The Adventure of Faithfulness (Living By Faith, Week 4)

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

I want to remind you of a few things you already know.  That’s what our reading does – it reminds us of some things we already knew.  And in fact, if you want my philosophy of church, this is it: we don’t need to belong to the church to make God love us or because people who belong to churches are better human beings than others.  We need church because it’s really hard to live well and wisely.  And it’s really easy to forget some of the basic and important things that lead to a good life.

 

In most areas of our lives, we don’t need new information.  We need reminders of what we already know.  We need someone to draw our attention back to something that we’d forgotten or overlooked.

Stephanie and Jane both work as instructional coaches in our schools.  So their job is to help other teachers by reminding them about the simple and basic things that make for good teaching and good learning in the classroom.  This is delicate work, of course.  Not everyone likes feedback. Teachers are like the rest of us.  They sometimes loose focus or drift a bit from the excellence of best practices in their work.  And so the role of the coach is to remind them of what they’ve already learned and practiced.  And it’s appropriate for the teacher to respond to feedback from the coaches by saying, “I already know that.”   It’s also appropriate for the coaches to say, “I know you do.  But you had forgotten to practice it.  And so I’m reminding you.”

When the dentist tells us to floss more often, we don’t say, “Wow.  Flossing.  I’d never thought of that.  Great idea!”  No, we cut her off midsentence, saying “Yeah, I know,” because we already knew.  We just weren’t doing it.  When the doctor tells us to stay active and to eat well, she isn’t sharing path-breaking research with us.  It’s not breaking news.  But we forget how important our practices of eating and exercising are to our overall health.

So in light of our reading today, I want to remind you first of all that an adventurous life is much more satisfying and joyful than a dull and predictable life.  When we are reminded to show hospitality to strangers, and to remember those who are living painful lives – especially those in prison and those experiencing torture or abuse – these are not brand new teachings.  We know them.  We just forget to practice them.

When we talk about “living by faith,” we recognize that we’re part of a long tradition of faithful people who have put practices of welcoming strangers and living in solidarity with people in painful situations at the center of their lives.  Both Old and New Testaments abound with instruction to welcome the stranger, the foreigner, the immigrant, the widow and the orphan, those in pain and those vulnerable to abuse.  And yet we forget to practice this way of life because our lives are also shaped by fear, by love of ease, by judgmental self-righteousness and by fatigue. 

The stranger might be strange, we tell ourselves.  They are not yet part of my network of trust.  The prisoner is probably in prison because they deserved it.  We know who is in prison, after all.  In America, we’re the world’s leader in putting people in prison.  And it’s predominately and disproportionately black males, people with mental illnesses, and people with addictions.  Prison isn’t a place for educated white men who steal millions in sophisticated financial schemes.  It’s primarily for poor, young black men who steal $100, or who sell drugs.

Now here’s what I don’t want you to miss.  The reading specifically urges us to take responsibility for our imaginations.  Your imagination is a powerful and wonderful gift.  Put bluntly, you can’t live the life of faith without exercising your imaginative muscles.  When we welcome strangers we might be welcoming angels without knowing it (v. 2).  Now this was too much for most of you, wasn’t it?  Does it seem gullible to believe such things? 

In Genesis 18, Abraham and Sarah entertain three visitors who appear to be angelic messengers.  So that’s the story our reading has in mind.  But don’t forget the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 25.  When we feed the hungry, give a cup of cold water, clothe the naked, and visit those in prison . . . what does he teach?  We are doing these things for him.  His face is hidden in the faces of those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, and in prison.  His face is hidden in the face of the stranger.  In other words, you are visited by divine messengers every day.  Anyone else in pain or in need becomes, for us, the very face of God.

Likewise, remember those in prison and those in bodily pain as if you were them, as if you were inhabiting their bodies (v. 3).  Imagine yourself as a friend, as a brother or sister to those in pain.  Do not imagine them as different from you.  Do not imagine them as your enemy.  Do not imagine immigrants as somehow beneath you.  Do not imagine people in violent, dangerous places as somehow not as deserving of peace and safety like you are.  They want the same things you and I want.  And so imagine yourself in solidarity with them, and put into practice compassion and kindness.

Now that I’m talking about the importance of your imagination, let me remind you you’ll have to train your imagination toward faithfulness.  God will help you.  But it will take responsibility and discipline and focus on your end.  That’s why our reading reminds us to be careful with our imaginations when it comes to sexuality and money (vs. 4-5).  These topics might have seemed random when we first read them.  But it’s all about the shape of your imagination. 

Now you could, if you wanted to, dismiss these teachings as overly puritan.  You might yawn and dismiss these reminders about responsible sexuality and about financial modesty as quaint and outmoded.  But I think these reminders are exactly what we need to hear.  Again, it’s all about energy and imagination.

If your imagination has been captured by an undisciplined sexual drive or by an out-sized love of money, you simply won’t be able to imagine yourself as a friend of those in pain.  You will be so busy chasing pleasure and success that you’ll train your imagination to avoid those who have failed and are now in pain.  If you spend the lion’s share of your life’s energy chasing sexual gratification with a variety of partners or chasing the ease or security or status that comes with wealth, you simply won’t have any energy left for the things that matter. 

So I remind you that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, listed in Galatians 5, is “self-control.”  You will have to learn to bring some of your strongest urges and impulses under the direction of God’s Spirit if you want to be able to focus your energies on a life that is truly adventurous, satisfying, and joyful.

I want to remind all of us to keep Jesus Christ at the center of our lives.  And I mean by that – let your imagination and the practices of your daily life be shaped more deeply by his way of life than by other influences.  More than the influences of your biological family.  More than the influences of your peers or what seems “normal” behavior.  More than the political platforms of your favorite leaders or parties.  More than the voices of our marketing culture that treat you like nothing but a consumer, a purchaser of goods, a pleasure-seeking, experience-having shopper. 

I want to remind you that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (v. 8).

Now I’m not quite sure why the writer to the Hebrews said it just that way.  Maybe the writer worries that we’re shifting our trust from Jesus Christ to something else.  After all, here we are in 2016, these gospel stories were written a long time ago.  Maybe the thought creeps into us that Jesus is an antique – nice to have around but not all that useful.  Maybe over time we entertain the possibility that he is not available or present or actively relating to us as he once was.  

Maybe too much has changed.  Maybe our circumstances call for something completely different than what worked for our forebears, our grandparents and parents.  Maybe our times, our culture and politics, our lives – are so radically different than what’s come before that we will have to parcel out our trust in a number of different directions.

And yet, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  And living with the presence of the living Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit is not a pale and fading thing compared to those original disciples who knew the earthly Jesus.  Time doesn’t diminish how this Christ is available to us.  He still meets us in Scripture and preaching, in the sacraments of the meal and baptism, in the faces of others, and in the beauty and complexity of the world. 

He is still the powerful voice who tells us the story of the Good Samaritan.  When we bring to this living Christ our questions about what matters most, he calls us to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  And he tells us a story about a person robbed and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road.  He would be a stranger to all who passed his way.  And the religious people walked by without stopping to help.  Their imaginations weren’t working.  But an ungodly Samaritan came by and stopped to help the stranger.  He was the wrong ethnicity and even the wrong religion, but he could imagine himself in solidarity with the stranger who needed help.

Finally, I want to remind you to reflect prayerfully on how you can share more fully in the life of this congregation.  I invite you to reflect on why you’re here in the first place.  How important is this community to the shape of your life?  Are you taking advantage of the friendships available to you?  Are you weaving your life into the fabric of fellowship here?  Are you taking advantage of opportunities to serve, to learn, to grow, to lead?

Our reading reminds us not to neglect the “mutual love” for each other (v. 1).  It reminds us not to neglect regular participation in rhythms of worship and good deeds and sharing that are part of our life together (v. 15-16).  You don’t need church because you’re a terrible person who needs to perform or achieve something.  You need church because you are a beautiful, strong, beloved person.  You are gifted and passionate and capable of helping others.  But this good news is hard to remember.  We forget it most days.  And so we gather to remind one another what’s important, and then we return to our lives with more focused energy, with renewed priorities, and with an imagination that’s being healed. 

But you already knew that.  I’m just reminding you.