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Church Sermons
Seventeenth
Sunday after Pentecost, Year B - October 8, 2000
"But
We See Jesus"
Hebrews
1:1-4; 2:5-12
When I was a youngster, our family used to vacation on Cape Cod. Some of my fondest memories are of the evenings when we Singley's would go over to the Wee-Packet restaurant in Harwich, buy some fried clams for supper, and then drive to the beach at West Dennis and sit there in the parking lot, wolfing down the clams and watching the waves pound against the shore. Once finished, we might spin over to Holiday Hill to play a round of miniature golf. This was almost always a mistake because we are a family of very aggressive competitors. By the time we finished 18 holes, we would be engaged in heated debate about who beat who, and who - even if they lost - was better than everybody else, losing this round only because the others cheated. Needless to say, miniature golf usually ended with a family engulfed in conflict and no longer speaking to each other. And so, in strained silence, we would drive back over to the beach - now draped in the evening’s darkness - and without a word, go and lay in the sand, gazing upward at the brilliant stars of the milky way as the mighty roar of the raging surf drowned out our competitive disdain for each other. Still today, I love to sit on the shore and look up to the heavens.
This morning, we are beginning a study in the New Testament
book of Hebrews. It used to be that St. Paul was credited with writing this
book, but there is really no support for that position either historically or
in terms of it's style. Some scholars believe a very eloquent New Testament
preacher by the name of Apollos wrote Hebrews, and the majesty of the author's
use of words and the fact that it reads like a sermon seems to me to make that
theory plausible. But the truth is, we just don't know for sure who penned this
brilliant book. Although we do know something about the author:
Like many of us, he obviously loved to look up at
the stars at night! And when he did, he saw things that lifted his life higher, that
stretched his love wider, that enlarged his humanity and deepened his ability
to face life head-on!
The author of Hebrews centers his opening thoughts
around an Old Testament Psalm. It is Psalm 8, and interestingly enough, it is a
hymn in which the psalmist lays on his back at night, gazes up into the
heavens at the stars, and sings:
"O Lord, our Lord, how
majestic is thy name in all the earth!…When I look at your heavens, the work of
your fingers, the moon and the stars you created, I find myself wondering,
'What are human beings that you are even mindful of them, mortals that you care
for them?'"
The universe is a big place, isn't it! And full of
awesome mysteries. We are all the time learning new things about it. Why, just
this week you may have read in the paper about the discovery of some planetary
systems that are not even connected to a star, and this finding has scientists
puzzling over yet another stellar mystery.
You see, it doesn't matter whether you have a
sheepskin from MIT, or if you just take care of sheep on a Judean hillside, we
all look up at the heavens and say, "WOW!"
But it's what comes next that makes the real
difference in our lives.
For some, looking up at the stars at night makes us
feel very small, and very unimportant. A tiny speck in a massive universe. Who
are we in comparison to the cosmos? Why, we are mere human beings, meaningless
cogs in the awesome expanse of the universe, victims of its powerful forces.
And religious people are particularly susceptible to
this view.
You may remember Earl Weaver, the irascible manager
of the Baltimore Orioles. Weaver, it has been written, was almost allergic to
religion. He just about broke out into a rash whenever the ballplayers wanted
to pray or have worship services. Once, an outfielder by the name of Pat Kelly
was the team's chaplain, and he complained to Weaver about the coach’s resistance to allowing religion in the
clubhouse. "I don't get it, Coach," Kelly said, "don't
you WANT me to walk with the Lord?" Weaver thought for a moment, and
then shot back, "Pat, I'd rather have you walk with the bases
loaded."
But Earl Weaver had a point in his distaste for
religion. "The trouble with the God-guys," Weaver once
complained about the Christians on his team, "is that when they lose,
they think it's the will of God!"
Well, call it the will of God. Call it fate. Call it
inevitability. Whatever the name, this passive acceptance of life's losses and
problems is rooted in the belief that we humans are at the mercy of the
universe. And it's not really just religious people who become overwhelmed by
this. All around us, people of every stripe are overcome by this sense of
insignificance. For instance, we have come to believe that war is inevitable
and true peace is unachievable; we don't really believe for a moment that
poverty can be overcome, or that hunger can be eliminated; we doubt very
seriously that loving our enemies is actually better than hating them, and that
forgiving others is a smart thing to do because, after all, we are just tiny
specks of stardust that don't matter, that can't change, and whose lives,
words, and actions don't really count for anything important.
Oh, some people gaze up at the stars at night, and
see nothing but how small they are.
But the writer of Hebrews, looking up at the night
sky and singing Psalm 8, sees something else! And he invites us to see it too!
Why, he sees the glory of being human!
Yes, you heard me correctly. The glory of
being human. Not the frailty, not the weakness, not the insignificance, but the
GLORY of being human!
Why, somewhere along the line of our lives, we have
lost sight of what it truly means to be human. For many of us, being human
means what? We make mistakes, we succumb to temptation, we cannot help but
screw things up. And when we do, we sing the chant, “What do you expect?
After all, I’m ONLY HUMAN!”
But the author of Hebrews invites us to learn
another song! For in the ancient lyric of Psalm 8, we learn that when we gaze
up into a nighttime sky, we are offered a new glimpse into our own humanity.
“When I look at your
heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you created, I find
myself wondering, 'What are human beings that you are even mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?'"
“AND YET, you created them to be for awhile a little lower than the angels, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put ALL THINGS under their feet…"
In other words, what you see when you gaze off into
the marvelous beauty of the sparkling nighttime sky is not a universe that has
dominion over you, but a universe that God has given you dominion
over!
Now, I know what you’re thinking. When the doctor
tells you it's cancer, and you're facing all the uncertainty of chemotherapy
and all the fear of the future, it sure doesn't seem like you have dominion
over anything, let alone the solar system! When you're a person of color living
in a society where racism is both tolerated and practiced, it sure doesn't seem
like the universe works for you! When your children are hurting and there's
nothing you can do to make the hurt go away, when there's an addiction gripping
your life that just won't seem to let go, when life is unfair to people,
leaving them poor, or hungry, or ostracized and you just can't fight city hall,
it sure doesn't seem like humanity is bigger than the stars!
And it's true. We don't right now live in a world
whose problems we can always overcome. But now the author of Hebrews leads us
to the first important lesson of his book. Though we don’t see a world over
which we have dominion now, we do see something crucially important.
We see Jesus!
We see a man who himself was made a little lower
than the angels for a time. We see a man who was tempted as we are. We see a
man who was subjected to ridicule and abuse. We see a man who was constantly
faced with human suffering and the need to do something about it. We see a man
who wept over the loss of loved ones, and was angered by injustice, and was
frightened when facing his own death. And yet, though it seemed like the powers
of the universe took control of his life, this man Jesus made it through
triumphantly! By the power of God, he found strength to love when the
powers-that-be tempted him to hate. By the power of God, he found resources to
do what was right when the powers-that-be tempted him to do what was wrong. By
the power of God, he walked into the valley of the shadow of death and died –
and walked out alive!
Oh yes, though it seems like our world is out of
control, and sometimes it appears evil is winning the day, in the midst of all
these scary scenes we see Jesus! Crowned with glory and honor, and
victorious over life!
And the author of Hebrews makes a startling claim.
This Jesus is the pioneer of a faith that's designed for others to
follow. Jesus makes it possible for you and me to become human again!!
Human enough to love our enemies. Human enough to
forgive those who sin against us. Human enough to do what’s right. Human enough
to resist what’s wrong. Human enough to make peace, and overcome injustice, and
make the world a better place! Human enough to die, and live again!
And this morning, we are given an opportunity to
face up to the challenges of our own lives and our own world. We are invited to
focus our attention on Jesus, and learn how to become human again!
So how can we do this?
First, by placing Christ at the very center of your
life. Learn about him. Come to know him as a good friend. Set him as your
example of true humanity. Part of what it means to accept Christ as your Lord
and Savior is to raise the bar of your humanity to the height of his humanity.
And then - with God's help - striving to jump as high! So the first step in
becoming truly human is to center your life on Christ.
And second, by discerning the difference between
being sinful and being human. For instance, many of us think that
it is only human to open our mouths and carelessly say things that hurt other
people. But shooting off at the mouth is not really being human,
contrary to popular opinion. Being truly human in the Jesus sense means
exercising great care with what you say! To be human is not to once in awhile
succumb to the temptation to laugh at a racist joke. Being truly human in the
Jesus sense is to pledge to never allow such destructive humor into your life
again. To be human in the Jesus sense is not to be selfish, but to be
self-less! It is not to put off God
while you doubt, but to trust God in the midst of your doubt. It is not to get
angry with others and build walls between you and them, but to overcome your
anger by building bridges that bring you together. It is not to resent others,
but to work hard to forgive them. It is not to fail and give up, but to
confront failure by picking yourself up off the ground, and with God's help,
trying to do better.
You see, there are two ways to be human. One is a
low way that leads to human
insignificance in the face of all the challenges of life. The other is a
high and glorious way in which being human means becoming like Jesus.
May I ask you, which way will you take as
this new week begins?
Yes, life is hard. And the challenges are many. We
do not yet see the full victory of faith.
But we see Jesus! And that makes all the difference
in the world!