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Mother Teresa is often held up as the example of how we are to behave in the world post-twentieth century. She founded Missionaries of Charity, through which she helped the sick and the dying, ran soup kitchens, and travelled across the world doing charity work for those in need. She was honored for her charity and for her faith, to the point that the Roman Catholic Church declared her a saint.
After she died, I remember hearing stories about how Mother Teresa wanted all her journals and writings destroyed. That, of course, did not happen. When those writings came out, it was clear why she didn't want them to be released. They chronicled her doubts and her struggles with her faith. I suspect many of us would feel the same way, that we too would not want our innermost thoughts and fears laid bare. We certainly wouldn't want an image of ourself to be destroyed.
Knowing about her doubts might even raise the question in our minds: "if Mother Teresa, who was so faithful, had doubts, what does that mean for me in my own faith?"
Our reading from Hebrews this morning begins with these words: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Our reading continues with the praise of Abraham and his faith, and in the bits in between the passage we read this morning, we hear about others from The Book of Genesis and the power of their great faith. Next week, we will continue this passage with the great power of faith in the stories of the Israelites journeying from Egypt and of the great prophets and kings of old.
These stories are good for us. They give us something to live up to. They give us an example of great faith. What, then, does it mean when we, like Mother Teresa, experience doubt?
The thing is, Hebrews gives us only half of the story. We see the examples for us to live up to, and we see how those examples lead us to Jesus. We even hear of some of the hardships of Abraham, just as Hebrews tells us the hardships of other Old Testament people. We hear how Abraham and others had faith, even though people like Abraham never saw the full fulfillment of God's promise to them. But we don't hear of the hardships that these people had with their faith in the midst of their lives and journeys with God.
That's where the rest of Scripture come in, to share this other half of the story and speak of those hard times of faith. All of these people we hear about from Abraham onward wrestled with their faith.
Yes, Abraham kept moving in the direction God desired for him. He left his home and all that he knew for the promise that God would make a great nation out of him. As Hebrews says, Abraham didn't get to see this promise fulfilled. In fact, he spent most of his life without a child to help start and lead this nation God had promised him.
Abraham does have those conversations where God has to reassure him, and Abraham does keep going on, but he also has some serious doubts in his faith. When his wife Sarah suggests that maybe God has a different idea and gives him her servant, Hagar, to produce an heir, Abraham is quick to go with that suggestion. But, as God tells Abraham, this is not part of the plan. God will give Abraham a child, but that child will be through Sarah, as impossible as that might seem for a woman way past her child rearing days.
Abraham even struggles to believe that God will protect him no matter what. In their early days while traveling through Egypt, Abraham claims that Sarah is his sister, not his wife, out of fear that the Egyptians will kill him, for Sarah, we are told, is a beautiful woman. It's only when God warns the Egyptian leader in a dream not to even touch Sarah, that Abraham can fully see God present with him, and he and Sarah depart unharmed. The even stranger thing is after this event Isaac, Abraham's son, uses this trick himself in his own travels with his own wife.
Abraham persevered in his faith, yes, but not without times of doubt. Who of us can even blame him when the fulfillment of his faith had to come from a miracle?
Hebrews speaks of the great faith of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea (as we will hear next week), but the Israelites constantly complained against God both before and after. In fact, if the Israelites are known for anything in Scripture, it is their lack of faith in the Lord. The true miracle isn't their faith, but God's act of forgiveness of them time and time again.
Even the prophets struggled in their faith. At best, they were like Samuel and spoke with God directly about their struggles and fears. At worst they were like Elijah, who, after his victory over the priests of Baal by showing God is the one true God, fled the moment the evil queen Jezebel put a price on his head. But even then, Elijah was able to listen to the Lord and have his faith renewed.
Now I'm not saying that Hebrews is wrong about its assessment on faith. Nor am I saying that we should look down on any of these people as weak or faithless. They are all amazing examples of faith and belief in God, and Hebrews is right to point us in their direction and say "follow." But all these examples, this "cloud of witnesses" as Hebrews calls them, are human, just like us. They struggled, just like us. Sometimes it was hard to put their trust in God.
The cloud of witnesses is a great example to us in living out faith, both in what to do and what not to do. Sometimes that example of what not to do is the most helpful because there are times for all of us when we have doubt in our faith. Whether it be due to length of time or the hardships that may come our way, faith is still "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Faith is our trust that God is always by our side, even when we can't feel God there. Faith is our trust that God will fulfill His promises, even when those promises seem impossible to fulfill.
If you are struggling with your faith, turn to the examples of Scripture, not because they are always perfect, but because they are not. What we can find in the struggles of Abraham, the prophets, and even Mother Teresa is our own struggles. When we are looking for a way out of our own difficulties in faith, we can look to those examples and more because when we look at the great cloud of witnesses, we can see that there will, in fact, be an end to our doubt and a deeper growing of our faith.