
For various reasons which I cannot explain here, I no longer preach in church. Like the other members of the congregation in my local parish, I sit in the pew and seek edification from the sermons that are presented. I make here no generalised comment about the sermons I hear, but I do confess to having one frequent distracting thought. This is perhaps to be expected in a retired preacher. The question I often have in my mind is this: If I had the responsibility for preaching today, which aspects of the readings would I wish to explore in a sermon?
These musings normally have a congregation of just one, so I thought it would be interesting to see whether my thoughts of today (November 7th) could be turned into a blog post. In other words, I offer today notes on a sermon that was in my mind, but which was not in fact preached.
In our church we used the three readings for the third Sunday before Advent. The first was the account of Jonah preaching to the enormous city of Nineveh, where, much to his chagrin, the people repented, making God’s destruction of the city unnecessary. The second was a passage from Hebrews 9 and the third was the account of Mark describing the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Here Jesus announces the nearness of the kingdom of God and the need for repentance.
I have always found the Epistle to the Hebrews a work full of fascinating insights. I once had to read and study it thoroughly as it was a set text at university. At the very beginning of these studies, I was greatly relieved to be released by all the commentaries from having to suppose that the epistle was written by Paul. My NEB version simply refers to it as ‘a letter to Hebrews’. The consensus is that the author is an anonymous writer, possibly from Alexandria, working in a distinctive Hellenised Jewish culture. Nothing in the actual text requires us to ascribe it to Paul himself.
Although a very early date is sometimes suggested for the epistle to Hebrews, theologically speaking the gospels always take precedence over the epistles. In Mark’s reading we have those intriguing words of Jesus: ‘the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe the good news’. Members of a congregation will have heard these words many times before, but the preacher needs to suggest that it is very easy for us to misinterpret or read our own meanings into these words. It is important to ponder what the kingship or rule of God might involve. The effort to interpret these words will necessitate some exercise of the imagination. As a place to start, I would suggest that the kingdom of God is quite simply that place where God’s rule or will is in operation. The important thing is that we think of the kingdom as an active reality, a power, a dynamic moving towards us in the words and actions of Jesus, seeking to claim our allegiance and attention. The act of receiving this movement of God towards us requires that we turn to face him. The 180 degree turn is what is implied in this much misunderstood word translated ‘repent’. The word is a translation of the Greek word ‘metanoeite’. This word implies much more than the English word repent suggests. There is this further meaning of openness and receptivity. In other words, Jesus is telling us to be open and alert to a new movement of God which his ministry is inaugurating. It is not only a movement located to a particular moment in time. God’s kingdom is to be a constant reality in our lives. This reality has come near and every time we close our eyes in prayer or worship we may encounter it. We should also increasingly learn to be sensitised to kingdom reality in our relationships, especially in those who need our help. The saying of Jesus which begins ‘Inasmuch as you did it to the least …..’ comes to mind, One visual illustration of this process would be to liken receiving the kingdom as being like getting into a river and allowing the water to rush right over our heads, so that we are thoroughly drenched with it.
The second part of the address would be an attempt to link the Hebrews passage to Mark’s account of the Kingdom. Probably, for time reasons, I could not do this in the course of a single sermon. But there is one central point in the Hebrews epistle which I believe needs to be grasped by members of a congregation. Most people trying to read this epistle are thoroughly defeated by the extensive typology of Jewish sacrifice with which the book is loaded. But there is one simple reality which the book is trying to share with us, even though the language it uses is often highly complex and convoluted. ‘ Jesus entered heaven’, Hebrews tells us, ‘now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf’. This one sentence sums the whole argument of the book in the space of a few words. What is it saying? It is saying that Jesus in his death and resurrection comes with us into God’s presence. The words ‘with us’ are key. Humanity, that of Jesus and of ourselves, is caught up in this movement towards God. Somehow God accepts us because we are in him. As the old communion hymn puts it, ‘look on us as found in him’.
To put this Hebrews message even more simply, I would remind my audience of an experience of going to see someone important when a child. The child is in awe of the powerful person, the new headmaster or some other exalted being whom they have not yet met. The situation is, however, rectified because someone elects to accompany the child as he/she enters the august presence. Metaphorically we hold the hands of our protector so that we can meet the important person with our head held high. Our weakness and nervousness caused by our extreme youth is counteracted by having the hand of our protector to hold. Something like this is being described in Hebrews. Jesus is the one who opens the door, holds our hand and stands alongside us as we come into the presence of God himself. In a small way this happens every time we pray or receive the sacrament. The promise of Hebrews is that this support or solidarity with us is a permanent reality so that we, with all who identify with Christ, can ultimately hope to be united with God in a dimension of light and glory beyond time and space.
The message of the sermon that was not preached last Sunday is that there are two distinct modes of encounter with God in Christ on the Christian journey. One is as we encounter him moving towards us in the divine mystery we describe as the Kingdom. The other is in and through the act of our identification with Christ in his ascent to heaven. Because we belong to him, identify with him, we can share his access to the Father. Both movements towards Christ by a Christian pilgrim are outside time. Because we think in literal terms, we might want to describe these encounters with God using the language of space – up and down. Such spatial ideas must never be taken too literally but the language of symbol can often help us to grasp divine realities.
This blog post is probably aimed more at the audience with which I started eight years ago in 2013 than the more recent readers. These early followers were the Christian survivors for whom faith had been made hard by authoritarian dogmatism or those who had been treated appallingly by their leaders in acts of abuse. Those who find my reflections helpful on this blog may value these attempts explain my way through the numerous stumbling blocks that Christianity is so good at erecting to confuse and discourage us. This would-be sermon is offered to any who need encouragement to see things a little more clearly along their Christian pilgrimage.