Desire a Better Country

With both kids grown and gone, our household is just my wife and me and the two left-behind cats. Nothing apocalyptic about that, they were just left behind when my daughter set out for a new life in a distant city. She argues with her mother about whose cats they are now, but they live with us. There is Dora, the substantial cat, and Cato, short for Catastrophe, who does her best to live up to her name. Above anything else, they want out. They are indoor cats and enjoy the comforts of our home. But we have a walled-in patio out the back door, and they want out. They will sit at the sliding glass door and stare out, sometimes lifting a paw to pat the glass as if to make it magically open. They love being out as much as humanly possible. Felinely possible? They love out.

The problem is, out doesn’t always live up to expectations. Sometimes it is wet, and sometimes it is cold. Sometimes, it is too windy or scary as other “out” creatures enter their patio. None of that stops them from wanting out, however. Even if they just ran in from the rain or the cold, in a few moments, they’ll be back at the door wanting out, believing, it seems, that this time it will be a better “out” than the last time. No matter how much we try to convince them that the “out” is still the “out” they have experienced, they still want to try. They still want to believe that there is a better “out.”

The writer to the Hebrews tells us the story of the people who longed for a better “out”: “As it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16 ESV[1]). That is what drives them, we’re told. It explains the exemplary lives written about before and after this statement. It shows the desire for something better, something more.

That “more” takes us beyond escapism. It isn’t that the people named here are just tired of where they are and fed up with the brokenness surrounding them. They aren’t dissatisfied with the political leadership and are looking for a better country to which they can immigrate. Certainly, there will be and perhaps needs to be some dissatisfaction with the way things are, but a negative emotion or a rejection cannot motivate the way a larger vision can. You can’t sustain a passion based on discontent. You need something more, something that builds up, something that drives, something that encourages.

The writer of Hebrews says that is faith. Faith is defined here as an assurance. “For I am sure,” writes Paul in the eighth chapter of Romans, or “I am convinced,” in some translations, “that neither death , nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39 NRSV). “I am sure.”

Sit with that for a moment: an assurance. Can we be sure of anything these days? Faith is hard at the best of times. So, let’s make it worse. Let’s add in the rest of Hebrews 11, verse 1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NRSV). We live in a Doubting Thomas era – unless I see … I will not believe. Not seen: We base everything on something we cannot see. No wonder we are often the objects of ridicule. “Not seen” doesn’t seem to be a great motto for moving forward. There doesn’t seem to be a lot to hang your hat upon. There’s not a lot to feel secure about. We tend to want a stronger foundation than that, don’t we?

How about “things hoped for”? That doesn't seem any more secure, does it? Or does it? Hope is, as Emily Dickinson famously said, “the thing with feathers.” But does that refer to hope’s fragility, its ephemerality? Or to its power to lift, to move, to set the one who hopes on the wing? There is power in hope. It starts with a dream, with a vision of a better world and a better way of being. It begins with a better “out,” one that sustains us even when the “out” we encounter doesn’t live up to the dream.

Our assigned text skips over Abel and Enoch and Noah, though it might be worth adding them back in to get something of the sweep of the text. Sure, we know Abraham better. It makes sense to rest there, to remember the miracle of life out of death, of procreation, of legacy when there was barrenness and emptiness before them both. Abraham and Sarah can represent those who make the best of the world we have, even while they long for a better one; and not just long for it but believe in it; maybe even see it.

Can we see justice prevailing? Can we see equity performed? Can we see a welcome offered? Can we see promises fulfilled, community built, and a future restored? The vision that drives all these we name in our text this week enables the people to move forward, to put one foot in front of another. That is not a denial of the reality in which they live, but a burning hope that lives within them that one day there will be a better country, a better “out.”

Excuse me, the cat is at the door again.

[1] The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.