by Clint Schnekloth
New Testament Reading: Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
For Sunday, August 11, 2013: Year C—Lectionary 19
The Book of Hebrews is a sophisticated work.
Hebrews has a big personality.It's clearly intent on working over the Old Testament terrain. It's doing deep Christology in the context of covenantal Judaism. It's like a homily on Psalm 95. It may also have been written by a woman (see Ruth Hoppins' rather convincing argument in Priscilla's Letter: Finding the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Lost Coast Press, 2009). 
Hebrews sounds like no other New Testament work. Yet the passage we most frequently hear in Christian worship is this one, which adopts a slightly different voice and pacing than everything that has gone before, and introduces a long (very long) chapter that, when read aloud, overwhelms readers with the breadth of those who have "by faith" lived in anticipation of a promise not yet fulfilled. "For time would fail me to tell of..." (11:32).
Why Such a Long List?
To establish and validate the definition of faith offered at the beginning of this chapter (the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen), Hebrews makes its case not through reasonable appeal but rather by evidentiary and experiential fact.
Look, the author says, all these people who you look to as ancestors in the faith operated "as if" faith really were this. The evidence is overwhelming. The chapter then presents the "evidence" in all its overwhelmingness. From Abel all the way to Jesus, the great cloud of witnesses has lived out faith in this way.
The Beating Heart of the Evidence Is Abraham
The lectionary elects Abraham as the primary example to be read in corporate worship, and this for two reasons. First, the evidence from Abraham takes up the most space in Hebrews 11 (14 of the 40 verses). Second, because Abraham is the father and progenitor of faith repeatedly in the New Testament (Romans 4:9; Galatians 3:6; James 2:23).
Abraham sets off on a journey without even knowing where he is going (always reminds me of Fastball's song The Way. And he lived with a vision of a city he would never see, "the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (11:10). A tent-dweller and traveler looked forward to a city with foundations. Read this, and if you are thinking metaleptically, it reminds you of the...
City and the City
Obviously, on the one hand the narrative structure of the Old Testament leads from Abraham to the holy city, Jerusalem. On the other hand, Hebrews location in the latter portion of the New Testament, quite close to Revelation, should remind readers of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. In fact Hebrews itself directly attests to this, naming this city as the "heavenly Jerusalem" (12:22), and "the city that is to come" (13:14).
"The new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven" is a dominant motif in Revelation (3:12). Intriguingly, it is a city that is "seen" by John of Patmos in his vision, but is on the other hand "not seen" because it is a vision rather than an actual visual seeing. These two cities, and our ability to imagine them, live from and to them, is remiscent of the interwoven cities in one of the greatest contemporary meditations in the visible/invisible of city life, China Miéville's The City and the City.
The Hardest Question
This leaves us as readers of this text with the rather complicated (but metaleptically rich) opportunity to fund our imaginations as those living from one city and to another city, and understanding our faith as somehow wrapped up in the descriptions of each. Which city did Abraham look forward to--Jerusalem or the New Jerusalem—and where are we between these two cities?
Clint Schnekloth is the Lead Pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas. He has written extensively for Augsburg Fortress, including the Seasonal Essays for Sundays and Seasons and the baptismal resource Washed and Welcome. Visit Clint at www.clintschnekloth.com.
