Rev. Dr. Galen E. Russell III

Preached on August 7, 2022

Luke 12: 32-40

Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16

“Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

Prayer: God of infinite possibilities, help us have faith in you. Amen.

     Did you hear recently that the monarch butterfly was back in the news? For our area, I guess there’s a shortage of milkweed, which is the monarch’s main source of food. I know we used to have milkweed growing on the edge of our church property by the sheds and pavilion. I’m not sure that we still do. But anyway, despite the shortage, each year the butterflies take part in a migration that amazes me.  It starts about March in Mexico or Florida and heads north. Then in mid-summer, the migration goes south and ends about November, back in Mexico or Florida.

     The amazing thing is that “no individual butterfly completes the entire round trip. Female monarchs lay eggs for a subsequent generation during the northward migration. Four generations are involved in the annual cycle, and the generation undertaking the southbound migration live eight times longer than their parents and grandparents” (Monarch butterfly migration - Wikipedia, retrieved August 5, 2022).  And last generation stays in the warm climate over the winter months, and the whole migration starts all over again in March.

     That’s the power of instinct in nature, right? I mean they just do what they do. No one butterfly sees the migration as a whole, but nevertheless, each butterfly is part of the bigger picture.

     The monarchs are what came to mind when I read the Hebrews text for today. And I keep thinking about the bigger picture. Abraham didn’t live long enough on earth to see God’s whole plan come to fruition, but unlike the monarch butterfly, he heard God’s promise about the bigger picture ahead of time. That somehow, even though he and Sarah were childless, they would have a son. Some way, even though they were elderly, in their upper 90’s—even though they were as good as dead, as Hebrews says—descendants would come from Abraham and Sarah, more numerous than the stars of heaven and grains of sand on the beach. That’s God’s bigger picture for Abraham. So, even with the limitations they faced, Abraham became an Israelite faith hero because he had faith in God’s promise.

     So, it’s never too late to have faith. No matter how old you are. You could be on your death bed, and you can come to faith and God would honor it. No matter how young you are. No matter what you’ve done in the past, or didn’t do. No matter what you think are the limiting factors in your life. No matter what circumstances you find yourself in… the urgent ones where something must be done now. The copacetic ones where things are status quo. The difficult ones where you don’t know what to do and you can’t make a decision. The long-term ones where you must live with a constant struggle or condition. It’s never too late to have faith because God wants us to trust in God now. Presently.

      I think God always takes delight when you or I trust God in the chaos of our lives or our world. I mean a couple of people I know recently lost their jobs. I became aware of others who are Covid long-haulers. A woman came to my office last week in need of temporary housing. Another was taken to the ER unexpectedly last weekend. Even in our church office, we find ourselves without a permanent office staff person. What is the chaos in your life?

     God loves it, I believe, when we depend on God presently in our life’s circumstances. God wants us, I think, to have faith in the moment, no matter what the moment is. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed with faith that God knows what is going on. If I can accept that what is happening in my life as part of a bigger picture that God sees and invites me to trust in what God sees, even if I am blind to it. With faith, we become part of God’s future and not our own.

     God loves that, I think. But it’s a matter of perspective, I think. When we, through faith, allow a difficult moment to possibly be a “blessing in disguise.” When we trust that God is at work in every one of our circumstances. Using our circumstances, step by step, to further God’s future, God’s intentions in our lives.

     During the Mission trip a couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to play a game of checkers with one of our youth. I haven’t played checkers probably since grade school. But you know how you try to make small moves that will set up a bigger move of jumping two or three checkers all at once? It struck me that could be what God’s workings are like… We’re invited, I think, to have faith that God is at work in the regular stuff of our lives with bigger picture in mind. Sometimes things happen step by step, and other times large things happen all at once.

     I would even bet that having faith in God IS God’s main goal for us in life. This is where we have to be careful in our understanding, though. So much of the Christian faith today has the idea that if I have faith in God and in Jesus, then I will reach my end goal of being successful in life. God will answer all my prayers. My dreams will be realized. If I have enough faith, God will bless me with abundance. This is what is called the prosperity gospel. And the end-all of the prosperity gospel is that if I live right, I will get to my end-all destination, heaven, eternal life.

     Hate to break it to us, folks, but I seriously question if those are God’s main goals for us in life. The fact is that God may not answer our prayers the way we want. God may lead us to the opposite of what the world calls success. Just look at Jesus. God led Jesus to Jerusalem to accomplish God’s purposes for eternal life to be a grace-filled gift of God for everyone. It happened through the faith of Jesus that he clung to even in the face of torture and death. Hardly an example of a success-story by our standards.

     But to God, us having faith IS the success. To God, us using the faith of Abraham and Jesus as our role-models for faith IS God’s end-all goal.

So, in other words, I think we often experience a disconnect. Because what many Christians today call the end-goals in life, God calls those just part of the journey. What God calls the end-goal of having faith, we call part of the journey. It’s never too late, I think, to get on the same page as God’s end-all goal. To strive for faith in God in all our circumstances; and God is trying to move heaven and earth just so we have this faith on our journeys.

     And the possibilities of God’s bigger picture start to unfold. We cannot see God’s entire viewpoint. And God doesn’t tell us what we are aiming at. God didn’t tell Abraham either. But with faith in God, so much more than we can ask for or imagine can open up before us. It’s never too late for faith because faith helps us be alert to the possibilities that the “realist” says are impossible. Faith in God helps us be ready for action, a responsiveness to God’s world, a just world, a loving world, becoming a reality. It’s never too late for faith because God’s possibilities for our lives and God’s world abound.

     So, what possibility is God calling you to? What new possibility is God calling our church to? Whatever it is, God’s never too late to have faith in. Whatever it is, take Jesus’ words to heart: “Do not be afraid.” Those words by themselves call for faith, don’t they? Because “It is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” And we give God deep pleasure by having faith. It is never too late to have faith.  Amen.