12^th September 2013

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 1 September 2013

Lessons - Psalm 15: Hebrews 13:1-9,15-21; Luke 14:1,7-14

Do not neglect to do good . . . Let mutual love abound . . . Do not
be side-tracked by false teaching . . . Remember 'Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday, today and forever.' (Hebrews 13:1ff)

At the end of the Letter to the Hebrews the tiny group of pilgrims to whom he is writing is reminded that, on the long march toward the heavenly city, they are to be grateful for the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before them and they are to behave in a manner befitting the love of Christ. They are to be a counter-cultural community on earth in loyalty to the One who was 'crucified outside the gate of the earthly city' (v11).

They are not to turn their backs on the world but to be embedded in the world as witnesses to the costly, life-giving love of God for the world in Christ. As they set their faces towards the future that God has promised in him, they are to be signposts to hope in the time given them on earth!

Thus, they are to please God, not themselves (v16). God is delighted when we do what is good, but not when (as so often) we act badly. The writer of Hebrews knows how easy it is for the 'pilgrim people' to neglect their earthly responsibilities.

* As self-love, hatred and bitterness can destroy a sense of community from within, see to it that mutual (brotherly and sisterly) love abounds (v1).

* As rejecting outsiders may cut us off from angels and God, show hospitality to strangers (v2).

* As focusing on our own trials may cause us to forget those suffering for their faith, put yourselves in their shoes (v3).

* As promiscuity and adultery destroy fidelity, see to it that marriage is honoured (v4).

* As greed and envy make us dissatisfied and distract us from 'doing good', remember that there is no need to be anxious about your future (v5).

* As fascinating as it is to listen to 'all kinds of strange teachings'
that think we can earn God's grace by obeying food rules or making sacrifices to pagan gods (v9), remember the truth that 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever' (v8).

Sex, money, politics and religion are the proper concern of pilgrim people. No area of life is excluded. On the way to the heavenly future the church is to be a counter-cultural community on earth.

Here is a word for us! Many people in our society are obsessed with wealth and status. Others are hostile to migrants, Aborigines and refugees.
Others are blind to the suffering of those imprisoned, tortured or mistreated because of their faith, political views or crimes. Others are flippant about sexual relationships and the sanctity of marriage. Many people in our churches are fascinated by strange teachings that blind them to the magnificence of the Gospel.

It is enough to discourage the staunchest pilgrim! The power of 'cultural elites' to set the public agenda is intimidating. Self-styled progressives
- in the community and the church - are committed to social and legislative changes that discredit the great tradition of Christian humanism (grounded in God's goodness-and-mercy in Christ) and embrace a 'deformed humanism' (grounded in libertarianism; doing one's own thing).

As a result, many Christians today are overwhelmed by events and neglect their calling to swim against the current. It is much easier to go along with what is happening on earth and look forward to heavenly peace beyond death. This is not how Hebrews sees things! Because the pilgrims are a community of hope, they fix their eyes on God's future so as to be emboldened and delighted to live in God's present. Grateful for God's presence with the great cloud of witnesses from the past and united to Jesus, they are called to act in ways worthy of God's goodness-and-grace.

Now it is not simply a matter of trying hard to be holy or good. We do not act in order to make ourselves 'worthy'. Like those who have gone before, whose example is an encouragement, we are beneficiaries of grace (v7). As flawed people who are often weak, timid and despondent, we are invited to 'offer a sacrifice of praise to God through Jesus, the high priest who shed his blood on the Cross outside the holy city' (vv 15,12).

As we have seen earlier, their fragile faith is 'perfected' by the 'pioneer' who has gone before (12:2). Drawing on priestly imagery familiar to his readers, and to the faithful who saw the fulfilment of God's promise from afar, the writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as the Mediator who has atoned for the sins of the world. That is to say, Jesus mediates God's grace to us! And he mediates our broken humanity to God! In him we see the Son of God and the one truly human person who 'sanctifies the people by his blood' (v12).

This language admittedly is difficult and off-putting. The Jewish sacrificial system is strange to us. The idea of killing animals on the Day of Atonement by the High Priest, who represents God to people and people to God, is bizarre. So is the idea that shedding the blood of a
perfect man can atone for the sins of imperfect people.

The point is that the sinless Christ takes on himself the consequences of sin. He dies as if he were a sinful person because of his love for sinful people.

We see something of this when we look at similar situations:

* Recently, in a TV crime thriller, a father confessed to a murder that had been committed by his son. He was willing to risk the death penalty to save his guilty son.

* In Dachau an innocent prisoner was hanged after stepping forward to take the blame for what another prisoner had done.

These touching human examples give us a glimpse of what Hebrews means by 'Jesus shedding his own blood to sanctify the people' (v12). However, his sacrificial love is without parallel. The shedding of his innocent blood for the guilty has universal application. In this unique act of self- giving love he dies outside the holy city so that all flawed and broken people may be reconciled to God.

Christ's shedding of blood on the Cross is life-giving, unlike blood that is shed in vengeance (as we saw with Abel and see in Syria today). The crucifixion is not, as some would have us believe, a bizarre religious act of a bloodthirsty god worshipped by primitive believers. It is the event in history that brings hope to the world. As Pope Leo the Great (ca 400-
461) said, 'The cross of Christ is the altar, not of the temple but of the world.' {Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture New Testament Vol X Hebrews p232.}

As Hebrews points out, this has ethical implications. 'Since Jesus was crucified outside the city, Christians are always called upon to be on the outside of society, to live with less and to bear abuse.' (Patriarch Photius 810-91, ibid.)

We can live in this way only because in Jesus Christ we have a High Priest who is of our flesh and blood (2:14) and sympathises with us in our weakness (4:14-16). He is a brother who has gone before us, travels with us and goes ahead of us. This Son of God fulfils ancient hopes and anticipates the glorious future that awaits humanity. He is the Mediator who was crucified because of his love for all people and raised from the dead to be the ascended Lord to signify that evil is powerless to thwart God's will.

What he has done and who he is does not change throughout history. He is 'the same yesterday and today and forever' (v8). In an age when many people are fascinated by 'strange teachings' (which discredit Christian
humanism) or are attracted by new adventures (which debunk traditional values), this probably seems very boring. Not more of the same!

* But what could be more exhilarating and challenging than to be a community of hope sustained by the God whose goodness-and-grace is constant through-out history?

* What could be more liberating than to know that, in Jesus Christ our crucified brother, our sins have been forgiven?

* What could be more adventurous than being invited by the 'pioneer and perfecter of our faith' to go on a pilgrimage to the 'heavenly city'?

* What could be more satisfying than to know that, by grace, we share the road with those who have gone before and those who will come after us?

Hebrews challenged and encouraged early pilgrims. The writer also makes it clear to us that, on the way to the heavenly future, we are summoned to be a counter-cultural community on earth. In a time of flux when a great tradition of faith is being trashed, individual rights are being asserted, spin is trumping integrity in public life and charlatans are feeding on religious insecurity, the pilgrim people are charged with the happy and somewhat daunting task of witnessing to the hope that has come into the
world in the crucified Jesus.

May mutual love abound (v1), hospitality be shown to strangers (v2), the persecuted be remembered (v3), marriage be sanctified (v4), greed and envy be forsaken and anxiety be overcome (v5). Also, may fascination with all kinds of strange teachings, that think we can earn God's grace by obeying rules or making sacrifices to pagan gods (v9), be replaced by the desire
to know the truth revealed in and through Christ (v8).

Let us, in all things, rejoice in the privilege and challenge that we share with one another, and with all who have been called and will be called into the community of the crucified Jesus by the God of all grace-
and-goodness.