Sermon for Sunday, August 17, 2025 || Proper 15C || Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2

Today, I’m going to talk about faith. I’m going to talk about faith for two reasons. First, our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews invokes faith several times and I’d like to explore that with you. And second, over the course of my four weeks off, I discerned the need to recommit myself to some spiritual disciplines in order to exercise my faith. At the end of today’s sermon, I will invite you to do the same. But first, let’s define our terms.

---

What is faith? Last week’s reading from Hebrews gives us this classic definition: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1). Not exactly clear, but I’ll take a stab it what this might mean. For the writer of Hebrews, faith is the aspect of our spiritual lives that compels us to look beneath the surface of reality and see God’s grace-filled presence undergirding all things. This special perception fuels our hope and helps us walk in faith, assured of God’s presence.

But this looking beneath the surface of reality takes a lot of practice and dedication. It is so easy to get caught up in the frenzy of our lives and our fears of the future that we fail to perceive the foundational presence of God. So we practice our faith. We practice our faith like a star tennis player practices her serve. Coco Gauff has hit that first serve a million times, but she’ll practice it a million times more. We practice our faith like Yo-Yo Ma practices the Bach Suites – again and again and again, refining rhythm and bowing and dynamics and intonation. And all the while reveling in the sublime music the master composer created with a bunch of tiny dots and lines on a page three hundred years ago.

A simpler definition of faith springs from Hebrews’ more complicated one and from this embrace of the concept of practice. Faith is “practicing the presence of God.” We believe the presence of God to be the foundational principle of creation. God spoke and continues to speak Creation into being. The uncountable relationships that make up our universe – from the nuclear force of subatomic particles to the gravitational balance of celestial bodies, from osmotic equilibrium within cells to the interplay between family members – these innumerable relationships all reflect, however imperfectly, the perfect relationship of God with God. (We call this the Holy Trinity, but that’s a sermon for another day.) For today, let’s stick with this thought: our faith teaches us that God’s presence is the foundational principle of creation.

So, if God’s presence is that foundational principle, why don’t we notice it all the time? The problem is that we evolved to notice change, not constancy. Our ancestors who noticed the bushes quivering and therefore dodged the sabertoothed tiger passed on their genes more often than those who got eaten. God’s presence is the most constant thing in the universe, the fabric upon which creation is built. So it’s really hard to see.

But we do see God’s presence, and we see this deeper reality more often the more we practice our noticing, the more we practice our faith. We see God’s presence in the beautiful geometry of blooming flowers and spiraling mollusk shells. We see God’s presence in the endless ocean and infinite night sky. We see God’s presence in the love we receive and the love we offer. God’s presence is there in those things and in everything else. We live out our faith when we practice our noticing of that presence. And we practice our faith by striving to be that presence in the lives of others.

I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon that I discerned during my vacation the need to rededicate myself to spiritual practice. Just like exercising my body, I need to exercise my spirit through spiritual disciplines. As we move into the next school year at St. Mark’s, I’m recommitting myself to reading the Bible everyday, learning from the example of wisdomkeepers, writing fiction, and playing my guitar. I wonder what spiritual discipline God might be calling you to take up that will help you live out your faith.

Ponder that wondering question while I share my most recent song, written this week, as I contemplated living the life of faith.

Practice the Presence

A dahlia in bloom, sacred geometry
The tides and the moon, dancing with gravity
A swallow in flight, soaring through atmosphere,
A puppy’s delight, whenever you’re near

CHORUS
There are burning bushes all around
Everywhere is Holy Ground
So with our eyes wide open
Our hearts awoken
Our lives interwoven
And our feet unshod
We practice the presence of God

A deer in the wild, as long as she lingers
The birth of a child, tiny little fingers
A friend on the phone, calling just to check in
A moment alone, to hear the Spirit beckon

A gath’ring at church, holy community
An end to a search, at long last serenity
A mission to claim, justice and charity
God calling your Name,  the grace of new clarity

BRIDGE
I hardly ever look
I see even less
Yet the world is a book
About the blessings of God