Seen and Unseen: Gifts of Faith Along the Path
Seen and Unseen: Gifts of Faith Along the Path
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 (selected verses)
August 10, 2025
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible….
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:1-3, 8
Today is August 10. For some teachers and students, summer is almost over and school will start. I have that memory that when I started school each year, at some point during the day, the teacher would say, “Okay class, take out a pencil and a clean lined piece of paper. Put your name at the top and put the title “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.” You have 20 minutes to write a short essay.”
Well, today I am not going to read an essay or preach a sermon entitled “What I did on my 3 month sabbatical.” I will share some stories today and more in the coming weeks.
Thank you again for the gift of extended sabbath time. It gave me a chance to rest, reflect, and be renewed. Part of what I looked forward to was taking time to renew my spiritual life through reading and writing and walking and reconnecting with family and friends. And to be renewed and refreshed as I worshipped at other churches – sermons, music, prayers, silence.
I felt open to a variety of ways of living out my faith – an awareness of Divine Love, Mystery, presence Christ was bubbling up in me in different settings. What would help me see? hear? And what was invisible to me? Not seen but experienced? What would bring joy?
The writer of Hebrews is exploring some of these questions. What is faith? I was drawn to this scripture that is one of passages in the lectionary cycle for today.
Faith
What does it mean to have faith these days? How do we understand faith when we personally as we face changes in our health, as aging presents different joys and challenges, as we grieve losses of people we love or a job or work? When we are facing financial challenges? What does it mean to have faith in this time of our country moving toward authoritarian rule more each day with human rights violations, arresting and detaining immigrants who are here lawfully, acting with cruelty to many people of color, to defunding science for public health and removing protections for the environment?
Like many of you, these weigh heavy on me. The sabbatical was a time of stepping back from some of the daily barrage. And yet I was seeking ways to know faith, an assurance of things hoped for when there are realities in our country and world that we cannot ignore.
Faith. What do we mean? What did the writer of Hebrews mean?
Writer of Hebrews
We don’t know the preacher who wrote the letter to the Hebrews. The Greek is different than Paul’s. There is a possibility that it was written by a woman, maybe Priscilla. She didn’t sign the letter. But we know something of what she was dealing with. Her church was tired. They were worn out. They had put in their time, in fruitful and unfruitful seasons, and they were ready to give up. Maybe you have felt that way.
The preacher says, “You can’t give up. It’s too early for that. Faithfulness sees the far-off horizon what we can’t yet see.
Then the preacher turns to point to the history photo albums. “Look at Abel, who made the acceptable sacrifice. Then there’s Noah, who hadn’t yet seen a rain cloud before he trusted God to start building a big boat. And Abraham and Sarah, who had no idea where he was going, but God said, ‘Trust me and I will lead the way.’”
The list goes on: Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. Each one of them trusted the God we cannot see. In this Divine Love and Grace. They endured for the sake of promises that remained just out of sight. They didn’t stop. They kept going. “And with people like these, who are now cheering us on in our journey, we can’t stop. We must keep going.” Later in Hebrews we read - Jesus the perfecter of our faith.
Who are those faithful people who remind us to keep going?
Greek Definitions
Faith πίστις - Pistis –- Faith, trust, confidence, fidelity
Assurance - υποστασιs (hypostasis, meaning "substance - confidence" - the thing that settles to the ground, the foundation. A base for confidence. A place to stand mind, body, soul.
Hope Ελπιζομενων - , meaning "hope" - assurance of things hoped for. Expectation. Set our hopes on. Move in that direction.
Then we read examples of people who had faith, lived faith, confident and acted with hope.
Three times in four verses Hebrews’ author says Abraham left his ancestral home, went to where God showed him. Abraham’s confidence in what he hoped for and assurance of what he could not see was, in other words, more than an attitude toward the future. It also animated his behavior.
Descriptions of Faith
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.” Faith makes concrete and tangible the promise that is real but often invisible, it puts flesh and blood and tears and laughter on this thing that sustains us.
Frederich Buechner writes, "Faith is the eye of the heart, and by faith we see deep down beneath the face of things – by faith we struggle against all odds to be able to see – that the world is God's creation even so….… Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, Faith is waiting." (Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons).
Sabbatical connections
Faith is confidence and foundation.
Faith in the source of love that holds me and all people and creation
Doubt – yes. Questions – yes. Look for those who invite me to understand
Human condition more deeply. Empathy. Listen.
Writing and reading – I write out my questions, my gratitude, to the holy one.
A foundation of compassion, deep beloved and belonging
Walking – what is path like – solid, slippery – Swallow Falls
Reading Huckleberry Finn and James. African American enslaved people.
I want to read books that are hard, challenging, uncomfortable.
Understand my own bias, racism, structural racism.
Foundation of love & value of all people – learn with humility what must change
Faith not fear – Faith is Relationship
Jesus in the boat with the disciples during a storm. He calmed the storm. He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Pistos – faith
Both fear and faith make sense in relation to something that’s unknown or threatening. Those are the kinds of things that make us afraid. Yet it’s those same things that summon us to have the faith to face them. Faith doesn’t so much overcome fear as make it possible to cope with it. Maybe that’s the issue here: Not whether you’re afraid, but how you respond when you’re afraid. So, what allows us, even if we’re afraid, to act in faith rather than to be paralyzed by fear?
“What moves us from fear to faith?” is relationship. It’s the move from what to who, from event to person, from ambiguous miracle to the actual person of Jesus.
Faith is relationship
Faith is a relationship. Contrary to popular belief, faith is not believing in certain doctrines or reading the Bible literally; in fact, trust is a much better translation of the Greek word that most Bibles translate as faith because trust implies an action – it’s a verb – and a relationship. Christian faith is about a relationship with the God revealed by the teachings and actions of Jesus. Especially in Mark and Luke’s gospels, Jesus points to a God who cares passionately for the welfare of all God’s people – Jesus is healing the sick, feeding the hungry, welcoming the outcast, even overcoming death. Jesus invites people to trust in that God. Trust, in the end, is the only thing that overcomes fear.
The most frequently repeated command in the Bible is “Do not be afraid.” These words are spoken by angels, prophets, and apostles, and now, they are to be spoken by communities of faith. We are to say to one another, “Do not be afraid.” “Do not be afraid, because God loves you. God cares what happens to you. God loves and cares about everybody, and God has ways of making the impossible possible. God continues to call us, to call you, to imagine, hope for and create new possibilities. God calls you to remember, even in this scary world.
· Poetry class – listening to people sharing words about life. Took class with a friend.
· Connected with friends from high school, college, seminary, sister Pam, sons.
· Café at Jeffrey’s church in Cumberland, MD – Community Café. All are Welcome. Pay what you can. Or help in the kitchen. Sit around tables.
Faith is deepened with awe, joy, and beauty
· The beauty of nature, of creation is a source of faith.
· Lake Tahoe – Zephyr Point
· Sequioa National Park – trees and mountains
· Lake Chautauqua – the lake, the orchestra, the laughter, the singing
Closing
The Epistle of Hebrews proclaims the life-changing power of faith. Mystic encounters help us see that faith is more than belief. More of a holy adventure. Faith is in the unseen, what seems impossible to the political and spiritual “realist.” Yet, faith opens us to a “deeper reality,” in which God’s presence makes a way when there is no way. The author of Hebrews proclaims that the great people of faith lived with the vision of another place, vision, God’s thin place that lay beyond the limitations they were currently experiencing. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, confidence in things unseen.” What great thing – beyond your current understanding or reach – is God calling you to?
This faith, however, is not unrealistic, nor does it deny the real limitations and challenges we face. Abram and Sarai are old and childless…and yet…God has a vision to make a way where they see no way forward. Faith emerges from recognizing the concreteness of reality, including the forces of entropy and injustice.
Faith sees the concrete world as the womb of possibility and imagines that God is presenting us with provocative images of the future, even when these seem unlikely at the moment. Trusting God’s vision, the widest horizon of hope, faith trusts that the moral arc of history will come to pass, despite our current challenges and acts of injustice.
I must admit that this is a difficult passage. I often feel hopeless that we can change either as a nation or a planet. We live in denial, some calling climate change a hoax, maintaining false election claims, denying our nation’s racist history.
But today we are reclaiming the truth about faith
· Faith is confidence and foundation. A movement toward God’s vision of shalom.
· Choosing faith not fear
· Faith is rooted in relationships
· Faith is deepened of awe, joy and beauty
Let us look toward the horizons and take steps toward God’s vision. Faith opens us to deeper and wider visions of reality. It gives us greater perspective and energizes us to be God’s companions in transforming the world, enabling our world to embody on earth God’s dreams. It reminds us and inspires us to be the hands and feet of Christ, God’s partners in tipping the world from death to life and hate to love, and brokenness to wholeness. Amen.
Resources
Rev. Bill Carter, Living in the Spirit with Faithfulness, July 30, 2023 https://billcartersermons.blogspot.com/2023/07/living-in-spirit-with-faithfulness.html
Rev. Bruce Epperly, Patheos, , Adventurous Lectionary – Pentecost 9, August 10, 2025
Rev. Joanne Whitt, In the Face of Fear, June 21, 2024 https://solve-by-walking.com/2024/06/21/faith-in-the-face-of-fear/