Seventy years ago…

a bizarre death took place in Western Australia…

when a local man surreptitiously jumped into the lion enclosure at the Perth zoo.

His badly-mauled body was found by keepers the following morning.

Police later discovered a letter that he had written…

a few days before his death…

in which he announced his intentions to do what he did…

along with his genuinely-held belief that God would protect him––

like God had done with Daniel in the Old Testament––

and that his actions would cause thousands of Australians to convert…

and put their faith in God.

The coroner eventually ruled that his death was not a suicide…

but the result of the PTSD that he had suffered during the War––

although it wasn’t labelled as such back then––

which had triggered his religious delusions.

 

Sadly, six years ago in Santiago, Chile…

a young man climbed into the lion enclosure at the Metropolitan Zoo…

and was badly mauled.

Two lions were shot and killed by keepers in the attempt to save him.

The young man did survive…

but only just…

after he was accidentally hit with a tranquilizer dart meant for one of the lions.

It seems that he, too, was inspired by the Biblical story of Daniel… 

and his deeply held faith that God would protect him.

 

It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.

Leaving aside the whole issue of mental illness…

these stories remind us of the problem of imaging God as some sort of controlling… 

interventionist… 

providential deity;

they remind us of the dangers of literal and facile interpretations of Scripture;

and they remind us of the dangers of religious piety, divorced from a sense of reality.

Faith in God doesn’t work like that.

We all know that.

It doesn’t matter how fervently we believe––

or how deep and unwavering our faith in God is––

God isn’t going to save us from our own stupidity or delusions…

any more than God is going to help us win Cross-Lotto…

or cure us of any incurable disease that we might contract.

Faith simply doesn’t work like that.

Not in the real world.

 

And so…

despite the power of its poetry…

our reading from Hebrews this morning ought to be––

in many respects––

slightly unsettling.

The author begins by trying to explain what “faith” is…

and what it means to have faith.

Unfortunately, some of the terms that he uses in the Greek are unusual…

and somewhat ambiguous.

Our translation renders the opening verse as…

“faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.

Now, technically––

in a purely linguistic or lexical sense––

it’s probably better translated as:

‘Faith is the promise of things hoped for,

the demonstration of things not seen’.

But, honestly, that still makes faith sound like wishful thinking…

doesn’t it?

And the examples that the author gives in support––

and there’s a whole series of them…

nicely and poetically arranged beginning with the phrase, ‘by faith…’––

these examples only seem to reinforce that airy-fairy sense.

By faith, we understand that God created all things.

That one certainly hasn’t held up well!

By faith, Abraham set out when God called him to leave everything behind, and go.

By faith, he dwelt as a foreigner in a strange country…

awaiting a land that God had promised.

Good thing he didn’t try coming to Australia!

By faith, he and Sarah were able to conceive…

even though they were too old…

and it hadn’t worked so far.

Oh, Really?

By faith, he, and his descendants, longed to see the fulfilment of God’s promise…

but didn’t.

Yeah, that really helps!

But, despite all of the setbacks––

despite all of the evidence to the contrary…

despite never seeing come to fruition what they had been promised…

or risked their lives for…

or continued to hope in––

they continued to have faith.

Faith––

as the author elaborates on it here––

is not just about trusting in God and the promises of God…

and hoping and believing in things that cannot be seen…

but in doing so continually.

Faith is stubborn, persistent, and enduring. 

That seems to be the author’s main point here…

doesn’t it?

 

But is it a good one?

 

If…

in the end…

faith is nothing more than pious wishful thinking…

is persisting in it particularly praiseworthy?

And… 

aside from the blood and gore…

is that really so different from a delusional jump into a lion’s den?

Knowing what we know now…

with all of our advances in cosmology, physics, bio-medicine, and metaphysics…

how is such ‘faith’ possible?

 

Those are questions that…

rightly…

need to be asked of this ancient text…

and the primitive worldview that it enshrines.

And yet…

we live by faith as much as our ancient forebears did.

Whenever I set my alarm on a Saturday night…

expecting it to go off on Sunday morning…

it’s an act of faith.

Whenever I take the tablets that I need to keep me healthy and alive…

expecting that they contain what they’re supposed to…

and nothing that they’re not…

and that they haven’t expired or been heat affected…

it’s an act of faith.

Whenever I get behind the wheel of my car…

expecting to arrive at my intended destination…

without having an accident and becoming a statistic…

it’s an act of faith.

Whenever we stand before a celebrant… 

and utter the words, “I do”…

with our heads and hearts full of dreams for the future…

about what our life together is going to be like…

it’s an act of faith.

Whenever a couple decides to bring a new life into the world…

despite all the risks and all that can go wrong…

and the potential heartbreaks that could ensue…

it’s an act of faith.

Whenever we commit to living a risky, vulnerable, love-inspired life––

in response to the love and mercy of God––

it’s an act of faith.

In all of these examples… 

we have expectations about what ought to happen––

based on our past experience…

based on our trust in experts…

based on our knowledge of the people involved––

but all of them involve some degree of risk…

and for none of them is there an absolute guarantee.

In all of these examples, we put out trust in something intangible and invisible…

unprovable and unseen.

That’s why it calls for faith.

Despite our scientific sophistication…

our lives are still completely and utterly grounded in faith.

Why should our relationship with God––

our faith in God…

our trust in God––

be any different?

 

And, perhaps, there is something to be said, too, for the faith of the Patriarchs…

as our author describes it here.

The idea of persisting in faith–– 

even though we may never see what we hope for come to fruition–– 

is…

or ought to be…

an essential quality of our existence as people of God.

According to the Indian poet and philosopher––

Rabindranath Tagore––

“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life”.

I think our author would add,

“and the meaning of faith”.