now let’s see
what this chapter says about Christian faith.
Hebrews chapter 11 is a bit like the whole Bible in miniature. The author begins
(verse 3) with God creating the whole world ex nihilo, out of nothing, then dashes
through the entire history of God’s people—skips over Adam and Eve to Cain and
Abel; then Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph… Verse 23:
Moses, Joshua and the walls of Jericho… Verse 31: Rahab the prostitute.
Then,“O my goodness… I’m out of time,” gasps the preacher. Verse 32: “What
more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson,
Jephthah, David, Samuel, all the prophets, who through faith conquered
kingdoms (that would be King David), administered justice (that would be
Solomon, who had to decide which baby belonged to which mother… remember
that story, 1 Kings 3?), shut the mouths of lions (that would be…?), quenched the
fury of the flames (that would be…?). Verse 35a: “Women received back their
dead, raised to life again” (that would be Elisha’s dear friend and frequent
hostess, the well-to-do Shunammite woman and her little boy, 2 Kings 4).
So, those are our great heroes of faith. But imagine: wouldn’t it be amazing if you
were included in Hebrews 11? If your name—my name—were also in here? I
mean, who doesn’t want to be a hero?
The word “faith” gets repeated over and over (all of 24 times in this chapter), but
there’s another really important word in this chapter: the word “commended.”
Verse 2: “These heroes are all commended by God.” Verse 4: “God commended
Abel as righteous.” (In the Bible, righteous simply means, “In right relationship
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with God.” Everything’s right between God and Abel.) Then verse 5: “Enoch was
commended as one who pleased God.” (Whenever God thinks about Enoch, God
just smiles.) And finally, at the very end of this chapter, verse 39: “These [heroes]
were all commended for their faith.”
And who of us doesn’t long to be commended? I really like it when people say,
“Good job.” Or, “I like you,” or “You’re a great friend,” or, “What you just did
makes me very happy.” So what if we could actually hear God saying that to us?
“You’re my hero!” Wouldn’t that be the most wonderful thing in the world—to be
commended by God? Just to know, God is really happy with me. So pleased. God
just delights in me. Last week we looked at how God created the world (verse 3)
and then God created us—but not, first and foremost, so that we would love God,
which is often the way we think, right? The big reason, the first reason, God
created us was so that God could delight in us, God could just be happy with us,
God could pour out his pleasure upon us, so that God could commend us, so that
God could simply love us! Who doesn’t want to be God’s hero?
But, if you keep reading, verse 35b, our great Faith Story takes a turn to the
darker: “…others were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain
an even better resurrection.” (That would be the Maccabees, a whole family who
lived between the time of the Old and New Testament. When they were captured
and being tortured by the Romans they said, “Go ahead; you can even kill us. But
you really can’t hurt us because God’s going to raise these bodies up again. You
can’t keep us down. We’re getting a bodily resurrection.”) Still, verse 36, it just
keeps getting worse: “Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and
imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two
(ouch!); they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and
goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of
them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the
ground. These were all commended [by God] for their faith…”
That word “commended” is the important Greek verb, μαρτυρέω. Usually
μαρτυρέω gets translated “to witness” or “to testify.” When we’ve experienced
something first-hand—seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, smelled, tasted,
touched—then we can μαρτυρέω with our mouth. But here this is God who has
first-hand experience of his heroes—and God makes an emphatic declaration,
“Well done! You’re so faithful!” God μαρτυρέω’s. We get commended!
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Now, do you see the English word we get from this Greek word μαρτυρέω?
[Martyr!] When we witness, when we speak well of God, when we commend God
to others, we inevitably find ourselves out of tune with the world. Our world
really does not like it when we don’t conform. But when you live by faith, you’re
not afraid to rock the boat. You’re not afraid of being out of step. You’ve got
God’s approval, so it’s not such a big deal if you don’t have human approval. But
take that far enough and you could even end up a martyr. In fact, that’s why the
Greek word “witness” ended up becoming our word “martyr”!
And that’s why Hebrews 11 sounds a bit like Jane Fonda’s slogan, “No pain, no
gain.” You want to be a hero of the faith? You’re going to suffer. Perhaps Bill
Maher is right: the big difference between God’s heroes and the world’s heroes is
that God’s heroes don’t inflict suffering on others, they accept suffering on
themselves. Faithful Christians take the suffering. Unlike the world’s big heroes
who’d rather make others suffer. Think the NHL playoffs. The hockey heroes
aren’t the ones taking the hits. They’re the big guys dishing them out. Or think of
the superhero movies. It’s a very lame superhero who doesn’t make people
suffer, who doesn’t cause some mayhem. If you want to be a hero in the world,
you’ve got to be willing to cause some pain. See, in our world, it’s not Abel who’d
be the hero, but Cain! Which is why we have that old expression, “Let’s go out
and ‘raise some Cain.’” But in God’s world the hero is Abel.
So maybe I’m not so sure I want to be God’s hero. I’m not really into martyrdom.
I’d rather just skip over Abel (verse 4) and get to Enoch (verse 5). Because it
seems to me Enoch led a pretty charmed life. See, if I got to be Enoch, I’d want to
write a book entitled: How to Have the Perfect Life. You can read about Enoch
back in Genesis 5. I’d love to have his life. Enoch got to live for 365 (not days)
years! He gave birth to lots of sons and daughters, one who holds the Guinness
Book of World Records for longevity—Methuselah. (Great name for a man who
lived almost a millennium!) But what’s even more special about Enoch is that he
walked faithfully with God. He’s God’s very close friend. God walks with Enoch.
God talks with Enoch. It’s almost like he’s back in the Garden of Eden. God just
really loves Enoch.
Verse 5: God is so pleased with Enoch, he commends him! And eventually, at age
365, God just took him away! He’s the only person in all of history—that we
know of—who never died. The most distasteful, the most difficult, the most
fearful thing about living is, of course, how it ends. See: you can have a fantastic
life, but you still have to die. Unless you’re Enoch. Such a charmed life! And that’s
basically all we know about Enoch.
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But how about Abel? His life is far from charmed. Actually, Abel seems like a
strange hero. He’s so ordinary. Cain gets all the attention, all the hoopla—being
the very first baby, ever. He’s the chosen son, the firstborn. Genesis chapter 4,
verse 1: “Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave
birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.”
Notice, she doesn’t even give Adam any credit: “This is a God thing! God promised
me offspring… and God came through!” “A little man”… obviously she’s never
seen a baby before. “A little man has come out of my body!” And then, almost as
an afterthought, one brief line for Abel: “Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.”
Just, “Cain’s brother.”
Now, you can be sure that when they’re growing up Cain and Abel hear the story
over and over about how their mom and dad stole God’s fruit, and how they got
banished from the Garden of Eden. So Cain is going to be the hero. He’s a “takecharge” kind of guy. He grows fruit, and he offers fruit to God. He’s going to fix
things. “Here’s some fruit for you, God. Now, please, let us back into the Garden.”
But God pays no attention to Cain’s offering. What?! Cain gets very angry.
We’re not told why God was okay with Abel’s offering. Maybe it’s just because
Abel was being thankful. Who knows? “Here’s what you have given me, God. I
offer it back to you.” In any case, Abel isn’t trying to be the hero. He’s not trying
to make God do something for him with his offering. But Abel’s older brother is
not used to being the loser, and certainly not to his kid brother. “I’m Cain! You’re
just Abel. How dare God like your gift better than mine?” He’s so furious, so
angry, he rises up and kills Abel. What?! The first hero of faith—a murder victim?
Maybe you remember hearing about that great sixteenth century woman of
prayer, Teresa of Avila, who spent years in intimate prayer with God. She’s given
us some of the most beautiful insights on God’s love. But Teresa also endured
great physical suffering. Finally she confronted God about her terrible suffering.
Here’s the answer she got back from God: “This is how I deal with my friends.”
“Well,” Teresa replied sharply, “in that case you shouldn’t be surprised if you
don’t have very many!”
But why would God let God’s heroes of faith suffer so much? Take verse 37: that
person who got sawed in two: that was probably Isaiah, God’s greatest prophet
ever. Ancient tradition tells us Isaiah’s enemies wanted to shut him up, silence his
witness (μαρτυρία), so they stuffed him into a hollow log and then sawed through
the log.
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Why, Lord? If you really loved Abel so much, why would you let Cain kill him?
And then afterwards, when Cain worries he might get targeted for retribution,
you go to all that trouble of protecting Cain by putting a special mark on him so
he won’t be killed—even when he deserves it. You protect the bad guy, Lord, but
you’re nowhere to be found when the good guy gets killed? What’s going on,
God?
So many among us here at Peace are suffering. A number of you are struggling
daily with cancer. Just this Friday, Bill Reimer had surgery to remove cancer from
his liver, Neil Friesen had his gall bladder removed, Trudy Schroeder had her knee
replaced. John Neufeld needs a new heart. Bonnie’s face is still so swollen from
her jaw surgery, and we’re praying her eyelid will soon be able to blink again. This
is just some of the physical suffering among us. Then there’s all the anguish of
grief, of depression, of families in trouble. When we’re suffering so much, no
wonder we’re tempted to start asking lots of questions in our heads: “What am I
doing wrong? Does God still love me? Do I have God’s approval? Would God
really commend me?”
And the answer is, “Yes! Yes indeed! A thousand times yes!” How do we know?
Hebrews 11! Just look at these “heroes” of faith. Enoch seems to us like this great
saint, but what did he do really? He gave birth to Methuselah. And Abel… he just
seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck for him he got Cain
for a brother. Then there’s Rahab the prostitute (verse 31). How did she get to be
a hero of faith? Or Gideon (verse 32)—he’s an illegitimate child—everyone called
him a bastard. Just read his story (Judges 8): he completely messed up. Or
Jephthah—his big claim to fame is making the stupidest promise ever (Judges 11).
Or Samson. Samson! He gets a whole section of chapters in Judges written about
him, and each chapter just gets crazier. He’s the parody of the judges. The guy
was insane. It’s like the author of Judges wrote so much about Samson to show
how not to be a judge.
And these are the “heroes” of faith? Look: if these guys are God’s heroes of faith,
well then you definitely belong in Hebrews 11 too! And here’s why: because all
those guys in Hebrews 11 aren’t really the real heroes. The real hero is Jesus.
Jesus is the real witness, the real martyr. It’s the faithfulness of Jesus that really
matters. He took on himself our suffering. He didn’t make us suffer for our sins.
He stretched out his arms: “See how much God accepts you, commends you,
loves you!” And he died.
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Which means we no longer need fear death. Which means we can stop trying to
play the hero. Which means you don’t have to be devastated when you’re not Mr.
Popular or Miss Popularity Contest, because you have God’s commendation. Even
suffering doesn’t destroy you. Because you know that’s how God changes the
world: yes, through suffering. Jesus took on the suffering of the world. He
dignified all our suffering. And now, we too, Jesus’ followers—we get to bear the
world’s suffering too. Probably not as dramatically as Jesus. But still, if we
embrace suffering as Jesus did, we’ll probably be a little less comfortable. We may
find that our time is no longer our own. And our space, our stuff, our schedule,
even our boundaries—we can be freer, less defensive, less protective, when we
join Jesus in his suffering.
Our Anabaptist heritage is filled with
stories of ordinary faith heroes who
joined Jesus in his suffering. Here’s one of
our most famous Mennonite pictures.
Who is he? [Dirk Willems!] His enemy
was chasing after him, trying to catch him
because he was a follower of Jesus. Dirk
could have thought, “Jesus got me across
the ice. Hallelujah. Now he’s letting this
bad man drown. Praise God. Serves him
right.” He didn’t. He went out on that
thin ice and rescued his enemy. Dirk was captured, and a few weeks later was
burnt alive at the stake for his faith. He didn’t mean to be an extraordinary hero
of faith. He was just an ordinary follower of Jesus like you and me. And God gave
him strength in that extraordinary circumstance.
Ordinary Christians living out their ordinary faith in an extraordinary God. Yes,
we’ll probably suffer. But if we’d just live this kind of faith… well then, maybe
even Bill Maher might reconsider Christian faith!
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