Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

August 26, 2007

Text: Hebrews 12: 18-29

What a strange passage to be considered on a Sunday morning! Even though it has been translated from Greek, it may yet sound like Greek to us.

And yet, what a perfect passage for a Sunday morning! For this part of Hebrews is all about coming to God and to Christ, especially in places that are set aside for this purpose---sanctuaries, holy mountains, retreat centers and such.

Over and over in Hebrews we are asked to “approach,” “come” or draw near” to God----all translations of the same word.

 “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16 (Also see Hebrews 7:25, 10:22 and 11:6)

On a day when we are considering our commitments to be present in worship and on other occasions, we can begin closer to home with the question, “Why do we come to church? And what or who draws us to places like this?”

Our answers to this question will be as varied as we are different.

God works in mysterious ways. When I was a young, I was drawn to the church because that was where I met my friends. There were also times when I was present for church because I had no choice. Music played a big role. I liked to sing, and where else could I join in singing with others?

Each of us will have our own answers, and they may be different now than they were even last time ago. I remember the Sunday when our daughter, Amy, and her friend Melanie---both about 16---began to pay close attention at worship. She had to be in church, of course, as the preacher’s daughter. But that was the beginning of a change in motives for attending.

Many people, of course, choose not to come to the church with any regularity. Even those who are members of long-standing may resist attendance. I state this as simply a fact, without presuming to answer for non-attenders. I think we sometimes assume that, with all of the entertainment venues available to people---including sports events---most people would find worship rather boring, and thus stay away. Pastors are always seeking clever ways to make services more appealing from an entertainment point of view. Frankly, we cannot compete on entertainment’s playing field. Why?

The truth is that worship is not really like other gatherings---and this may help to explain why we are drawn to worship and other church events in the final analysis. The difference is the attraction.

 I agree with Bishop Will Willimon who wrote that “worship [is] simply the active drawing near to God.” And this can be risky business, for “the experience of coming face to face with the living God may be a pleasant or unpleasant experience. It may provoke love or fear. One may wish to draw near or run away. All these responses are part of the experience of meeting with and being met by God.” (Worship as Pastoral Care)

We come to worship and other events here, or we pray or meditate by ourselves, for mixed reasons, of course. But, as Frederick Buechner said in a sermon, we come to these set-apart places hoping that “God will speak our name and bless us.” (“Hope,” a sermon preached at Union Theological Seminary of Virginia; cassette tape.) We want to draw near, but we are also nervous about drawing near. (This accounts for our attempts to folksy up worship, I think----to make it less serious.)

TWO MOUNTAINS

The Letter to the Hebrews deals with this contradictory experience of “drawing near” to God by writing of two different mountains.

He calls to mind the experience of the people on or near Mt Sinai. Mt Sinai is reportedly where the people of God received the Ten Commandments, mediated by their leader, Moses. As it is expressed here in Hebrews, it doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience at all. The preacher tells us that the people approached God in the midst of “a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.” This sounds like a script for “Raiders of the Lost Ark!”

It is a depiction of raw divine power, an encounter which scared the wits out of people. Thomas Long writes that this is a depiction of everything that is awry in religion, when divine power is severed from grace. (Hebrews) One drew near to God terrified because, in the presence of such holiness, no one could stand guiltless. They were overwhelmed by the majesty and glory of God, feeling small and vulnerable.

There are times when get glimpses of such experiences today. The great cathedrals of Europe, and their copies in this nation, cause us to enter with a sense of awe even though we may be secularized. We worshiped at Duke Chapel this summer. One enters this beautiful gothic structure through a grand entrance with all of the various gargoyles and the busts of great churchmen (including the Wesleys, Luther, Calvin, and, yes, Robert E. Lee!) Everything in the large nave speaks of glory and mystery. The altar is far distant from the front pew. The music is ethereal, echoing off the stone walls. If one were to be present in the Chapel during a thunder and lightning storm, one might actually experience something like the awe and reverence which the people experienced at Sinai.

I have been in Raton, New Mexico, and watched with awe as a thunderstorm built up, blocking out the sun, echoing through the valleys below. At the very least, one can get a feeling of how tiny and vulnerable we are in the presence of such grandeur. We can relate to our Hebrew ancestors---- as Moses came down off the mountain and caught them with a golden calf and with no excuses.

Driving home recently, I pointed out to our grandchildren the sight of the late sun behind a single large cloud formation, with the rays of the sun bursting through the edges. It made a fireworks display look like kid’s play.

Story: famous actor: how did you do that?  I do not know.

We might know a little of the risk of being in God’s presence.

“Worship entails the risk of transcending ourselves, of facing that Mystery that both repels and fascinates us, of standing on life’s limits and asking life’s ultimate questions.” (Willimon)

The partial truth of Sinai type encounters with the Most High God is the incomprehensibility of God, the One who is hidden from our sight.

 This is why we are in peril when we try to make worship too comfortable.  If we feel strange in worship, or a bit uncomfortable with all that is going on, it may be because we are aware, at some deep level, that God is the One beyond knowing, the Most High, the Wholly Other, not one of u, not one we control.

BRAND NEW

But the author of Hebrews wants us to know that something brand new is here, no less awesome, but in a much different way. Without at all compromising God’s holiness and grandeur, now we may “draw near” with confidence instead or terror in our hearts. To make his point, the preacher is like a travel agent who is showing a video of the place we will be traveling to. It is different mountain, Mt Zion. (Long)

“But you have come (drawn near) to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

Even though the images are foreign to us, this is part of the fun of biblical imagery---it is often so unlike ordinary descriptions. Though we use the word awesome all the time, here is a description that boggles the mind. We can get a picture in our minds eye of “thousands of angels, frolicking and laughing, a festival, with saints swinging from the chandeliers!” Yes, God the Judge is there, but, because of the ministry and death of Jesus, everyone has been declared “not guilty.” Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, a covenant of grace. (See Long’s commentary on Hebrews.) See what you have to look forward to! The God of majesty and glory is a God of love---and always has been!

What we have is a human, finite (as if this is surprising) preview of coming attractions---holy, heavenly habitations!
 
WHAT ABOUT REAL LIFE HERE AND NOW?

I do not want to downplay the hope of heaven. Surely it such hope of a grand reunion, where the circle will be unbroken, which helps us face our deaths with courage. For people throughout the ages, when life was lived in bondage without hope of happiness in this world, such anticipation was what kept them living faithfully.

You may say, well, preacher, it is one thing to talk about a big heavenly festival that is played out in the imaginations of people , or life for eternity with God and the angels and saints, but how are such imaginings going to help me now? Now, I am mired in despondency, bewilderment, confusion, trying to get through each day with falling apart. But the kingdom of God which is coming, or which we inherit, can be experienced as an aperitif now.

The preacher says that we can draw near because heaven has come to earth in Jesus Christ, and we can already experience something of the joy.

 He writes of  “those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,….” (Hebrews 6:4) Hebrews 3:6

Though it is a tame example of such festivities, the service of the Lord’s Supper points us in the right direction as we begin to grasp the reason for celebrating now. Remember the words of Jesus in the liturgy: “This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Or, in the words of the old liturgy, we become “partakers of the divine nature.”

WORTHWHILENESS
So, why do we “draw near” to this place, this community of faith?
Our reasons will be varied, and that’s OK. But God may be drawing us into the Divine Presence so that might believe and trust that God, in and through Jesus Christ, has liberated us. We may protest, “But I am not captive to anything, and I can manage my own liberation, thank you very much.”  I suggest to you that we are captive to the notion that “our lives are justified by what we do in accord with standards of excellence….” And this is why our sisters and brothers were terrified on Mt Sinai, and why we, ourselves live so often with such anxiety. We do not measure up. “If the worthwhileness of one’ life depends on completing [a never-ending project], life is impossible; only failed life, only living death, is possible.”

But here is the Good News that the preacher in Hebrews is so passionate about:
[We] have only to live in trust that it is God loving [us] in Jesus’ passion that makes our lives worth living….It is not the trusting that will redeem [us]….It is God loving us that will do that.” David Kelsey, “Redeeming Sam,” in The Christian Century, June 28, 2005)

In the final analysis, when we draw near to God in this place, we are the prodigal and elder sons and daughters coming home for the Heavenly Father’s homecoming party. (Luke 15)