Yet...

I am indebted to the writings of Scott Shauf, The Rev. Dr. Delmer Chilton, and to my dear friends Terry Ramone Smith and Kirk Jeffery for guidance in writing the sermon.

The sermon doesn't really end, I'm afraid. It made the most sense to simply segue to the Words of Institution.

Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet." Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."

This is the Word of the Lord.

When I was young, I attended a large Presbyterian church, and one Sunday, as a way (I think) of illustrating blindness, I was blindfolded and led by a couple of youth leaders around this church.

Now, this was a long time ago, so I don’t recall much of the context or conversation, but I remember the youth leaders asking me to guess where I was at different points. I honestly had no idea; even today I have no internal compass and the world’s worst sense of direction, so the moment the blindfold was on I was completely lost, completely dependent on the hands leading me around the building – up stairs and through rooms and around corners, it seemed we walked for miles… and when at long last they took the blindfold off, I was standing on a rooftop patio, the buildings of downtown soaring above me, the sky bluer than I had ever seen it, traffic noises echoing through the air… and while the journey to the rooftop patio had seemed endless, my stroll back to the Sunday school room was short and sweet.

This is the mental image I get when I read the first couple of verses of our Lectionary today. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.”

Here’s what I am getting at: There was nothing at all functionally wrong with the old ways. The lines of communication were open; humankind communicated with our Creator through worship and prayer and sacrifice, and God communicated with humankind through prophets. For all of humankind’s mistakes, all the fits and starts and getting off track and crashing and burning, it is important to note that the comparison that the writer of this letter to the Hebrews is making is not between bad and good.

One of the mistakes I have made in the past is to view Jesus’ life, death and resurrection as a kind of cosmic “Plan B:” God saw that the whole system of laws and sacrifices wasn’t working, and decided to send Jesus to be one big final sacrifice instead. You know: God’s team is losing, and none of the plays are working, so God calls Jesus off the bench to go in and make his play to win the game (maybe it would have been a “Hail Mary” pass?)…

No, we aren’t looking at a bad system versus a good system. The comparison here is between the merely good, and the magnificent.

When I was blindfolded and led around through the corridors of the church, the youth leaders who guided me, one on each arm, took their task very seriously, never letting me stumble or strike a doorframe, never letting me wander off on my own. The system was good, it worked. But it is also true that there was a better way for me to get around that church: removing the blindfold, that barrier that kept me from seeing, and using my own eyes to guide me!

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament, the prophets who God speaks through go to great lengths to make sure that God’s message is faithfully conveyed – they take their job very seriously, often leaving their homes and livelihoods, journeying great distances, risking – and very often suffering – death at the hands of those God has called them to minister to.

There was a better way, though… and it was not a “Plan B,” it was not a desperation move on the part of the Almighty, it was the will of God from before the Earth was created in the first place.

Now, I want to be careful here and make it clear that I in no way believe that God lacked anything in God’s comprehension of, compassion for, and dealings with humankind. God didn’t really need to experience what it is like to be a human being in order to love and relate to human beings.

God did not need to experience potty training, or being weaned, or learning to walk and talk and read, or learning table manners, or learning to dress for God’s self. God did not need to feel the love of a parent, or the grief of loss, or sweat on God’s brow or hunger in God’s stomach or anything else. God did not need to endure the pain of rejection or the searing cut of the lash or the agony of the nails or the slow suffocation of the cross. God did not need to die, or to rise again.

We needed God to experience that. We needed God to feel that. We needed God to endure that. We needed God to die, and to rise again. We needed God, through Jesus Christ, to go through the kind of death that is separation from God, and to come out on the other side, having utterly conquered it on our behalf.

And let me assure you of something: with all of that accomplished, with Christ risen and seated at the right hand of God, with death conquered, the Holy Spirit fallen, and the Kingdom of God at hand, and if God has truly put all things under the subjection of Christ, as we read in this morning’s passage from the book of Hebrews, it’s OK to ask, “if all that is true, why are things still so messed up?”

“As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them,” we read… the plural is misleading there, since most English translations of this Scripture see the quotation from Psalm 8, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet…” as referring not to humans as a whole, but to Christ specifically – singular rather than plural.

And it’s true, we don’t see everything in subjection to Christ, do we? Because if God is in control, why do children starve? If God is in control, why do storms come and wipe out entire cities? If God is in control, why do people get sick and die? Recession, war, drugs, mental illness, crime, corporate greed, political corruption, the list is almost endless…

As we look around the world for God, God is often difficult to see, difficult to pin down. And sometimes, just when we think we have the holy in our hands, it slips away as we realize we were mistaken. All too often it feels like we are groping around, still blindfolded, not sure of where we are or which direction to take.

I said last week, in looking at the absence of God’s name in the book of Esther, that God is in fact never absent. God was present long ago, speaking through the prophets, and though God may not always be easy to see in the here-and-now, God is never absent today, either.

“….we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus . . .” This is the promise that in Jesus all we hope for and all we need is present, in the here and now, and all the time.

In the community of faith we see Jesus in the midst of a world where God is often heard to find.  We hear Christ’s voice in the readings and hymns and songs and liturgies and sermons. We see our Lord’s face in the faces around us; we see and feel and receive Christ in the meal, in the bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus; we feel the divine touch in the touch of another’s hand at the passing of the bread and the cup. “We do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus . . .”

And through the community of faith, and in the holy act of taking the bread and the cup, we are given the support and sustenance we need to go out into the world, and to help those around us, near and far, to see and hear and feel and receive Jesus as well.

We are not alone, you and I. This is World Communion Sunday. This Sunday is always a particular joy for me, because World Communion Sunday was my first time sharing the Lord’s Supper with all of you, and I always feel like I am celebrating an anniversary of sorts. More than that, though, this day serves to remind all of us that we, as the Body of Christ in the world, are connected to one another. Though our ancillary doctrines may differ, though we approach the elements from differing theological standpoints, in breaking the bread and in taking the cup we affirm that, whether in lofty cathedrals or in storefront, inner city churches, whether in modern megachurches or mud huts, as this bread is one loaf and this juice is one cup, we are one body, the Body of Christ.

And on the night he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread…