By Faith

Hebrews 11:29-12:2 and Excerpt from For Longing by John O’Donohue

August 17, 2025

By Nicole M. Lamarche

Thank you for showing up today with whatever you are bringing or holding,

you are shifting things in love by just being here!

As you are moved join me in a spirit of prayer. God, thank you for the gift of

being alive, for the gift of this day, this place, this people, gathered in faith

and love. Help us all be open to whatever we need to take in today. May

the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable

in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

He had been driving along the Pacific Coast for weeks, towing a large

fiberglass salmon when he called me. Along with his colleague Joseph, he

was working for an organization called Save the Wild Salmon, an extremely

diverse coalition of northwest and national conservation organizations, that

include an interesting mix of collaborators: recreational and commercial

fishing associations, clean energy and whale advocates, business owners,

and individuals all committed to protecting and restoring fishable

populations, really for the benefit of all creation.

And so in the summer of 2007, my now husband Jeremy drove this

fiberglass salmon named Fin to gatherings to educate people and speak at

press events, giving out materials while people went inside the fish. And

one time when it was parked, he came out to find that kids had broken into

Fin to smoke inside only to celebrate the sight of Fin smoking. It was a way

to bring into the public this problem, aiming to bring attention to the plight of

the nation’s fish populations. The people who stopped by to see this

gigantic fish created by a small group of San Francisco artists in the

1980’s, could sign a petition and/or send a postcard to urge elected officials

in the federal government to take responsibility for restoring the fish

populations, including by taking action to remove the dams.

Many would honk or wave joyfully as they passed the large fish going only

as fast as Fin would allow. But not everyone was excited about Fin.

Jeremy, Joseph, and Fin went out about their work anyway, finding that

some would see their request as too radical. Dams are essential they

would say. There’s no other way. They cannot be taken down. That’s too

complicated. Too expensive. Too difficult.

You might already know that this area was once the home of the most

prolific salmon landscape on planet Earth—where wild salmon and

steelhead exceeding 16 million fish would return annually. But today

primarily due to the construction of large dams created on the Columbia

and Snake Rivers, over parts of the last century, the populations have

dramatically declined. In fact, thirteen of the populations are listed under

the Endangered Species Act.

From most angles, this work is basically hopeless. There’s no way to

restore this to what it once was. The fact is that anyone who was and is

working on this is really doing it out of a commitment to something beyond

anything they could see in their lifetime. Because it’s giving time and heart

and hope to something others perceive as kind of useless, unworthy of

investing in, it won’t move the dial, tip the scales, change the world… why

bother?

It's one of those situations, where dare I say it, it requires a thing called:

faith. But what is faith? Because of my vocation, I find that often when I

meet people, when they learn what I do for the first time, they tend to make

assumptions about what I believe. As if my faith is in a God that is like

Santa. Or as if my faith is about being anti-science, believing that the world

was created in 7 days. But to me, in a nutshell faith is basically this: fidelity

to love in all circumstances, fidelity to love through whatever comes. It’s

living from a belief in our call to be love. To find a way to do good in all

circumstances, grow toward love, to embody it, to be moved by it, when the

odds are stacked against us, when it seems impossible, when the

naysayers are loud, when the way isn’t clear. And we have seen through

the stories of our tradition, in the lives our ancestors what can happen

when one or two or more people are present as love in the world, even

when it appears futile.

Like these stories referred to in the letter to the Hebrews. Addressing the

newly forming communities around Jesus’ teachings, the writer says, this

all happened by faith, all of this throughout history happened by faith: these

stories of the path when wild, unimaginable things unfolded: Remember the

Red Sea when the Egyptians crossed in safety and remember the walls of

Jericho coming down after 7 days and on the letter goes listing the ways

they have experienced God showing up in their stories. This all happened

by faith. And it means that being faithful to love, being devoted to our call to

be love and do good in all circumstances.

Because you might remember in these stories that when the people do

something, even when the odds are stacked against them and the Empire

is strong, something changes, it’s after the action. God shows up after the

people take an action, make movement, do something! After tons of effort

and loud prayers and the work of Moses’ very own hand, God drives the

sea back enough that the waters are divided. In the story of Jericho in the

book of Joshua, they had done all of these rituals, the priests marching

around with intention being loud with trumpets and rams’ horns, going in

circles 7 times, making long loud blasts, go read Joshua 6:2-17, it’s a

perfect example of the use of public vigils and marches. It looks like a

protest march. After all of this, then the walls fall! In both situations it

seemed hopeless, but some still did what they could…and God met them.

In the face of something that was ridiculous, hopeless, a lost cause. They

took an action.

And you know I read these stories right now and in this time of rising

authoritarianism makes so much more sense. We might be waiting and

waiting and waiting for a Higher Power, we might be thinking there is a right

way to fight this or to do this, we might be waiting for God to part the seas,

searching for the way to interrupt this rising hate, but maybe in some

circumstances we need to just need to do something and God will meet

us? Even if it seems like something as ridiculous as gathering to sing our

hymns and tambourines, circling a building demanding that injustice be torn

down. Or maybe we are thinking that there is a way to overcome this

without losing anything. I don’t think that’s possible.

I do wonder if the energy that is God is magnified, amplified, somehow with

our action, when we act in love toward what is not yet. What if God really

does meet us when we give our time and heart and hope to something

others see as useless, or ridiculous even?

As one commentator wrote of this passage in Hebrews, “The writers have

introduced the idea that faith is the courage to endure…” The writers of

Hebrews also wants us to understand faith in terms of the larger story of

the promise that reaches all the way back in time and also reaches toward

the future, toward what is not yet…”

What if there is a power that comes from our collective action? From our

commitment to doing good, following the Divine Urgency rooted in what is

right, letting go of what we see right now?

Like the Snake River Basin, those in tribal communities who grew up along

the Klamath River were accustomed to hearing stories of the days long

ago, before the white settlers arrived when the waters were packed with

salmon. In the words of John Branch, among those he interviewed “stories

of ancestors who could walk across the Klamath on the backs of so many

salmon. Today, everyone was more likely to get dinner from a local

convenience store than from the river.”

But midday just this last spring, in the headwaters of the Klamath River not

far from Crater Lake National Park a group of indigenous youth in kayaks

were the first to make their way on the river in over 100 years. Because the

Klamath River is running free again. 4 big, old dams were taken down. And

when those dams were removed, the river was wild again, finding its old

self, its old own path. The elders believe the water has a memory.. And

when the river was freed, some made sure that a group of indigenous

youth were the first to travel down it. They had to be trained to use kayaks

because their worlds, that kind of recreation was a luxury. But they

prepared. And they practiced. And they gathered in the waters to sing

sacred songs before they went down through the rapids. There is renewed

hope that the river can be full of life again. It can remember. And that

matters to their grandkids will have this, will know this, because of them.

Those who worked on this project on the Klamath River were told that it

wouldn’t matter. That those dams would never come down. But they did.

Because of their faith.

I want to remind you that our call right now is to be faithful to love, to be

infused with courage. There is a lot in this current moment that invites us to

root ourselves in faith, to do, to show up, to pray, to be somewhere out of

love, knowing it might seem useless right now. But it’s not. By faith we will

get there.

Communal Reflection

What do you need to act in faith, even when it feels impossible? How can

we support one another in moving forward faithfully in this hard time?

Beloved of God, in all of the places where you look ridiculous doing

something you believe in, bless you. In all of the areas where you are

working on something that others say is impossible, bless you. In all of the

parts of your life where you are acting from love toward something that is

not yet, bless you. Keep going. By faith we will get there. May it be so.

Amen.