By Faith                                                                    Hebrews 11

Sarah Foulger, 9-9-07 Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor

 

If I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to think

that God has a pretty sick sense of humor.

The day after I preached a sermon about bad things happening to good people,

my son, Noah, had a needle biopsy on what turned out to be a wicked bad malignancy.

 

However, I do know better.

I do not believe that God singles out and strikes people with disease or trouble.

I believe, as Jesus did, that rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

And it’s pouring on Noah right now.

 

He has a very bad disease – Burkitt’s Lymphoma –
the most aggressive cancer that afflicts human beings.

I’ve learned a whole new language in the space of two weeks.

I’ve learned that Burkitt’s is a formidable enemy

that doubles its army of killer cells every 18 hours

because of the translocation of the myc oncogene into the cancer cells

that drives them into warp speed instructing the cancer to go, go, go,

replicate like rabits, grow like kudzu.

 

I’ve learned about Rituximab, a relatively new and fairly sophisticated weapon

in the oncology arsenal.

Rituximab is a monoclonol antibody that will, if all goes well,

act as a smart bomb to blow up the bad cells.

 

I’ve learned about cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and oncovine     

the more traditional chemotherapy agents

that are being dripped into him through a port in his chest

and through a line in his spine

and that will make him sick almost to death.

 

So it has all started.

Noah, by the grace of God and surrounded by prayer

and with the best western medicine has to offer

has begun the battle to push it back and to kick it out of his body.

 

It’s a tough break.

Like getting struck by lightening, the lead oncologist said,

like getting struck by lightening when you didn’t even know a storm was brewing.

 

Noah had just begun his third year of medical school.

He had just started his second rotation – pediatrics – at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital.

He had just been visiting a child there and together they had just been looking out over Hadlock field

watching Jon Lester practice his pitches before the game.

 

I’ve had a few people ask “Why?

Why would this happen to such a wonderful young man?” Others have told me that this just isn’t fair

for a bright eager 24-year-old medical student who wants nothing more than to offer healing in this world to be afflicted with a deadly cancer.

I appreciate those thoughts but I have to confess that they are not my thoughts.

 

Why has this happened to him? Why not?

Why should my child be saved from cancer as opposed to anyone else’s child?

Goodness and faith do not guarantee health.

But, they do give you the resources to face disease.

 

Fair?

Is this fair?

Of course not.

and as Russ and I told our children many times, life is not fair.

Goodness and faith do not buy us a fair life.

But they do give us the resources to face the strange but inevitable unfairness of it.

 

Some people have indicated that Noah’s illness must be a real challenge to my faith.

Not at all. Not one bit.

My heart is broken but my faith is fine.

I believe absolutely that God will walk us all through this

and will carry Noah through it when he is too tired to put one foot in front of the other.

I believe absolutely that God is at work in all of this –

in ways that I cannot fully know –

and I believe that something good

will come out of this fearsome situation.

This is no time to lose faith.

This is the time to lean on faith more than ever!

 

I’ll tell you, what has happened to Noah is a reminder that worrying is never worth the effort.

The monsters you are most worried about are rarely the ones who actually come to get you.

And what has happened to Noah is a witness to the mysterious ways in which God works.

 

Many have remarked that perhaps God will use this to make Noah a more wonderful doctor.

For years he has pondered the possibility of becoming an oncologist.

What could be better than an oncologist who has been through it all himself?

Who knows?

Could be.

In the mysterious and mysteriously redemptive workings of God, all of that is more than possible.

 

This is a true story about Noah.

When he was five years old, he was getting ready to graduate from Little Bo Peep Nursery School

just down the road in Brunswick.

There was a big end-of-the-year celebration picnic planned and little Noah came to me

and told me that he did not want to go.

 

“Why?” I asked.

“It will be great. There will be games and hamburgers and watermelon

and all of your friends will be there.”

“I don’t want to go,” he insisted. He did not seem to be upset about it.

He had simply made up his pre-school mind that he was not going.

 

It took several days of coaxing to get this little boy of mine to reveal the reason he did not want to go.

The reason was that there were going to be running races and he was not a very good runner and he couldn’t possibly win and, therefore, he did not want to go.

 

If you’ve met Noah, you’ve seen for yourself that he does not have a runners build.

He does not have the long legs that great runners have.

 

Nevertheless, I was appalled.

“Noah,” I instructed, “the races are supposed to be fun. You get out there. You run.

It’s fun. You don’t have to win. Just go have fun.”

 

That intense five-year-old face looked up at me with those big determined green eyes and replied,

“But, Mom, winning is fun.”

Winning is fun.

 

My heart sank when he said, “winning is fun.”

I thought to myself: this kid has a real character flaw and he was born with it.

He didn’t get it from me and he didn’t get it from Russ.

We’re not the sort of people who have to win.

I actually felt sorry for him that he was stuck with such a competitive spirit.

I thought of his extreme compulsion to win as a terrible weakness that would bring him unhappiness.

 

But you know what?

This hard-wired feature of his personality that is passionately driven to win is going to get him through this.

I have figured out over the last few days that this is not, after all, a character flaw.

It is a gift and this is the moment when he will use it to the fullest.

 

What has happened to Noah is a witness to the fact that, in the divine order of things, what we think of as a weakness may turn out to be a requisite strength.

 

I believe that God has given Noah everything he needs to get through this.

I believe that God has surrounded him with all the resources he needs to fight this battle –

the faith, the hope, the love, the strength, the determination.

It will be awful.

He will turn into a rail-thin, pasty-skinned, hairless chemo-ghost but he will get through it.

 

In the book of Hebrews, there is this beautiful section about faith,

one of my favorite passages in all of scripture:

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

I love that.                   

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

 

These commanding words are followed by a litany of examples,

great biblical figures who lived by faith, who allowed God to lead them by faith:

         Abel, Enoch, Noah,

         Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,

         Joseph, Moses mother, Rahab.

My favorite example on that list is Abraham who set out in faith not knowing exactly where he was going.

 

Heading into the next few months, there is no precise roadmap for Noah or for those of us who are privileged to love him.

We don’t know exactly what will happen or when.

We know that the journey will be long and hard and painful
but we are setting out in faith.

 

By faith, God’s spirit will accompany us.

By faith, this experience will be redeemed to the glory of God in ways beyond our imagining.

By faith, the weak will be strong again.

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

Thank you for your prayers.

Thank you for your encouragement.

Thank you for your faith.