Community Church Sermons

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B - October 29, 2000

"Look Higher!"

Hebrews 7:23-28

Little did Martin Luther know that tacking up those 95 theses of his onto the big doors of the college church in Wittenburg would one day result in the mess we East Tennesseans see when we drive up and down the Kingston Pike. Before Luther presented his objections to the church practices of his day, there was, in the west, one church and one faith. After the event, as can be noted today along the Kingston Pike, there are more churches than there are people! And there are enough interpretations of the Christian faith to just about drive you crazy!

I don't think Martin Luther had any idea that the Protestant Reformation would turn into the kind of disaster it obviously has become. His intent was to bring reform to a church structure that had lost its way. And ultimately, the reform did happen. But unfortunately, reform movements almost always become the standard-bearers of the next generation's status quo, unable to discern the need for reforming themselves. So, in a manner of speaking, Lutherans became Calvinists, and Calvinists became Presbyterians, and Presbyterians became Methodists. And somewhere in there the Anglicans got started, and the Separatists separated and the Pilgrims and Puritans came to New England and became the Congregationalists. And even though I haven't mentioned the Baptists yet, the apparent highest truth in all of life is that if you haven't been a Baptist yet, you will be before long!

Now I mention this to you this morning not only because it is Reformation Sunday, but because today's text from the book of Hebrews places a challenge upon us to take a different approach to both faith and life. Here, the author is speaking to a largely Jewish congregation of Christian believers. They have come to know the grace and power of Jesus Christ in their lives, but all around them are voices calling them back to the old ways - the ways of the law administered by the bureaucracy of priests that dominates the religious landscape. And so the author of Hebrews lifts up this idea we've been discussing the past few weeks - that God has made Jesus the priest above all priests. A priest who does not have to offer repeated sacrifices for our forgiveness because his own sacrifice has for all time atoned for the sins of the world. A priesthood that does not change personalities with very new priest who comes along, because Jesus himself has become our priest and the appointment is forever! A priest who, in the presence of God, intercedes for us 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, 52-weeks a year. He is constantly on our side and available to us for help!

In other words, you can't find a better priest than Jesus!

So Hebrews teaches that they should not look back to where they once were, but they should look higher! They should not look to earthly priests and worldly religions. They should look to Jesus.

You know, one of the most common theological questions I'm asked is, "Why is the God of the Old Testament so different from the God of the New Testament?" And what people are referring to when they ask this question is that the Old Testament God is portrayed as being cruel and judgmental, always looking for some excuse to drop a nuclear bomb on the people. He is like the God of my sister Karen when we were kids and she caught me in her bedroom stealing cigarettes. As she chased me out of her room, I tripped and tumbled down a whole flight of stairs. And as I lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom landing, Karen stood at the top of the stairs, hands on her hips, laughing loudly and shouting, "GOD GOT YOU!!" And, for all I knew, she was right! The Old Testament God is sort of a getcha kind of God. Oh sure, there are some glimpses of divine love and mercy and friendship, but the God described in the Old Testament seems so quick to judge and condemn people. And yet, the God of the New Testament is portrayed as good and loving, merciful and gracious, a redemptive God bent on saving everyone.

And people, I think, are deeply drawn to this God of the New Testament. This is the God we’ve been looking for our whole lives! But the God of the Old Testament gives us problems. We wonder why they are so different.

I like to answer this question by saying that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are exactly one and the same! But we have been introduced to this one God by different means. The author of Hebrews says that, in many and various ways God spoke to us in the past through prophets and priests and others who are limited in both their ability to understand God and to express with words what God is like. But finally in history, he writes, God has spoken to us not through flawed intermediaries - faithful as they tried to be - but through his own SON. And this Son is a complete and perfect reflection of who God is and what God is like!

God is like Jesus! When you look at Jesus, you see God!

So where once we had the rather limiting opportunity to hear what other people thought they knew about God as they interpreted history, now we have the opportunity to see and come to know God face-to-face in the person of Christ.

So the author of Hebrews says, don't look back to the incomplete truth of yesterday, but look higher to the greater truth of Jesus!

But what does this mean for us as a church on Reformation Sunday, 2000?

One of the wonderfully liberating ideas of our Community church movement is that we believe in a church whose only label is Christian and whose only head is Christ. We invite people to bring with them the beautiful and rich traditions of their denominational background, and we enjoy learning from each other as we share these gifts in our life together. We invite people to come and join us whether they are conservatives, liberals, or somewhere in-between. We welcome people from all ends of the theological spectrum, and we respect their convictions even when they are not the same as ours.

Many of my colleagues in ministry wonder how in the world you can bring together Baptists and Methodists and Lutherans and Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Episcopalians and Catholics and even folks who are Serbian Orthodox (yes, we have at least two of those here)! How can you bring such disparate religious traditions together without killing each other?

Some assume that we can only do this by lowering the standards and not believing in anything. But that's not even close to being so. No, how we come together in the Community church movement is not by lowering the standard, but by raising the standard! We cherish our denominational traditions, but we recognize that they are, at best, flawed human glimpses of a higher divine truth. My Congregationalism is a wonderful heritage, but it is not the truth - Jesus Christ is the Truth. Your Presbyterianism is not the truth - Jesus Christ is the Truth. Our conservatism, or our liberalism, our fundamentalism or our modernism are all human attempts to express a higher divine truth, but they are not the truth themselves. Jesus Christ is the truth.

And so the author of Hebrews calls to us in the midst of a terribly divided world in which religious people use their religion to find reasons for excluding others, hating others and even killing others. And he says, "Look higher!"

What would a church look like if it was able to rise up above it's human traditions, and seek to center its life around the highest priest of all?

Well, first of all, it would be a church that welcomes and embraces everyone.

One of the early experiences of my ministry was to visit a young family that hadn't come to church since before the husband and wife were married. As I visited with them one evening, they told me their story. When they became engaged, a delegation of Deacons paid the young woman a call. She had grown up in the church, and her family went back for many generations. He was a Roman Catholic. The Deacons put it this way: Why don't you marry one of your own kind?

And that was the last time they had anything to do with the church.

Similarly, I've been in a number of situations over the years in which I was invited to worship at another church, but when it came to receiving Communion I was not able to join the others. Why? Because I wasn't one of their own. I hadn't been confirmed in the tradition.

Now the Good News is that Jesus Christ doesn't operate that way. He is not a priest bound by human tradition. He does not say, "Come to me you…Protestants, you…Catholics, this denomination or that." He does not even say, "Come to me all you who believe!"

No, Jesus, the highest priest of all says, "Come to me ALL YOU who labor an are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest."

A church that looks higher - above human tradition and into the eyes of the highest priest of all - opens its arms to embrace everyone!

Second, a church that looks higher would be a church constantly at work, trying to connect people with the transcendent power of Jesus, the high priest.

Since visiting the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau last spring, I have become more and more aware of the important role that faith played among those whose lives were so terribly abused under the Nazi regime. One of the stories I heard was about Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, before he was executed, actually established a small seminary at the Finkenwalde camp. On the makeshift altar table where people surreptitiously came to worship each day, was etched the single word "hapax" which means "once". It was a code word meaning that Jesus Christ had once-and-for-all opened the way to the presence of God. That one word, about the permanence of what Christ has done, gave hope to those who were facing the last hours of their lives, and strength to those who would live to face tomorrow. In the midst of that dark horror, the prisoners were enabled to "look higher" than the bleak walls and barbed wire, and see that God loved them, and was with them, and would preserve them even through death. What Christ had opened once-and-for-all, even the Nazi's could not close.

I believe the church today needs to reclaim the faith that Christ has once-and-for-all opened the door into heaven and released the flood of God's love into the world. And the church has a responsibility to visibly represent that flood of grace to all who need it. Widows who are trying their best to move ahead in life after the loss of a lifelong partner, need to know that Christ has once-and-for-all made it possible for God to be present with them, providing divine help for making decisions, and divine strength for making it through the dark nights and fearful days. People who are ill need to know that Christ has once-and-for-all broken down whatever barriers they may feel are between them and God. And they can call upon God for help, and God will help! People who are living apart from God, whose behavior is destructive, and whose lives seem wasted, and who are running as fast as they can away from God, need to know that Christ has once-and-for-all made it impossible for God not to love them. And when people of faith begin to practice that kind of grace, letting not even the sinful behavior of others deter us from representing God's love to them, we'll be amazed at how God can change human hearts, and lead prodigal children home!

And finally, a church that looks higher will be a church that goes to wherever people are suffering, and stands with the people in love.

A minister whose writing I enjoy tells a story about a friend of his - named Bruce - who journeyed to Rwanda as a short-term missionary. He worked for several weeks in the ministry of refugee relief. One day he was traveling along the road with his driver, Winston, when the jeep made a sudden stop by a large open field. As Winston departed the vehicle, he asked Bruce to come with him. They walked to the edge of the recently bulldozed field and stood silently for some time. As Bruce studied the field, it soon became apparent that this was not just any field. It was a mass grave for hundreds who had been slain in the nightmare of tribal violence. Winston stared out upon the open field and quietly spoke:

"This is the place," he said with tears in his eyes, "where I learned to hate God. I would often come and stand and look out over the hundreds of bodies, the bodies of my people, the bodies of my friends and my family. I would stand here and I would scream out at God saying, ‘Why, why have you not done anything to prevent this? Why have you abandoned us!?’

"And for many, many weeks God remained silent. But as I stood here, day after day, hating God, this is also the place where I again learned to love God. For one day, as I stood here cursing God, God answered me. He said, ‘Winston, I never abandoned you. I was here all along … suffering with you.’"

"And on that day," Winston continued, "I realized that I had directed my question to the wrong person. My question should not have been put to God. My question should have been put…to the church."

Where is the church in the face of the suffering of the world? Perhaps we are too busy being Protestant. Or Catholic. Or Eastern Orthodox. Or Liberal. Or Fundamentalist. Or Evangelical. Maybe the church has it's eyes set too low, and we have lost sight of Jesus the priest who intercedes for humanity 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, 52-weeks a year.

Friends, God needs us to look higher! Higher than our traditions. Higher than our divisions. Higher than all the things that would keep us from becoming what God needs the church to be - the visible and living manifestation of Jesus Christ the highest priest of all, who once-and-for-all did everything that needed to be done to unleash the power of God's love into our world.

So, on Reformation Sunday, 2000, let us lift our eyes and look higher than we've ever looked before! Let us look to Jesus, our perfect and faithful high priest!