Have you ever bought a house?  Unless you happen to have some extraordinary means, most likely that meant getting a mortgage.  Which involves a crazy amount of paperwork!  When Phil and I bought our first house, I couldn’t believe the number of forms we had to sign.  We breathed a huge sigh of relief when the title agent said we had signed the last one, congratulations, here are your keys!  But our elation was short lived, because very soon afterwards arrived in the mail the thickest coupon book we’d ever seen.  360 paper tickets, to be mailed in with our mortgage payment each month.  We were proud that we “bought” a house—but we weren’t anywhere near owning the house.  It would take 30 years of monthly payments until our loan was satisfied.

Over the years, we sold that house, bought another one, sold it, and now have a house in the Poconos.  Of course we don’t have coupon books for our mortgage anymore.  Everything is online.  But in a way, I miss those coupon books.  It was very satisfying to see those books get thinner and thinner—evidence that we are chipping away on our mortgage obligation.  I know eventually we will make the last payment and will receive the deed to our property.  But it seems like a long time of monthly payments!

That’s the feeling Paul is tapping into as he writes this section of his letter to the Corinthians.  When he first started his ministry, he fully expected that Jesus would come back to earth within his lifetime.  But that’s starting to look less likely.  Which has people wondering about their faith.  Are they on the right track?  Have they been misguided?  Where is this Jesus they had put their trust in?  Month after month they are trying to live as faithful believers.  But where is the proof?  Where is the reward?

Paul is writing to reassure them that they are indeed on the right track, that they have not been duped.  He says a great reward is indeed coming—an eternal reward, actually!  We can count on this.  We have proof that God is trustworthy and will deliver on God’s promises because God gave us the Holy Spirit as a deposit.

This is such an important idea that Paul writes about it twice in a short span of time.  Our key verse printed at the top of our bulletins is from 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ.  He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”   Then, just a few chapters later, Paul repeats himself almost word for word.  He is describing the great things we have to look forward to and says these visions didn’t come from our imagination, or from hucksters, or from some other less than reputable source.  “The one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a down payment.”

This week, when I realized Paul had used the exact same wording two times, I stopped and paid attention.  What a great concept.  The Spirit as a down payment.  The Spirit as a deposit.  The Spirit as a guarantee.  How reassuring!  I know that when Phil and I put down our downpayment and signed all those forms, we had every intention of keeping our promise and fulfilling our mortgage obligation.  And if I can be trusted, how much more can God be trusted!  Even when life is frustrating, discouraging, painful, or seems almost impossible, God can be trusted.  God has given us his very Spirit as a guarantee that God will never leave us.  God has given us his Spirit, his presence, as a deposit—just the tip of the iceberg of how wonderful it is to live in companionship with God.  God has given us the Spirit as a downpayment on the life that is to come.

I don’t know if Paul ever had a mortgage, but he uses a housing metaphor to give us a better picture of how our faith works.  For now, we are walking around in tents—in bodies that are easy to move.  But they are also fragile.  Someday we will exchange these tents for a solid, permanent structure that will house us forever.  That sounds good, right?  Then he mixes his metaphor a bit and compares the earthly tents we live in to clothing.  He says, if you’re discouraged, don’t give up your tent—don’t go around naked!  Hang in there and you will be clothed with your heavenly dwelling.  What is mortal will be swallowed up by life.

Paul seems to have first-hand experience with this.  He writes that outwardly he is wasting away—in other words, he is experiencing all kinds of hardships.  He goes on to list the hardships in chapter 6: beatings, imprisonment, riots, hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger.  (2 Cor 6:4-5).  Yet despite all the stuff happening on the outside, he is being renewed day by day on the inside.  His faith is as strong as ever.  He refers to his “light and momentary troubles”—which we know were neither light nor momentary but were indeed heavy and long-lasting.  But he sees his troubles as light and momentary in comparison to the glory and eternity of God.  He is able to keep things in perspective.  He knows that God did not create him to suffer but instead created him to live forever.  The struggles of his mortality are being swallowed up by the glory of immortality.  It is for this very purpose that God gave us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

I have to tell you, I do not always have faith as strong as Paul’s.  I do not always have the ability to retain such a heavenly perspective.  When I experience hardships, they feel tremendously heavy, and they feel like they will last forever.  Worse, I don’t always feel like I am inwardly being renewed day by day.  Sometimes God feels far away, and that makes me nervous and discouraged.  I find myself groaning, longing to be rid of this scratchy earthly tent and clothed instead with my heavenly dwelling, with hope and peace and joy.

Life can be so hard!  And Paul himself felt this.  Even as Paul wrote about being renewed inwardly day by day, he must have known a thing or two about the groaning and longing, or he wouldn’t have been able to write so vividly about it.  I think the reason he wrote twice about the Spirit being a downpayment in such a short time is that he needed the reminder to himself as much as he wrote that to be a reminder to us.  And the best part?  We don’t have to take Paul’s word for it.  We know from our own experience that we have been given the Spirit as a downpayment.  We know from our own experience, for example, how it feels to forgive, how it feels to be forgiven, how it feels to help others, how it feels to be helped.  All of these experiences are experiences of the Spirit!  Even if our hearts don’t always feel “strangely warmed” as John Wesley would say.  Even if we don’t always feel super enthusiastic about our faith.  God has deposited enough love into our love banks for us to know, God is good!  We have had enough experiences with love to trust that love never ends.  We have our own experiences with God’s faithfulness to trust that God will be faithful to the end.

In July, my husband and I traveled to Alaska, and early in our trip we met a team of Iditarod sled dogs based in Skagway.  The owners gave us a little talk about dog team racing, showed us some of the equipment they use, and then took us outside to meet their dogs.  The dogs were quiet and obviously used to visitors—they didn’t bark at us at all.  But then the musher said it was time to hook up eight of the dogs and do a demonstration run.  Well, it got loud quick!  The dogs all started barking like crazy, as if to say, “Pick me! Let me run this time!” These dogs absolutely LOVE running and pulling the sled!  They couldn’t wait to get going!

A few days later, we met another group of sled dogs at Denali National Park.  It was about 4 pm, the dogs had already done two demonstrations, and it was 80 degrees.  Which in Alaska is like 100 degrees here!  The ranger gave us some history of the dog teams and why are they are still used in the park today.  He said we were free to walk through their kennels and pet whatever dogs were interested in meeting us, but not to get our hopes up, because the dogs were very hot and tired.

I got a photo with one dog, but almost all the dogs were sleeping or just sitting in the shade near their houses.  I couldn’t believe the difference between the Skagway dogs and the national park dogs!  We had seen a movie about the park sled dogs and know they must be equally excited to run in the winter as the Iditarod dogs.  But the weather makes a huge difference!  When it is too hot, the dogs lack stamina.  Their true nature is obscured by the heat.  I was disappointed that we couldn’t see them do their normal demonstration, but I was thankful the rangers care so well for them and wanted to keep them cool rather than get them running and more heated up.

On our last day in Alaska, we met another team of sled dogs, at the Iditarod headquarters in Wasilla.  The weather had turned cooler, and the dogs were raring to go.  We even got to ride in a sled pulled around a dirt track by a team of 9 dogs.  Let me tell you, these dogs are fast!  And strong!  And as excited as they were to pull us around the dirt track, they are even more excited to pull their musher in the snow.

Since getting home, I keep thinking about those dogs and what a difference the weather makes.  When we have bad weather, it can impact our stamina, too.  I’m talking about this in terms of our faith.  When we are struggling with outward circumstances, well there are times we might even feel like giving up on God.  This isn’t something we talk about much in church, as if it’s shameful to admit when we struggle with our faith.  But Paul addresses this phenomenon directly!  He says to pay attention to those times, and to recognize your feelings, not as a sign to give up, but as a sign to dig deeper.  He mixes the housing and clothing metaphors and says, “When we are clothed, we will not be found naked.  For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.”  Don’t let your struggles obscure your true nature—which was meant not for hardships but for glory.

I’ve never heard a sermon before titled, “Don’t Give Up Your Tent!”, but that is Paul’s basic message.  He urges us not to give up on our faith–don’t give up our tents.  Instead, recognize this spiritual struggle as a sign of your longing for something more.  And that something more is for sure on the way.  God has given us the deposit, the Holy Spirit, and we can trust God to keep up with the payments until one day we receive the deed to our heavenly home.

We know we don’t have to wait for “someday” to enjoy the good life.  The deposit we’ve been given helps us enjoy that companionship with God now.  It gives us access to love, joy, peace, and hope not just in the future, but today.  Still, there are things we are waiting on.  Recently I read an article that compares the Christian life today to living in the time of a lame duck government.  The new King has been elected and is already starting to establish his Kingdom.  But the old order is still in place.  That’s where we’re at.  In this awkward in-between time, we get to choose whether we want to align ourselves with the old world that seems to have the upper hand now—or the new world, that will have the upper hand forever.

Don’t give up your tent.  If you feel like a husky that just can’t run today, don’t worry.  Cooler weather is coming.  If you’re tired of struggling, take heart.  You are in good company.  As Paul says, “fix your eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen”:  the Spirit of God, given to us as a guarantee of God’s eternal goodness and love.  Amen.