Fearless Faith

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

May 30, 2010

Text: Hebrews 12: 12-13, 18-29

Hebrews was written, so far as we are able to discern, to followers of Jesus Christ who were being persecuted. They were being picked off by adherents of other religions, including Roman emperor worship. Many were filled with doubt; some were bored with the Christian way of worshipping and living. Apparently they were having a crisis of faith.

The anonymous preacher (not ordained, but he sounds like a preacher, doesn’t he?), this preacher delivers a long sermon on the uniqueness of Jesus. He wants these struggling believers to hang in there through the tough times.

He has just made the last turn and he is headed for home.

“Faith,” he says,” gives substance to our hopes and convinces us of realities we cannot see.” (REB)

And he lines out examples:

 By faith, Abel, Noah, Abraham (and Sarah), Jacob, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, David and Samuel----and countless other people of the Covenant----ventured out and made momentous decisions on the strength of what they could not see, trusting in God.

The God who is responsible for all created things desired to have a people who would witness to God’s work agenda for all people. God’s aim was justice and righteousness, a world in which shalom would be lived---not just talked about.

The preacher then looks straight at those gathered before him, the Christians under duress, and challenges them to remember that it is now their turn to hang tough, to keep the faith, to run with perseverance the race that has been set before them.

Jesus makes the difference: look to him, as the fulfillment of all those who keep the faith, that cloud of witnesses.

He is the pioneer, the one we can look to as we live forward.

The preacher acknowledges then that the road will be difficult. Their hands will sometimes be drooping, their knees will be wobbly, their feet will be sore. They will be tempted to give up.

We know this experience in many realms of life.

There are 5 minutes left and your team is down by ten. Your best player has just fouled out and been replaced by an inexperienced sophomore. You are winded, your feet hurt, and the big guy whom you are trying to guard has shoved you around the whole game.

The coach calls a time out and says, “Lift your drooping hand, strengthen your weak knees, wake up your feet. We’ve got ‘em right where we want them. We can do this.” (Sorry for another sports analogy, but the author of Hebrews started it!)

You have been working for years on a project to bring hope to the homeless in your community by providing them with a place to call home while they get themselves established in a job. You have spent hours talking with all of the funding agencies and those in authority. Many people have given of themselves and their money to make this happen. But then the economy tanks, the city is getting nervous about the location of your half-way house, and the foundations you thought were coming through are pulling out.

So the chair of the project gets you all together and says something like, “Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” We can do this, so let’s not give up: too many people are depending on us! Keep your eyes on the prize.”

A local church has been declining. The neighborhood has deteriorated, with crime rampant and drug-dealers everywhere. People live in fear, and the church is about to throw in the towel.

But someone sees a vision of word and deed witness. There is a homeless shelter nearby. They work with their residents to help them see a better future for themselves. Maybe they could use some help.

They learn that there is a need: to wash the linens and clothes of the people who sleep there.

So the church raises the money, they install washers and dryers, recruit volunteers. They are off and running. They have a very specific service to render, and they begin to hope for their church.

In time, they make friends with some of the homeless; some begin to come to worship. Many come to know and love Jesus Christ; others have their childhood faith renewed.

The church begins to grow slowly, receiving into their fellowship people very different from the ones who started the church in the 1920’s. There are tensions aplenty, but they are on their way---the Way which God called them to follow.
Looking to Jesus, they envision a piece of God’s overarching vision. They will be a sign community of the coming, promised kingdom of God.

Their weak knees were strengthened, their hands were made strong, their feet are headed in the right direction. Their faith turned into hope. They will persevere.

Now these things don’t just happen.

The Spirit of God moves across the chaos and people are inspired to do more than they ever thought possible. Hearts are warmed and leaders step forward.

God is not a cosmic muffin. God is not like an elderly gentleman winding his pocket watch while the world falls apart.

God is not indifferent to the flow of history. God is faithful in raising people up to help bring the kingdom to come on earth, God’s hallowed presence in the midst of real life, God’s will accomplished in the messy realms of this real world.

This God will shake the earth so that only what should last is left standing.

The preacher-priest who wrote Hebrews makes clear that God’s justice, God’s holy otherness, God’s transcendent glory, has been clarified by Jesus.

While remaining holy and free of manipulation, God has drawn near. “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Turn your life around and believe in the good news!”
 
God’s awesome glory and power has not been set aside but is revealed to be an aspect of infinite love.
 
We can live now in the knowledge that God is not terrifying but welcoming.

Only a God who is fearsomely, profoundly compassionate will suffice, because only this God can equip us for hazardous service in a world of such destruction and suffering! You often have to endure the thundering and lightning before the showers of blessing

God’s judgment, as on Mt Sinai, is the other side of the coin of God’s love.

At Mt Sinai, as we read the story in Exodus, God’s presence was felt as darkness and gloom----- debilitating dread of destruction. “Don’t speak to us, or we will die!”

But the law, the Ten Commandments, was given out of love. They would live by these or they would self-destruct!

A Baptist layman illustrated this when he spoke at First Baptist Church in Midland, Texas in the summer of 1962. He told that when he was in school, there were two principals. They both meted out discipline, but there was a difference. One’s discipline was done out of love, and the other out of hatred. The love of God is like this the principal who loved the students. Love made all the difference.

The preacher tells them that they are being led to Mt Zion, a mountain where the presence of God is overwhelmingly gracious.

Not that we have earned God’s presence by the perfect performance of the law; or because we have sacrificed the right animals as offerings to the Lord.

Now, Jesus is the high priest who gave his life sacrificially to open the doors of heaven. There is forgiveness.
Because of Jesus, the shedding of his blood rather than give up God’s dream of redemption, revealing us to God and God to us by his life of serving love and his passion and death---because of Jesus, we are received into God’s gracious presence.

Jesus took the worst the powers of evil could dish out and exposed them for the imposters that they are. (The ancients used the practices of temple sacrifices to frame the nature of Jesus’ death for our sakes. This is not the only way to express what God accomplished in the life and death of Jesus.)

Now, God is leading you up Mt Zion, the heavenly realm of the future, where there are “innumerable angels in festal gathering, an assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all people, and to the spirits of mortals made complete, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.”

He is speaking of what is to come: the world when God has brought everyone and everybody back home to the way the world is destined to be.

Like a travel agent, he is showing them pictures in the brochure which inspires them to anticipate the beauty of the new heavens and earth. Like a traveler who looks at the brochure of crystal blue beaches, they already are there in their minds, even if they are stuck in traffic in a show storm in Green Bay.  (I have borrowed this image from Thomas Long wonderful commentary, (Interpretation: Hebrews, John Knox, publisher)

Some through the centuries have been inspired to labor on in the cause of Christ and a more just and righteous world---a world redeemed--- because of their conviction of entering this heavenly festival when they die: bliss, unimaginable beauty and joy, being with Jesus.

At its most fitting, this hope is based on the grace of God---the conviction that the faithful will not be forsaken by a faithful and loving God. I say amen to this sentiment.

In the meantime, while we draw breath in these mortal bodies, we can envision a “city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (10:10).

While we long for God’s kingdom in its fullness, we are called to join God in making the re-shaping the world according to God’s vision. We offer signs of God’s coming kingdom.

Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless,
saving the planet’s ecosystems,

 proclaiming the gospel in ways which connect to people today;

 preparing ourselves to glorify God by creating works of great beauty;

setting new standards for ethical behavior in the worlds of finance and investment;

 renewing the mission and vision of churches;
 daily praying for all of the above ----the possibilties are as as each of us is different, and as each church is distinct.

God has work to do, and it is in our interest to get on board. It is in our own interest to cling to that which cannot be shaken----to build our house on the rock instead of shifting sands.

For God is a consuming fire! He will purify us for faithful living!

Hebrews is a book about hope and God’s faithfulness, steadfastness, constancy, and perseverance and endurance----the very virtues that the preacher challenged all us disciples to hold dear.

Its message is expressed in language and imagery that may be foreign to us.

But when we use our imaginations, we are encouraged---courage enters us, and we are renewed for the journey.

When we gather to worship, as we offer to God our worship
(a really countercultural thing to do, don’t you think, a radically different action than anything else we gather for!)----when we congregants, we are not alone.

 Here are myriads of angels,
 the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven,
 the spirit of men and women made perfect,
 and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.

Here we taste and see and hear holiness, glory, peace which passes understanding.  Worship---when we let ourselves be free enough to really be here---- is a preview of a coming attraction, God’s new heavens and earth---which has come and will come in Jesus.

As the ancient church did, we are “looking forward to a city with firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (11:10) We must be joyful and confident, especially when hope is scarce. People will wonder what we are up to!

Old hymns take on new meaning as we leave the old preacher of Hebrews. We are freed for strenuous efforts and freed from despair and exhaustion. We work as those who know that the goal is guaranteed! (Carl Michaelson, The Witness of Radical Faith.)

Isaac Watts wrote and Robert Lowry set to music, a hymn which is, appropriately, the last one in our hymnal, under the section “The Completion of Creation (The City of God)” It sounds a little too triumphant for our times, perhaps. And yet it reminds us that we must be brave in the face of the unknowns.

“Come, we that love the Lord and let our joys be known;

 join in a song with sweet accord, join in a song with sweet accord

and thus surround the throne….

We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion; we’re marching upward to Zion, Zion, the beautiful city of God!”

(Hymn 733, United Methodist Hymnal)