Doing Good, Seeking Justice

The writer as storyteller spends the rest of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews naming people of faith who put their trust in God in myriad circumstances. This week’s lectionary reading speaks of Abraham and Sarah who follow God to a new place and trust in God’s power of procreation even though they are old—“too old.” Such trust leads to many descendants, uncountable like stars or sand, from the highest heavens to the lowly earth.

Sarah and Abraham are called to move, to experience life as foreigners in a strange, new land. Later, the psalmist and many of the prophets remind the Hebrew people that their experience as strangers should teach them to be kind to the foreigners in their midst. But often they forget and treat foreigners as enemies. The writer of Hebrews links the earthbound experience of being foreigners to the seeking of a better country beyond death, a heavenly home that welcomes them. God prepares a city for them, a large city, it seems, since the descendants number as many as grains of sand in the desert.

A speaker I recently heard says he prefers to use the term “people move,” instead of the often more charged words “refugees” or “immigrants.” Going back to Abraham and Sarah and throughout history, people move for many and varied reasons. Sarah and Abraham let go of their established life, their familiar surroundings, and set out to follow God’s call. It is not easy to move, to pack up and go without a new address waiting. The tent symbolizes their transient status.

For the writer, willingness to follow God’s call demonstrates faith. Listening and obeying, trusting and moving forward; these skills and practices continue to prove useful today as we discern God’s call for our life.