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1 WHAT IS IT THAT SUSTAINS US IN THE STRUGGLE?

Reflections on Hebrews 11

Some Presuppositions

The theological reflections and Bible studies in this Assembly are held under the topic: “Christian Witness in the Struggle for Liberation”. There are two presuppositions in this topic, namely: first, a struggle for liberation is going on; and secondly, there are Christians present in this struggle. It is up to each of us to find out whether these presuppositions are at all valid.

This question is clearly a political question, the judgment will be a political judgment, and no amount of liberation theology will justify us if we fail in the daily involvement. If we seriously ask who the oppressors are, and who are the oppressed – how the oppressed can organise and fight for their liberation – it will become very clear that it is not our theology of liberation which will liberate people. It is their action in which we may be invited to join at great cost. And, it will be up to the people to judge whether they perceive a Christian witness in our presence or not. There can be no blueprint for Christian Witness in the struggle for liberation, and these Bible studies are certainly not meant to contribute to one.

Our Interest in Reading the Bible

It is always important to ask with whom we read the Bible and why because this makes a lot of differences to what we read and how we understand it. I cannot judge why you as an Assembly decided to read the Bible again together which is obviously not just a pious habit of yours. I would just like to share with you the background from which these Bible studies have grown.

The approach on these Bible studies is a rather narrow one. They try to reflect the problems of people, not necessarily young people, though many of them are below thirty, who have tried to make a life commitment to the struggle for liberation. They try to organize people in the villages or city slums and are therefore dislocated and displaced persons. By breaking away from the “normal” pattern of behaviour: to earn a livelihood, to raise a family, to support one’s relative – they have disappointed many hopes and

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expectations of their loved ones. They have hardly any support from anyone. The situation being what it is, it looks as if there is also not much perspective in their organising of landless labourers, fishermen, slum people.

The question, “What is it that sustains us in the struggle?” is therefore a very burning question of survival. The church to them may be a rich and domesticating institution and many of them have no Christian background. The Christians among them, however, ask this question also of the Bible, “What is it that sustains us in the struggle?"

The Text

The question, “What is it that sustains us in the struggle?” is very much a leading one in the 11th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews. We do not know anything reliable about the origin of this letter. It was not written by Paul but by someone who was close to Paul. It was written after the persecutions under Nero and some assume it was written around 80 AD. We do not even know who the recipients of the letter were. Since there is very intense recourse on the Old Testament, it is quite probable that they were Jewish converts. But, even this view is contested. But, whatever their identity, in terms of their existential situation, these people are very close to our present condition because they had made a life commitment to Christ, and were getting weary in this commitment. There seemed to be very little perspective in it.

The writer of this letter makes reference to this situation in the end of chapter 10, significantly transforming one verse of the Prophet Habakkuk so that it reads, “the righteous one shall live by faith and if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure in him”. And then he affirms: We are not of those who shrink back. But then, what is it that prevents us from shrinking back? What is this faith which sustains people?

Hope and Anticipation

“Now faith is the assurance (essence, the true substance) of things hoped for, the conviction (reality) of things not seen. For by it men of old were confirmed in their witness (sustained in the struggle). By faith we understand that the world was created by the

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word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do “not appear.”

The reference to the creation out of nothing serves to emphasise the paradox of faith. To be certain about things not seen. This certainty of faith has a double character. It is the certainty of hope on the one side, but it has also very strongly the character of anticipation of any disaster. It has the character of a sober assessment of the present reality in order to anticipate what is to come.

The variety of examples from the Old Testament illustrates this ambiguous character. The most graphic example of the anticipation of hope is the reference to Joseph in verse 22 (cf Genesis 50: 24-26) who asked not to be buried in Egypt but to keep his bones in a coffin and to carry them to the promised land to be buried there. So, even by these rotting bones being around in this coffin all the time, in Egypt and on their way through the desert, the people were constantly reminded of God’s promise. Another example, the one of David and Saul, witnesses to the other form of anticipation. David, the guerilla fighter, anticipating each and every step of his adversary.

Anticipation of hope and of disaster is crucial to the struggle for liberation. In India, when the Emergency was declared in 1975, many people were completely taken by surprise. This is still part of the weakness of the opposition to be taken by surprise with every new move. While “conviction of things not seen” may sound like a blind faith which goes ahead without looking left or right, the whole context of this chapter tells us that it is quite the contrary. Faith means to read signs of the times carefully and, reading them, to have a vision of what is to come and which future can be built.

"By faith Noah built the ark, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise” (vs. 8-9).

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Risk and Realism

The example of Abraham gives a second clue to the character of faith. It implies the total risk of our very existence. So, we may ask ourselves, “Is it realistic to risk our very existence out of faith, out of hope for a new life?” The answer of our text is quite sober and ‘disillusioning. It says about the fathers (vs. 13-16) “These all died in faith, not having received-what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared them a city”.

Is the risk realistic? We have asked, “Does this risk-taking of the fathers deliver the goods? Is it worth it?” Life and death of the fathers, in fact, look very disappointing. They have not received what was promised, only seen it and greeted it from afar. But, does this mean that their hope was in vain, the promise empty, the risk unrealistic? If we involve in a struggle the fruit of which we cannot possibly hope to reap – is this in vain, is it a risk which is unrealistic, and therefore, meaningless? The meaning and the realism in the fathers’ life is that they were in search of a homeland. What, then, is the homeland? Is it a homeland which can ever be found? Is it worth the risk? Is it real?

It is obviously not real in the way things of our past experiences are real. The homeland is definitely not the land from which they had gone out. To this homeland they could have returned without much risk, knowing the advantages and disadvantages; they could have gone without any vision or anticipation just accepting the security of bonded labour. Life in Egypt presents itself quite attractive from the perspective of the desert.

The realism of established structures of exploitation in which one tries to feel at home with some adjustment, avoiding the risk of responsibility and forgetting about the vision of liberation, is obviously not part of the homeland. There is enough return to this kind of realism particularly in students’ movements because students are people in a phase of transition who have set out for some exploration, some exodus, and afford to be radical.

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But then, the student years are only a transition, and the question is to what kind of reality one settles down afterwards. The need for roots is genuine, but the question is whether this means the return into the womb of established structures. Or, does it mean the Utopian search for a homeland which, as the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch puts it, shines in each childhood and yet remains unceasingly ahead of us.

What is the homeland to which this text witnesses? It talks of a better homeland, a heavenly one, a city prepared by God. This sounds disappointing. Could we be fed with hopes for a better life after death? Is the homeland a pie in the sky?

We can certainly assume that the author of these lines expected the kingdom of God to be rather close. It is quite probable that our own expectations are quite different from his. Yet, there is no doubt that this expectation of the kingdom, of the city built by God, can in no way be separated from the expectation of the total transformation of our life and our structures of living together. All the strong references in this text are from the Old Testament.

The Old Testament, on the whole, was not interested in life after death – it was interested in a good life here on earth. If it was only “heaven", life after death, which the fathers expected, the author could not have possibly said that they had not attained it but only greeted it from afar. He refers to the fathers as outstanding examples of faith. So, how could we expect that the fulfillment of this faith – had it only been in heaven – could have been withheld from them? Obviously, the fathers were looking for a promised land which was to be theirs in history, even within the short span of- their life. And they tasted it, greeted it from afar and saw it already there and yet coming.

Hope and Risk

What does the expectation of the new homeland do to people? Do they lean back and wait and see? Does it make them complacent about the existing structures since these are not going to last anyway? Obviously, nothing of this kind. The whole chapter, from verse 17 on, tells examples of people who were prepared to leave everything behind, not only materially, but even their most sacred convictions – even the very content of their hope and the comfort of God’s promise.

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The two most conspicuous references in this text are the ones to Abraham and Moses. Abraham offers Isaac to God, unhesitatingly giving up the son on which the promise lay (vs. 17-18). Moses gives up all his privileges and becomes a fighter for God’s justice (vs. 24-26). “By faith Moses, when he was grown, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered abuse suffered for Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked for the reward.”

The life of Moses is there put into Christological context. The giving up of all privileges strongly reminds us of Philippians 2. The suffering servant is stronger than the conquering king. This is realism of the hope and the risk involved in faith. The measurement for reality which is built out of faith in God’s justice. Under this perspective, we hear of the guerilla fighters of the Old Testament – Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephta, David. Their dismantling of kingdoms is measured by the justice which is implemented (vs. 33, 34). The expectation of the homeland makes people fight, but it makes them fight under the judgment of God’s justice; it is the weak who are to become strong.

The costs (if we look at vs. 35-39), are so high that they make us tremble: chains, imprisonment, torture. The same costs are nowadays paid all over the world in the political struggle for liberation. People fight with hope, with a vision, risking all, and paying the price.

Then, what does all this do for us? What have the faith, the hope, the vision, the risk, to do with us? Verse 39 and the beginning of chapter 12 draw the line out into our own life. All these lived and died so that we may be drawn into the struggle and be sustained in it, and sustain others. The cloud of witnesses suffered because of us, so that we may not be left alone but be kept on the way to the promised land. What we are expected to do to each other was already spelled out in chapter 10 verses 23-25 – to be steadfast in hope and stir each other to love and good works, more concretely, even to care for the prisoners and to face persecution if it arises. If we simply start doing this, new life will grow. Also, the question on how to give up privileges will be solved because they will be taken from us. The question is whether we have the courage to let that happen.