They left their homes and embarked on life-threatening journeys, traveling thousands of miles on foot. They crossed deep and muddy rivers. The heat was at times unbearable. The risks were immense. But it all seemed worth it, because they were following the hope of a better future in a new homeland, a place where they could flourish.
No, this is not the story of Abraham and Sarah, although it’s similar. In Abraham and Sarah’s story, God speaks to Abraham and tells him to uproot his family from their homeland in Ur. God will lead them to a promised land in Canaan, and Abraham’s descendants will become as numerous as the uncountable stars in the heavens. Abraham’s lineage will eventually reach to the ends of the earth because of God’s promise. For Abraham and Sarah, the risk of leaving the familiar is worth it because God’s promise will surpass their wildest dreams.
The other band of travelers to which I’ve referred, like Abraham and Sarah, leave the familiarity of their homeland for the promise of something better. These travelers leave Venezuela, a country steeped in conflict, and head to a land of freedom, the United States. Once over the border in Texas, they are met and given a promise. Take a free bus ride to Washington, DC, and you will find everything you need.
But having arrived in Washington, they find the promise to be an empty one. Having made it to what they thought was freedom, they suddenly discover themselves without money, homeless, jobless, and living in tents or without so much as a covering over their heads. They have ventured out on a promise that was really no promise at all.[1]
And this is where their story diverges from that of Abraham and Sarah. The migrants from Venezuela find themselves on the streets of Washington, just steps from the Capitol, with no homes, searching for food and support, hoping against hope that someone would help. The real tragedy is not that they haven’t reached their final destination, wherever that may be. It’s that the promise they followed was no promise at all.
The migrants’ story poses a seemingly intractable problem, doesn’t it? People uproot themselves from their countries, taking an unauthorized chance on this nation of freedom, hoping that they can find some better life here. But often, this land of freedom does not seem to be what is expected. We who are residents here don’t seem to know what to do with migrants when they appear, unbidden and unwelcomed, on our doorstep. At the root of this problem are conflicting interests: migrants want to better themselves and live a life of flourishing, and those of us who lead relatively stable lives are disrupted by them. It’s not our problem, some say. They have imposed on us.
But Scripture suggests otherwise. Throughout its pages, there may be no more common story than that of the migrant. It’s one long story that starts with Abraham and his family. It continues into the land of Egypt, hostile to the Israelites. It persists beyond the Red Sea through the wilderness for forty years. It threads its way through the territories of hostile nations who give no aid to the wandering Israelites. It moves from Jerusalem to exile in Babylon and then back to Jerusalem. It follows Mary and Joseph from Galilee to Bethlehem, and then carrying the infant Jesus into Egypt and back home again. It tracks the short life of an itinerant Jewish teacher and preacher in his ministry, into a lonely garden of Gethsemane, and eventually outside the walls of Jerusalem to a place of execution. It traces the paths of the apostles, on the other side of the empty tomb, spreading to the ends of the earth. It follows the Church through its struggles and victories, and it finds us here in this church today, knowing that we have a destination, too, although it is yet uncertain.
The story of the migrant is not just about twenty-first century politics or humanitarian efforts. It’s the story of our lives as a Christian people, a people who are always on the move, who are always in via—on the way. Our final destination is never fully under our control.
Perhaps this is why the stories of migrants unsettle us. Not only do we see people in dire need and feel guilty about it, but we see a challenge to our own security. The migrants remind us that worldly promises are sometimes false. They remind us that the world is not as stable as we might wish it to be. They remind us that if we’re really living as Christians, the migrants’ story is ours, too, because this earthly home is not our true home.
It’s no wonder, then, that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews recounts the journeys and stories of our ancestors in the faith. They’re all on journeys, either literal or spiritual, or both. These journeys, whether of Abraham and Sarah, or Isaac and Jacob, or even Abel and Noah, all start with God. God confirms a relationship with these people, a relationship built on faith. And the people move, knowing that they are headed somewhere that will change them, even if they don’t know the destination.
The author of Hebrews tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” The original Greek is stronger: faith is the hypostasis, the substance, we might say, of things hoped for. Faith is not wishful thinking to brighten the sorrows of life. Faith is real. It's substantive. It’s the reality of God’s promises to us. Faith is built on hope even when that hope is unseen. Faith means taking a chance on the promises of God, because it knows that his promises are true.
This is how Abraham ended up in Canaan. This is how Moses led a volatile group of people from slavery into freedom. This is how the exiled Israelites could dare to imagine rebuilding a second Temple in Jerusalem. This is how a bereft group of disciples could conceive of the Gospel reaching to the ends of the earth after a tragic death.
This is why you and I show up here week after week to adore the living God, who comes to us unseen in bread and wine. This is why our hearts are stirred, convicted, and panged by the injustice we see on a daily basis. There’s no other way to explain it other than that we have faith in something better. Our faith tells us that broken promises to migrants seeking better lives are not legal in the unseen country of which we are citizens.
And so, that, if anything, is what defines us as Christians. That is what makes our way of life perpetually in via, constantly on the move. We are always yearning for that heavenly city, knowing that it will remain unseen to us in this life, and yet it is our ultimate goal if we are truly disciples of Jesus.
Reckoning with those who live in tents means that we confront our own homelessness. It means we confront our heritage, the homelessness of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Moses, Miriam, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, his loyal followers, and the martyrs right up to the present day. It means we accept that even here, today, in this church, we are homeless, too, as the British Anglican priest Samuels Wells reminds us.[2] Being homeless for Christ means that we’re never content with the status quo, especially when others suffer, when injustice prevails, and when Christ’s peace is not fulfilled. If we aren’t homeless, then we aren’t seeking what we should be seeking, which is a home with God.
The Christian life is meant to be a courageous one, not a comfortable one. It tolerates no apathy. Faith means stepping out when we aren’t sure of the answers. Faith means welcoming into our midst those who challenge us and those who disturb us because in them we meet the real presence of Christ. Faith means staying with God even when we’re not clear where we’re headed or how things will turn out. It means never taking for granted what we have been promised.
There’s no question about it: we have been promised much, and Christ is the assurance of that. And something else is certain, too: unlike the false promises of this world, God never uses us as pawns in a game. God always keeps his promises. And if, by faith, we stay with him on the journey, he will never, ever let us go.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
August 7, 2022
[1] “D.C. aid groups overwhelmed as migrants arrive from Texas, Arizona,” The Washington Post, July 13, 2022 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/13/dc-migrants-buses-texas-union-station/)
[2] [2] Samuel Wells speaks powerfully of various kinds of homelessness in A Future that’s Bigger than the Past (Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, 2019), 113-114.