Proper 14 - 2025

Our reading today in Hebrews tells us "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Faith is not certainty in what we can hold, but trust in what is yet unseen. It is not a guarantee of ease, nor a formula to manipulate divine favor. Faith is the quiet courage to hope when the world offers no proof—to love when the outcome is unclear.

The world measures worth by wealth, health, and achievement. But God’s economy is different. Jesus did not turn away the sick, the poor, or the broken; He drew near to them.

“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” — Jean-Luc Picard

I think of this quote when I see the needy among us. While others may see failure in a person asking for assistance, I try my best to see a neighbor on the journey. Loss, hardship, and unmet longing are not signs of God’s absence. They are part of the human story—one that God enters not with easy answers, but with presence.

Faith does not mean pretending hardship doesn’t hurt. It means believing that God is at work even in the pain. Consider the widow who gave her last coins, seen not for what she lacked, but for her trust. The Canaanite woman who begged for crumbs, heard not because she deserved it, but because she dared to ask. The thief on the cross, with nothing left to offer but the plea, remember me.

God does not demand perfection. He invites reliance.

Jesus warned us in our Gospel last week, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. If we treasure only what we can control: wealth, security, success—we will fear losing them. But if we treasure the love that does not fade, our hearts will find rest beyond circumstance.

The Prosperity Gospel tells us that faith is a contract: if we do our part, God must do His. It says that wealth, health, and power are signs of God’s favor, while poverty, sickness, and struggle are curses to be broken. It reduces God to a cosmic vending machine - insert faith, out comes blessings. And worst of all, it misses the point of things not seen.

But this is not the faith of Abraham, who left everything without knowing where he was going. This is not the faith of the saints, who "died without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them."

True faith is not proven by prosperity, but by perseverance. It is trusting when the path is dark, loving when the cost is high, hoping when the world says to despair.

Faith is not a transaction. It is a surrender, a surrender to a God who sees the unseen, honors the overlooked, and meets us in our need.

May we have the courage to lean into the unseen, to love without guarantee, and to hope in the God who keeps His promises.

Amen.