February 12, 2012 – Hebrews 10:23-25
Hebrews 10:23-25 [non-lectionary text]
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Sixth Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 6] – February 12, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Hebrews is a funny book.
It’s got all this crazy language about sacrifice and priesthood that seems very foreign to us.
It can be hard to understand and difficult to make sense of and almost impossible to relate to.
And, let’s face it, really, really hard to preach on: thanks so much, CLAY people!
But the thing that is most helpful about the book of Hebrews is this:
it keeps Jesus’ death on a cross the central event of Christian faith.
Hebrews from beginning to end points to Jesus.
I love that about Hebrews.
The passage from Hebrews that the CLAY people have chosen as
the youth gathering theme this year marks a great moment of clarity in the book.
After chapters and chapters of abstract reasoning about priesthood and sacrifice,
an admirable clarity surfaces.
The writer finally looks his listeners in the eyes,
directly addresses his brothers and sisters in faith, and says to them.
Let us hold fast without wavering, for the one who has promised is faithful.
Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another.
Here, now, is what can be done by us because of what Jesus has done.
Now what you need to know is why this guy would need to say all this.
Why encourage the people to hold fast to their faith? Were they letting go? Well, yes.
Why encourage people to meet together on Sunday mornings for worship?
were they beginning to not do that? Well, yes.
What has happened is that
the initial fervour with which these people became Christians has worn off.
The excitement of Christian community has been diminished.
There are pressures that are leading them to let go of their faith and neglect corporate worship.
That faith was once an alluring thing.
The prospect of people gathering together and eating with one another regardless of
income, status, or gender was a genuinely novel and far-out thing to do back in the day.
The notion of sharing resources and gifts and property for the sake of
the common good was a crazy but beautiful idea.
The idea of caring for the sick, of looking out for the vulnerable, of privileging the poor:
these were revolutionary and wondrous ideals.
But there was a huge price to pay for this.
There was a social price if you were a business person:
the usual people would no longer do business with you.
The invitations to the nice dinners dried up if you were a person of status.
And, perhaps worst of all, the Roman Empire couldn’t tolerate people who
refused military service because of their pacifist ideals,
Couldn’t abide communities that didn’t recognize the usual social hierarchies,
couldn’t abide people setting up a separate economy – an economy of
manna-sharing – outside the usual economy of empire.
And so at the time that Hebrews was written, the persecution of Christians was in full swing.
If you go home later and read just a few verses on in Hebrews from where we are this morning,
here’s some of what you’ll hear in Eugene Peterson’s translation:
“It was hard before, too,” says the writer. “Remember? But you stuck with and stuck together.”
Those were hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse – some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn’t touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don’t throw it all away now.
This is hard for us to imagine, I guess, being persecuted for our faith.
But it is kind of helpful to think about, right? I mean, really:
How many of us would be here this morning if it meant the collapse of our business?
Or the loss of our job?
Or danger to us or our friends or our family?
How many of us would be here if there were the possibility of
being arrested outside the building?
I think the writer is inviting us to think this morning about how important Christ is to us.
I think the writer is inviting us to consider this morning
the tremendous value of Christian community and the astonishing gift it is.
And maybe we need to think about and reflect on what really is important because,
let’s face it: we live in a culture that seems to value some pretty crazy things.
Now that I’m a Winnipeg Jets fan, I listen to TSN Radio in the car while
I’m driving around town, going from one hospital visit to another.
A couple of weeks ago, in the lead-up to the Super Bowl,
Jay and Westwood were talking about some recent poll Jay had found online.
The poll attempted to discover what people would neglect if they had the opportunity to
go to the Super Bowl.
32% would neglect attending the wedding of a close relative or friend.
20% would neglect going to the funeral of a close relative or friend.
And – get this – 15% would skip being present at the birth of their own child if
they had the chance to go the Super Bowl!
Presumably the mothers were not among that 15%!
Even Jay and Westwood – to their credit – thought this was beyond the pale.
But we can bring this home by saying, if coming here meant prison,
what percentage would come?
If we were all offered Super Bowl tickets, what percentage would come?
What is it, for you, that takes priority over meeting together on Sunday mornings?
The writer is encouraging us to consider what it is we truly value.
So it’s not just some obscure Christian community from long ago that
the writer of Hebrews is addressing: it’s us.
Suddenly Hebrews is not so foreign to us anymore.
The writer is encouraging us in perseverance.
And the writer does this by . . . pointing us to Christ, just as he’s been doing all along.
Jesus persevered. Despite threat. Despite hardship. Despite disappointment. Despite betrayal.
Despite torture. And despite death: Jesus persevered.
In the language of Hebrews, Jesus was “perfect”: he was a full, complete human being.
He did what a human being is meant to do: he loved. Perfectly. Fully. Completely.
And he didn’t let anything get in the way of that.
Not social conventions. Not current taboos. Not the fear of getting involved.
He trusted in God and lived a fully human life, a perfect human life.
The kind of life that we are all meant to live: a life of healing, of generosity, of sharing,
of forgiving, of including, of feeding, of raising to new life.
What the writer of Hebrews is finally saying is that every obstacle to that kind of perfection
has been overcome in Jesus.
That Christ has already defeated everything that is getting in the way of our being made perfect,
Of our living a fully perfect, fully human life.
Of our becoming everything God intends us to become: the very image or likeness of God,
who is himself the very image or likeness of the God of all mercy and all grace.
Sin and even death have been defeated in Christ.
Therefore we can be confident. Therefore we can hold fast.
Therefore we can encourage one another.
There fore we can be of good courage in following where he leads.
Therefore we can persevere in the way of being perfected.
Because he held fast to that which is good, we can hold fast to that which is good.
For our baptisms link us indestructibly to him, and that is good news.
And our baptisms link us to one another, and that is good news too.
And so to the central importance of meeting together, of doing this thing we’re doing today.
Hold fast, says the writer, provoke one another to love and good deeds,
encouraging one another as we meet together.
The early Christians worshipped on Sunday mornings very much as we do now.
They were gathered, they heard a living word of God spoken to them,
they were fed together by a gracious and generous God, and they were sent in mission.
Worship linked them to God, who gathered them, spoke to them, fed them and sent them.
And worship linked them to one another as they sang together and prayed together and
shared their gifts together and shared a meal together.
And over coffee they said things, like
Thor, that sermon you preached last week set a high bar for
lay preaching at First Lutheran Church. Keep it up!
They said things like Hey, pastor, I hear you’re starting to serve meals at
the Wednesday food banks: keep it up! How can I help?
And worship not only linked them to God, not only linked them to one another but,
as they recalled their baptisms, their baptisms into Christ’s death,
they realized that through their baptisms they were joined to the suffering of the entire world,
which Jesus joined himself to on the cross.
Worship linked them to the world’s suffering, to all the broken bodies of this world.
And so, finally, worship linked them to God’s loving gracious mission to love, bless,
heal and perfect this world and every person in it.
These are the hyper-links of Christian faith: we are hyper-linked together by God
with Christ, with one another, with the suffering of this world,
and with God’s mission to do something about that.
And so we press forward with confidence and with hope and with love.
Because the Day is approaching, the day God brings from the future that is perfect.
For the future that is pressing in on us belongs to God.
And it is a good one.
Total newness is on the way for this whole world.
So it doesn’t make sense to go on with business as usual.
It doesn’t make sense to be allured by other things and neglect our Christian faith,
and it doesn’t make sense to be threatened by the powers of the present and
so neglect our meeting together and our mission in Christ.
What does make sense is to hold fast, to encourage one another, to meet together,
to share the bread of love and the wine of grace together.
What does make sense – the most sense of all – is to engage in mission for the sake of the world.
So:
Go forth into the world to serve God with gladness;
Be of good courage; hold fast to that which is good;
Render no one evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak;
Help the afflicted; honour all people;
Love and serve God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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