Provocative Faith

"Provocative Faith" FPC 11-15-09
1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hebrews 10:11-25

 Besides when you’re actually sitting here on Sunday mornings, do you sometimes think about worship? Why we’re here. Why we do what we do. Why it matters. Whether it matters.

 Writer Annie Dillard talks about worship at a little church she attends. One Sunday she says, “No one, least of all the organist, could find the opening hymn. Then no one knew it. Then no one could sing anyway.

 “There was no sermon, only announcements.

 “The priest proudly introduced the rascally acolyte who was going to light the two Advent candles. As we all could plainly see, the rascally acolyte had already lighted them. . . .
 “During communion, the priest handed me a wafer which proved to be stuck to five other wafers. I waited, while he tore the clump into rags of wafer, resisting the impulse to help. Directly to my left, and all through communion, a woman was banging out the theme from The Sound of Music on a piano. . . .

 As Dillard concludes, “A high school stage play is more polished than this service we have been rehearsing since the year one. In two thousand years, we have not worked out the kinks. We positively glorify them. Week after week we witness the same miracle: that God is so mighty he can stifle his own laughter. Week after week, we witness the same miracle: that God for reasons unfathomable, refrains from blowing our dancing bear act to smithereens. Week after week Christ washes the disciples’ dirty feet, handles their very toes, and repeats, It is all right–believe it or not–to be people.

 “Who can believe it?” (Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, 31-32.)

 Well, apparently the writer of Hebrews can believe it, that’s who. As you may remember, Hebrews is actually more like a sermon than a letter. And one prominent scholar argues that the sermon here “is not to disparage Judaism or the Old Testament. The preacher is not talking about the past, but is employing the Levitical priesthood as ‘a symbol of the present time.’ (9.9). The contrast, then, is not between the readers’ former Judaism and their present Christianity, but between two forms of Christianity . . . ”

(Thomas G. Long, “Bold in the Presence of God: Atonement in Hebrews,” Interpretation, Jan. 1998, 67.) So the preacher offers a vivid contrast between a Christian faith that is based on guilt before an oppressive, unsatisfied God, and the true Christian faith he lifts up. He proclaims, “And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God,’ and since then has been waiting ‘until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.’”

 Do we catch the utter difference between these two types of Christianity? The first type of Christianity reminds us of Sisyphus in Greek mythology. Remember, as a punishment he had to push a giant rock to the top of the steep hill only to have it roll all the way back down. So he had to start over again--over and over, for all eternity. In the first type of Christianity, again and again the people repent of sins, but God is never quite satisfied. Over and over, the people feel remorse, but God is not accepting. God is clear, but not kind. God is just, but not merciful. God is demanding, but not loving. And God’s people are tired, discouraged, and afraid.

But a second type of Christianity is what the preacher offers. He says Christ has given himself as a single sacrifice for our sins, a sacrifice not to be repeated but good for all time. Christ has given himself away for us, and now is seated at the right hand of God, in power and glory. “And since then,” says the preacher, Christ has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” “Enemies . . . made a footstool for his feet.” The preacher is borrowing from Psalm 110, and making an enemy a footstool means to “subject him to the other, so that the other can put a foot on the subject’s neck.” (Bauer, et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 847.) Wow! What do we do with this aggressive and triumphalistic language? We remember that the true enemies of Christ are ultimately not human beings. The true enemies of Christ are evil, suffering, and death. And these are the enemies Christ has defeated in death and resurrection. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have seen the certainty of Christ’s victory, but for now we live in “the already, but not yet.”

We live in a time when we see God’s will for human rights and freedom breaking forth around the globe. But we also live in a time when children are abducted and murdered, when eleven women in Cleveland are raped and murdered right under a community’s nose, finally awakened by the stench of death. The preacher says the war is over, but not everybody knows it. Evil is still at work until Christ’s work is completely accomplished. But even now the Holy Spirit is writing God’s will on our hearts. Even now God’s victory over evil is sure, and our sins, all our sins are forgiven. This is the happy promise the preacher proclaims.

Now, how do we live out that promise? The preacher says we approach God not in terror but in confidence. We come to God with the boldness of people who’ve been washed clean in baptism. We march into the sanctuary not as worry warts, but as part of God’s conquering force of love, with an unwavering hope, because God is faithful. That’s what we do.

And we do some provoking of each other too. As the preacher says, “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds . . .” The word provoke here means to rouse to activity, to stir up. Heck, it can even mean to irritate! Because of God’s unimaginable love in Christ, as a church we rouse, stir up, provoke, even irritate each other into love and good deeds.

On Wednesday night, First Presbyterian’s Faith and Practice Coordinating Team met. As you may know, this team not only coordinates much of the mission work of this church, but it also helps facilitate social justice and peacemaking as it works with our Social Justice Team and with our Environmental Justice Team. Well, two representatives of the Social Justice Team were at our meeting. They said they were bringing two items. I laughed and said, “Uh oh, here comes trouble.” Sure enough, their first item dealt with what constitutes a faithful response to health care. We had an excellent dialogue around the table as we considered the ramifications of what was proposed, and how we knew that not all of our brothers and sisters would agree. But I was impressed when one member of the group basically said, “You know, civil rights generated some controversy too. It’s not possible to fight for justice without some disagreement.” Then it was time to talk about the second item. I laughed and said, “You watch. It’s going to be something about sex.” And darned if it wasn’t a report about human sexuality and ordination standards in our denomination. As the preacher to the Hebrews advises, we are to provoke each other, stir each other up to love and good deeds.

But the preacher’s church has what seems to be a little problem that’s actually a big problem–a problem we sometimes face too. He says, “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of         some . . . ”

The preacher to the Hebrews is having a problem with church attendance. People are skipping worship. Can you imagine such a thing? One commentator notes, “. . . Christians are sometimes tempted to worship at ‘Her Mattress by the Springs.’ But how can we encourage one another and care for one another if we neglect our fellowship? How can we experience the full assurance of faith or the confidence of hope when the pews are empty on Sunday morning and the fellow saints are home in bed?” (Frances Taylor Gench, Hebrews and James in The Westminster Bible Companion Series, 39.)

 How indeed? We don’t know what’s keeping the preacher’s church away from worship. Maybe people are afraid of God, or discouraged, or lazy. Maybe worship has become a chore to them, instead of a joy. We don’t know what’s keeping them away from worship. We just know the preacher calls them back to worship, calls them back so that they might provoke each other to love and good deeds.

Maybe the preacher’s church has forgotten what really happens in worship. One theologian says, one view “. . . is that worship is something we do . . . We sit in the pew watching the minister ‘doing his [or her] thing’, exhorting us ‘to do our thing’, until we go home thinking we’ve done our duty for another week!” (James B. Torrance in The Forgotten Trinity: A Selection of Papers presented to the BCC Study Commission on Trinitarian Doctrine Today, 5.) How boring. What drudgery. A heavy burden placed squarely on our backs. Also, a false, heretical understanding of worship. But, says the theologian, “The second view of worship is that worship is rather the gift of participating through the Spirit in the (incarnate) Son’s communion with the Father–of participating, in union with Christ, in what he has done for us once and for all in his self-offering to the Father in his life and death on the Cross, and in what he is continuing to do for us in the presence of the Father, and in his mission from the Father to the world.” (Ibid. 6.)

 Worship is not merely something you do or the preacher does. Worship is actually our participation in the very being of God! Worship is our taking part in the Triune God, sharing in what God has done and is still doing in the world. Even though our worship is imperfect and messy, sometimes even laughable, nonetheless when we worship we are participating in God.

So bring on the unknown hymns, rascally acolytes, and banging pianos, because in worship God invites us to participate in God’s very self. And as a glad, privileged, faithful church we’ve got some provoking to do. Amen.