Keeping the Embers--September 16, 2021

Keeping the Embers--September 16, 2021

"By faith Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau.  By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, 'bowing in worship over the top of his staff.'" [Hebrews 11:20-21]

Sometimes faith means holding onto things until the time when they can be used rightly, and keeping them in good condition because you believe that time will indeed come.  That kind of faith isn't glamorous or showy.  It rarely makes headlines, because you almost can't see anything happening.  It's not like Peter walking (momentarily) on water or anybody moving a mountain.  It's more like a mother praying over her children while they sleep, or the elementary school teacher who tells his students, "I can't wait to cheer for you on the day you graduate from high school and get your diploma." These are subtle acts of faith and can be easy to miss, but they are deeply powerful at the same time.  And for each of us, they are the shape of living by faith on most days.

They are, in a manner of speaking, acts of tending the embers.

The well known Roman Catholic writer Sister Joan Chittister speaks of the Gaelic word "grieshog," which refers to the practice of burying the still live coals of a fire in ash overnight so that they will be warm enough to kindle a new fire in the morning once again.  It's a beautiful image for how we live oriented toward the future as people of faith, even when the present moment is a difficult one.  To bury the embers for use in the morning presumes that there will be a new day, that there will be a need for a fire, and that your actions now can be taken in light of that future you are anticipating, even if right now there is not only darkness.  Letting the embers go out uncovered is a sign you are either irresponsible about the future, despairing about the future, or that you won't be around in this same spot tomorrow to build a fire.  But if you are committed to sticking around and doing good--and maybe getting some breakfast going when the sun rises--you keep the embers warm by saving them in the ashes.  Quite often, that is exactly the shape faith needs to take.

As the writer of Hebrews keeps tracing the stories of faith from our ancestors in the family saga of Israel, he comes to Isaac and Jacob and sees both of them as examples of this grieshog faith.  Their faith is in actions for the future, even if that future is one they know they will not see.  When Isaac is an old man with failing eyesight, he blesses his sons, trusting that God will take care of them even after his days are done.  And then when Isaac's son Jacob becomes the father, he too, blesses his grandsons even though he knows he will not live to see them grow old in turn.  It is an important part of genuine faith that we make choices for the sake of a future we may not see yet ourselves, but which we trust is coming.  Like heaping the coals in the ash for the sake of those who will kindle tomorrow's hearth, people of faith make decisions beyond our own narrow and short-sighted self-interest, exactly because we believe that God cares about tomorrow.

In church life, when I see patriarchs of a congregation doing work that should last for decades into the future, even though they themselves may not enjoy all the fruits of that labor, I see grieshog faith.  When we teach young children the good news of God's love, even though we know it is likely that they could move away to a new place when they grow up, it is grieshog faith, too.  When we make choices now about how we care for God's creation, conserve natural resources, and prevent damage to the world our grandchildren's grandchildren will inherit, it is with the same grieshog faith as Jacob blessing his grandsons in his dying moments.  When you plant an acorn knowing you will not live to see the oak tree that shades someone else's descendants, but because it is a good thing for the world to have shady oaks for other people's children to sit in, you are acting by faith.

We need to be clear about this because sometimes the notion of "faith" gets hijacked and turned inside out--sometimes Respectable Religious folks will say things like, "I have faith, and therefore I don't have to care about the state of the world tomorrow, since God will just trash this world and make a new one" (which is not at all what the Christian notion of "new creation" is really about).  Or sometimes it will be, "We can't sacrifice profits today for the possible improvement of tomorrow! God has given us all the wealth and resources of the world to maximize today!"  You know the infinite variations, I'm sure.  But none of those are faith, even if they are dressed up in the language of God-talk. Rather, they are a refusal to trust that tomorrow is important to God and the people God loves.  They are a refusal to practice grieshog faith.

Today is a day to think, not just about me-and-my-present-interests, but to act by faith for the well-being of people who will come tomorrow, people who will make tomorrow morning's fire and who will need warm coals to kindle it, people whose life stories we may not get to see all the way through, but who matter to God all the same.  Our capacity to envision that God can take our actions and do good things through them for other people--and that it is worth such action even if we don't get to see the benefit ourselves--that is the kind of faith Isaac and Jacob each have as they speak blessing to their children and grandchildren.  Such is the faith we are called to practice on this day, too.

Right where you are, prepare the embers for the fires that will be kindled in a new day.  Let that be the shape of your faith today.

Lord God, help us today to live in light of what you will do tomorrow, not just in our own lives or the lives of those we love, but for all whom you love in generations beyond us.