"Looking for a Better Country" -- Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 (9th Sunday After Pentecost)

Photo credit: Navi, used with permission via Unsplash

Hebrews 11 invites us to imagine the journey of the faithful on down through the generations – generation after generation of folks living in the realities of their day – journeying together with and toward God – one step, and then the next – travelling toward a better day that – even if they may not reach it in their lifetime – traveling toward and working for a better day that will be there for their children and their grandchildren – for all those who will follow.

It has an epic sweep.^[1] Some have called it the “roll call of the faithful.”

Of course, there’s Abraham and Sarah –

leaving a homeland they know for a promise they know not.

There’s Isaac, and Jacob, and Esau.

There are the women – most not written in that list, but we’re going to name them all the same (because that’s how we roll) – Rebekah, and Rachel, and Leah.

Let’s not forget Hagar and Ishmael.

Moses – and his mother who hid him from Pharaoh because, as the Writer says, “she knew he was no ordinary child” – she imagined the man he would become.

There’s Miram, Aaron, the people, passing through the waters – all of them journeying – through slavery, and liberation, and wilderness wandering.

Name upon name, generation upon generation. Prophets, martyrs, and kings. And then the writer of the list takes a breath and says (and I love this) What more can I say? I don’t have time to name them all, as if to say-

“Imagine, just imagine – all those who have gone before –

trusting in a promise – making a way, and a life, and a world.”

We’ve been imagining this summer – on a journey of our own – thinking about imagination across the Hebrew Scriptures, the Gospels, even venturing into Revelation.

The Imagination we have seen at work again and again is the Spirit-given human capacity to envision and create a world better, brighter, and more beautiful than the struggle and suffering we are experiencing now. It is the power not only to envision a world not yet visible, but – with God – to make it so. It is the imagination spoken of by prophets and sparked in those first moments after Pentecost:

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your children will prophesy;

your youth will see visions; your elders will dream dreams.”

We went into that cave with Elijah – remember? –  when Queen Jezebel was hunting him down to kill him. And we noted that this Spirit-given Imagination takes the world as it is seriously – because the Powers have an imagination of their own. The Powers imagine a world that they control – structured and maintained by violence and coercive power. This Spirit-given Imagination takes seriously the world as it is and then sees something more – sees life beyond that cave.

We sat with Naaman – that powerful general with the skin disease – remember? –  who couldn’t see far enough beyond his own power and privilege to find the healing that was right in front of him – healing envisioned best by those who know most what it is to hurt. Remember that young woman held in slavery who told Naaman what it would take for him to get healed? We imagined what it might look like if she too could be free.

And then we turned bravely toward Revelation – as John of Patmos sat on an isolated island writing to 7 churches he loved – communities suffering under the power of Empire. With imagery wild and bold, John of Patmos imagined with them God’s new heaven and new earth, coming to life in the midst of them. Most of all know this, he wrote, God is sovereign in Jesus Christ; God is more powerful than all the powers that do you harm. The world right now is full of the violence of the dominating powers – and even so – God is on the move – creating in you – a world where God will wipe away every tear – where there is no more death, no more suffering, no more pain – where everyone drinks water at no cost from the river of life – a great multitude from every nation – a city whose gates are always open – where everyone is welcome. Imagine – and then let us make it so. Amen.

Hebrews 11 invites us to imagine that great multitude – to imagine the journey of the faithful down through the generations – and then, to see ourselves in it – to see ourselves as a part of all this.

Notice a few things about this journey of the faithful:

Notice the longing that compels them forward. Whatever the generation, they live – we live – in the world as it is – a world too much shaped by the dominating imagination. And we long for a better country – we long for a better world.

Notice how they ground themselves in a promise. Abraham and Sarah set out, not knowing where they are going. They live in tents along the way, knowing that this journey isn’t complete yet. They don’t stop. They don’t look back. They look forward – to that city built by God. And they move forward together – one person, two, and then others, and others, until they number “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.”

Notice how they carry the promise and the hope – and then hand it on to the generations that follow. This is, for me, the most moving part of this very moving journey. The writer tells us of generation after generation, soldiering on, and then the writer says say: “All of these died without having received the promise...” Wait? What? “But they saw it from a distance... and welcomed it.” They lived for it. This new heaven and new earth... we will give our lives to making it so... even if we may not see it in its fullness in our lifetime – even so, we will rejoice right now for the day when our grandchildren (and theirs) will enter those gates that are always open, when all God’s children will drink freely from the river of life.

Hebrews 11 invites us to imagine those who have imagined us.

I want to say that one more time:

Hebrews 11 invites us to imagine those who have imagined us.

We are someone’s future.  

All those folks who went before...

From what is our past,

they stood in their present,

and looked forward into the future... into today.

Generations of folks before us – have imagined with God – a better world – and  lived their lives... and given their lives... so that their children... so that all God’s children... might live in that better world... so that we might all live free. That’s what we are seeing as we imagine this journey of the faithful down through the generations.

We’ve got this Biblical roll call of the faithful in the Book of Hebrews, but we know the journey didn’t stop when all this was written down. I started to open some books to find some examples to share, but realized I didn’t need to look any further than my coffee mug. I’ve got this mug here: Seneca Falls. Selma. Stonewall.

Seneca Falls was the setting for an 1848 convention on women’s rights that resulted in a Declaration of Sentiments and Rights that proclaimed the full equality of women. Women and men gathered there – Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Frederick Douglas spoke. They envisioned women’s right to vote. In Hamilton, Angelica Schuyler sings: “We declare these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal/ When I meet Thomas Jefferson, I’m gonna compel him to include women in the sequel.” At Seneca Falls, they declared the inalienable rights of men and women – of all people. They imagined a future we are living now.

Selma. We know that story. In 1964, a community of the faithful undertook three times to walk from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights. The first march on March 7, resulted in brutal, violent opposition in what’s known as Bloody Sunday. Two days later, they set out again; that second march was enjoined. On March 14, they set out a third time, and in three days walked from Selma to the steps of the State Capitol in Montgomery. And a year after that, the Voting Rights Act was passed. They imagined a future we are living now – to be sure, the work is far from done. But back then, who could have imagined? Well, they did.

And Stonewall. Demonstrations erupted after yet one more police raid on the Stonewall Inn – a gay bar, one of the few places where queer people could be safe – and the queer people there said, “No more.” And they resisted.

I went back to the cabinet with our coffee mugs, and I pulled out this one. It’s got a Presbyterian cartoon on it from 1988. (Did you know Presbyterians’ had cartoons?)

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It’s a roomful of men – it looks like they’re up to serious business. One of them is on the phone, and he turns to the others and says, “It’s Janie Spahr. She says that Jesus loves her too.” To which one of the men replies, “Tell her he doesn’t have a vote here.” Oh, and a sign on the wall lets us know that the group of men is the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission. Janie Spahr and so many others imagined a future we are living now.

When I mentioned this Scripture to Jeff and this coffee-mug inspiration, he said, “Oh, that’s not where I thought you were going, I thought you were going to show” these --

These are mugs with photos of my Clark grandparents on them. Every one of us has someone, somewhere who imagined a future for us. I can almost guarantee it was not the specific present we are living now – because, well, life is unexpected. But someone, somewhere imagined for us a future filled with hope – and love – and life.

Imagine for a moment – who is it that imagined you here today, with love and hope? For whom do you carry that same hope and love?

I want to be clear about the state of the world. Things are bad. We do not shy away here from saying true things about the evil that is loose in the world, the suffering, the injustice. We are committed to say true things even about the role that we play in the systems that continue to cause harm. Neither this Scripture nor this sermon is intended to offer a “Don’t worry, be happy” approach to the immense suffering in the world.

Remember, the faithful named in this Scripture did not see in their lifetime the promised city of God – but, the writer says, they welcomed it from a distance. They trusted. That’s what that “faith” word is in the Scripture – “trust.”^[2] What did that writer say last week? They trusted that God was firmly out in front, and always by our side. They trusted in the one who – in love – has made all that is seen from that which wass not yet visible. And so they journeyed on, longing for that better country – and living to make it so.

At the start of this summer series, I mentioned a book by Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin – Imagination: A Manifesto.^[3] The problem we face – to paraphrase Ruha Benjamin – is that we are living in the imagination that the Powers want us to buy into – a future they control. As she puts it, “Our imaginations have been confined to myths of impossibility.”^[4] That is the way the Powers want it to be.

Ruha Benjamin, though, reminds us, quoting Ngu gi wa Thiong: “Imagination is the central formative agency in human society. It is because we can imagine different futures that we can struggle against the present state of things...”^[5] “Who we imagine ourselves to be matters a great deal to who we become.”^[6] And so she encourages us to “populate our imaginations with images and stories of our shared humanity, of our interconnectedness, of our solidarity as people – a poetics of welcome, not walls.”^[7]

I also want to be clear that the imagination that we have been talking about these past 8 weeks is the imagination that comes to life in the Body of Christ. It is the Spirit-given human capacity to see and create with God the future that God has longed for all along. Who do we imagine ourselves to be? We are the Body of Christ – Christ alive in us – we are called and empowered to enter into the deep suffering of the world, and from there, to imagine and create, with God, a world that embodies “our shared humanity, our interconnectedness, our solidarity [as part of one creation] – that poetics of welcome, not walls.”^[8]

Hebrews 11 invites us to imagine all those who have gone before who have shared that vision – who have experienced the promise of God’s love for the world – God’s steady longing for a world where we figure out how to live in relationships of mutuality, sharing, caring, justice, and peace – all those who have said Amen – may it be so in us. Hebrews 11 invites us to see ourselves in that great journey of the faithful – part of something so much bigger than us – so much bigger than any power that does the world harm – to see ourselves as part of the world that God has imagined for us in Jesus Christ.

So, one last thing – that should be clear by now. You remember those words that the Apostle Peter said at Pentecost? You know, after the Spirit had descended on them all, and they spoke in languages not their own, and they understood each other across every boundary that had separated them. And Peter stands up to explain, and says:

This is what the prophet said:

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your children will prophesy;

your youth will see visions; your elders will dream dreams.”

You know, right? He was talking about us.

2025 © Scott Clark

^[1] For general background on this text and the Book of Hebrews, see Fred B. Craddock, “The Letter to the Hebrews,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. xii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), pp.129-47;  Mitzi Smith and Yung Suk Kim, “Hebrews,” Toward Decentering the New Testament: A Reintroduction (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018), pp. 319-326; Scot McKnight, Commentary in Connections, Year C, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), pp.225-227. 

^[2] See McKnight, p.225-26.

^[3] Ruha Benjamin, Imagination: A Manifesto (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2024).

^[4] See id. p. 75.

^[5] See id. p. 89-90.

^[6] Id.

^[7] See id. p,102.

^[8] Id.