CUPC
Sermon
August 25, 2013
Hebrews 12: 18-29
This is going to be an
unusual sermon for me.
I’ve been wrestling this week
with the mystery known as the book of Hebrews.
There are a lot of mysteries associated with Hebrews: we don’t know who wrote it; we don’t know to
whom it is addressed; we don’t know to which congregation or city it was
destined for. It’s probably not correct
to call it an epistle because it doesn’t fit most of the definitions of an
epistle. It’s Greek grammar and syntax
may be the best in the New Testament, and the author was very familiar with the
Septuagint, the Greek translation of the old Hebrew texts.
So far it’s an academic
mystery. That’s interesting, but not
particularly disturbing to me. It’s the
theological mystery that concerns me.
It’s the crisis of faith that reading Hebrews can create that worries
me. This is a book that screams: you’d better understand the context or you’ll
never understand the message!
Listen to these words from
Hebrews 6 that are clearly directed at believers:
6:1 Therefore let
us go on towards perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about
Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and
faith towards God, 2instruction
about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3And we will do this, if
God permits. 4For it is impossible to
restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have
tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5and have tasted the goodness
of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6and then have fallen away,
since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him
up to contempt.
The reading for this morning
also sounds ominous. Are there people
for whom there is no hope of redemption in the judgment of Christ? Are there people whose souls are truly lost
in irredeemable despair?
It’s possible that my perspective
on these things was affected by my ride to Marshall one day this week. Well,
no, not the ride or the fact that I was coming to Marshall. Coming to Marshall is something that I look
forward to. But while driving down here
I often listen to some discussion or another on Public Radio.
For the most part I don’t
share the passion that some people have about school athletic programs. I tend to share Bruce Springsteen’s sardonic
observations in “Glory Days.” But I
listened to a conversation this week with author Brian Mealer. Mealer is a former AP reporter who covered a
great deal of violence, bloodshed and despair in Africa. He has become
sensitive to human desperation and hopelessness.
Mealer has written a book called “Muck City.”
The “muck” is the very rich
damp soil that surrounds much of the southern and western sides of Lake
Okeechobee in central Florida. The land
is the source of a great deal of the sugar cane produced in this country. The farm workers might be compared to a permanent
migrant population. They live year round
in ramshackle huts, hiring out as perpetual day laborers with very low wages
and no benefits. Human hope is not nurtured nearly as well as the crops. Incredibly, it’s within the boundaries of
Palm Beach County.
High school football is a
solitary source of hope among the adolescent men of the community. Between the ages of 18 and 25, more than 50%
of the men in the community end up with at least one felony conviction. That makes it hard to get a job even flipping
burgers!
But football. That’s another story. Glades Central High School in Belle Glade has
won the state high school championship more than any other high school in the
state of Florida. The school has
produced more NFL players than any other high school in the nation. That means that 1 or 2% of the players, and
less than that of the school population, make it out.
Mealer tells of being in the
locker room with them on the day of another state championship game. They knew that they were going to win, but
there were players sitting around the room sobbing, and they weren’t tears of
joy. For most of the seniors in that
room, the day after they would win another state championship was the beginning
of an adult life of irredeemable despair.
They had lived their glory days and they know that tomorrow will begin a
life with little hope, a life perhaps filled with irredeemable despair.
Irredeemable despair. I was convicted of my arrogance and my lack
of comprehension of what “glory days” actually mean for some people.
IRREDEEMABLE DESPAIR.
It was with that story in my
head that I approached Hebrews 12. For all our Presbyterian middle class
smugness and comfort, our “faith,” were we too subject to the possibility of
irredeemable despair? Is the writer of
Hebrews telling us that we too had best be on our guard – constantly – so that
we remain in the light of God’s grace?
The book of Hebrews repeats
several themes: the greatness of our one
and only high priest whose sacrifice and victory has been accomplished for us;
the need for persistence on our parts in walking as the heirs of Christ’s
victory and God’s grace; the need for us to listen well to the Gospel of Jesus
and believe it once we have heard it. As
the author says in chapter 6, we know all about the basics: repentance, faith, baptism, resurrection,
judgment. We know all those basic
building blocks, and now we must complete the building – the life – to which
Christ has called us.
If we have heard all those
things, if we have once repented and declared our faith, then falling away from
that faith is an even greater error than if we had never heard the Gospel
message at all. Seeking earthly,
shakable perishable things can only lead us away from the Lord and God’s
grace. And the day will come when all of
those shakable things, all of those perishable things will be destroyed leaving
only the unshakable kingdom into which God has invited us.
So what has this to say to
us? Are we to live in constant anxiety
that we will fall away from God’s eternal Word and be excluded from God’s
grace? Are we to somehow earn our
salvation?
Therein lies my crisis.
The Gospel makes it
unshakably clear: we can’t earn our salvation. By grace through faith we receive our
redemption as a gift from God. That’s
the beginning of new life for us. The
beginning. Here’s how The Message
interprets Hebrews 6:
1 So come on,
let's leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with
the grand work of art. Grow up in
Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back
on "salvation by self-help" and turning in trust toward God; 2 baptismal instructions;
laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. 3 God helping us, we'll
stay true to all that. But there's so much more. Let's get on with it! 4 Once people have seen
the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy
Spirit, 5 once
they've personally experienced the sheer goodness of God's Word and the powers
breaking in on us - 6 if
then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well,
they can't start over as if nothing happened. That's impossible. Why, they've
re-crucified Jesus! They've repudiated him in public!
Grow up!
The repentance, the faith,
the baptism, worries about the resurrection and judgment, these are all the
foundational stuff. They mark our
infancy in Christ. Now it’s time to grow
up!
If you have faith in Christ,
if you trust your life to Christ, then it’s time to put your life where your
mouth is. It’s time to become an
adult. Will you make mistakes? Absolutely.
But don’t let those mistakes lead you into searching for some other source
of redemption: money, power, sex, cruelty,
arrogance.
I tell my children that
everyone makes mistakes and messes. But
if you’re a responsible adult then you clean up the mess, and then you go
on. You persevere. You trip and fall and you get up and continue
on the path that Christ has set before us.
At the very beginning of this
sermon I mentioned context. Context is
very important in looking at the promises and the five warnings in Hebrews. The message is meant for people who knew and
understood the history and the prophecies of the Hebrew scripture. They were people who perhaps despairingly
knew the problems of life under the old covenant.
Like Paul, this author is
concerned with Jews who have received the Gospel who then transform the radical
freedom of the Gospel into the straitjacket of the old laws and rituals. Who abandon the revolutionary focus of loving
God and one another for formal ritual and self-centered salvation. Who give up the glory of life in Christ for
some self-satisfying religious experience.
To do that is to crucify Jesus again and again.
To accept the invitation to
walk the way of Jesus and enter the glory of God’s kingdom can be an annoying
enterprise. We are asked to put the
needs of others ahead of our own. We are
asked to show our faithfulness to God through our faithfulness to the way that
has been shown to us in the love and sacrifice of Jesus.
All those concerns about
repentance and faith and baptism and eternal life are the stuff of kindergarten. With God’s help we put them behind us and
grow into the maturity of Christ’s disciples.
We grow toward the life of perfection that God desires for us. It’s a lifelong journey. If we stumble and fall Jesus Himself is there
to lift us up and start us on our way again.
If we face doubt then that stuff that we learned in kindergarten will
see us through: repent, have faith, and
accept the grace of God.
Don’t turn away. Repent.
Have faith, and accept the grace of God.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment