Two Teachers

Two Teachers

A Sermon for the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

By Griff Martin

Hebrews 5:1-10 and Mark 10:35-45

On October 21

Hebrews 5:1-10

Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him,

“You are my Son,

    today I have begotten you”;

as he says also in another place,

“You are a priest forever,

    according to the order of Melchizedek.”

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Sermon: 

Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of you presence here in this space and in these words God for if we are present to you then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present to you then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

It happened last Saturday afternoon. We had already held batting practice already and were now in the outfield practicing catching pop flys. It was sunny, because remember last weekend before we went straight to the dead of winter we had summer. And in the midst of that sunny place in the outfield, all of a sudden one of the other coaches threw a pop fly to Jude and the sun got in his eyes and everything went slow motion for me as Dad because I could see it happening…. He was looking up for the ball, the ball was blocked by the sun and it was coming down directly on his left eye…. And we all heard it when it hit and it was that moment like when you hit your finger with the hammer and you see it and you know the pain is about to start…. I went running to get Jude.

I pulled him into my arms to check and make sure he was good and he was trying so hard to hold it together but I could tell how much it hurt. And then he looked at me and said, “Dad here is our plan: you are going to kiss it, I am not going to cry… then I am going to go out there and catch the next one bc that is what we do right? We get back in line and try again and sometimes we drop it and sometimes it hits us and sometimes we catch it... oh and Dad I love you…”

And I kissed it and off he went. (So the opposite of me who would have used this as an opportunity to milk sympathy from all available parties).

And I started trying to figure out what just happened, because there was a lesson in this for me. Jude’s love of baseball is a mystery for me… I am not a big sports guy, I coach baseball because they needed a warm body to be assistant coach. The other coach figured this out the first day of practice when he asked me for the b’s of baseball and I looked at him real confused because I don’t know those b’s.

But Jude loves baseball. We watch the Astros with awe and reverence at our house. We play catch in the front yard and we have batting practice every afternoon. We collect baseball cards and hats. We travel to go to games… because Jude loves it. 

So the pop up to the face hurt, but it was worth it, because he loves the game. And that love of the game is really important to understand why taking a fly ball to the face is not the end of the world to my Jude. And I think there is something to that….It’s something I fear we often miss when we tell the story of Jesus Christ, the very center of our faith, the Gospel story. We only tell half the story.

I see it in the Creeds…. The Nicene Creed for instance “He suffered, was crucified under Pilate and buried…”  The 1963 Baptist Faith and Message: “He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin.” … We see it in our own belief statement as a church where we begin with the Crucified Christ…. We see it in this Hebrews passage today: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” 

When we tell the story of Jesus, we love to lead with the suffering servant. 

And I don’t know about you, but at this point and in these days, I am over suffering. You know what line in my recent sermons has resonated the most with the most people in the last few months, it’s when I talked about how hard life is right now and how difficult it is to be a human today. You all emailed me, you called me, and you texted me… I had spoken a truth for you and for me and it resonated because it is hard today and there is a lot of suffering. I don’t know many people who have not recently faced one of the big d’s… death, divorce, depression, disease, dysfunction or disappointment.

Broken hearts, broken dreams…. Horrible news story after horrible news story…. Tweet after tweet and Facebook post after facebook post…. Difficult days here where more seems broken than not….. We have reached the point where as a people when the New York Times puts out a major and well researched story about a catastrophic environmental event that will happen in 20 years if we don’t do something now, we read that and our thought- well at least mine- I don’t have the space for that today, because 20 years seems like a long time and many of us are doing life day by day.

And I have to be honest I read our lectionary passage for today, a incredible piece of rhetoric, we believe that Hebrews is one long sermon, a really good sermon… one of my favorite facts about this book is that many believe it was written by Priscilla making it even more exceptional. And yet this is a difficult text, but we must not forget that the whole thing made sense in it’s original context… in a world of high priest, temple, sacrifice, chief officials of the temple. These are things of their world, not ours. But if we can get past the images, it’s a people that we know because it seems to be a church community that is struggling with their faith and who are now questioning whether all this is worth it because it’s so hard to keep the faith.

We get to this point in the 5th chapter where the author of Hebrews is introducing them, well introducing us, to Jesus Christ (and maybe it’s a reintroduction) and the preacher is making this comparison to Christ as the High Priest, an image that resonated with it’s original audience and the big selling point of this Jesus is that he suffered. What connects Jesus Christ to the people is his sharing of their suffering.

And I have to be honest and tell you that there is part of me that thinks, “Well Jesus, welcome to the club.”  Suffering we get, suffering we understand. But that seems to be a pathetic and honestly very demoralizing way to end a sermon. 

So I sat with suffering, like Job in the middle of the heap of the mess (interesting aside this is the Old Testament lectionary pairing, which helps us to better understand this passage) So I asked suffering, what do you have to teach me? I asked. Why do we highlight you in the story of Jesus, yet run from you in our own lives? What does suffering reveal to us about Jesus? What does suffering reveal to us about our own call? 

Suffering was pretty quiet when confronted, like my new puppy Francis who is all energy and games and life until I catch her having an accident and then she freezes up like I might not see her. 

And then I realized this, suffering never comes alone. Suffering is one of two teachers who exist in our life, it’s part of the very heart of contemplative faith: suffering and love are our two great teachers in life, it’s how we learn everything, those two classes: suffering and love. (And just to warn you, they are 2 classes that rarely show up on our schedules when we want them to, they have minds of their own).

And if I think back on my life and the lessons that I have learned and the lessons that hold me up, that sustain me… they are the lessons I learned through one of those teachers, through love or suffering. 

And as much as we might not like it, they almost always go together. Because without love, suffering is really almost non-existent. The broken dream hurts because I loved the dream.  My heart hurts because I have allowed love in. The news story hurt because I feel some connection to fellow human beings on this planet, a connection of love. Death hurts because it’s separation from those we love. 

We don’t suffer without love and that probably means the opposite is true as well, we don’t love without suffering. 

It’s Bonnie and Clyde, Ross and Rachel, Jack and Dianne…. Love and suffering, to speak of one you have to speak of the other.

And this is why I think we are only telling half the story when we present Jesus as the suffering servant. I had some reservations about making this statement, about using the sermon to argue against Hebrews and really what is a major theme in Scripture, starting in Isaiah and going all the way to Revelation. And then I remembered that Jesus himself argues with this text and the Suffering Servant image.

Think about it. It’s the first verse most of us memorize: “For God so loved the world….”

And I don’t want to minimize the suffering of Jesus, I just think we need to remember why Jesus suffered. Jesus suffered because he loved. He loved first. Love was the essence. Love is what powers us through suffering. Love is what leads to suffering.

Jesus was willing to suffer because Jesus had spent time with those on the outskirts of society who had been told they were unclean and did not belong and he knew better and he loved them. Jesus suffered because he was the broken heart of being human. Jesus was willing to suffer because he had sat at the well with a woman whose pain was physical and he let her in and he loved her. Jesus was willing to suffer because he had powerful leaders coming to him in the dark of night to confess that they knew there had to be more and he loved them. Jesus was willing to suffer because he opened his heart so wide that he let the whole world inside it and knew he would do whatever it took to make us know his love. 

It’s the same story today…. Jesus suffered because he knew there were still going to be people on the margins and there was still going to be parts of us that felt unclean and we do not think belong and he knows better and loved us already. Jesus is suffering because again he knows the broken heart of humanity. Jesus is suffering because of the women who he is sitting with whose pain is so raw and he lets them in and love them. Jesus is sitting with the powerful people in this world who know there has to be more but are so scared to ask that because it might cost them all their power and he loves them. Jesus keeps openings his heart so wide even though it’s going to get hurt like hell. 

It’s not a chicken and egg argument here about which one comes first, one does come first. For God so loved the world first, not for God so suffered the world. Which means love must lead the dance, love must be in the drivers seat, love must be the top billing, love must come first.

Love first and then suffering, suffering only because of the love. Which means Jesus had to practice the toughest work of being human, vulnerability, letting go so that love could lead where love lead him, even when that hurt, even when that killed him.

And that is the Jesus that I need to hear about today… not the triumphant, victorious Jesus who was willing to suffer but somehow in that willingness to sacrifice and to surrender Jesus gets so far removed from the brokenness of us, from the truth of humanity. It’s why I did not go the typical route and use this text to talk about a proper atonement theology…. Because frankly that is boring to me today, it does not call me to life and if atonement is not a love story then it is nothing.

And today I need a love story. 

I need to hear about the Jesus who was so much like me, like us, who chose to love us and to let love in and that love caused him to then letting the suffering in. It’s the vulnerable Jesus who is willing to give up control and to embrace only love and suffering because he knows they will teach him all he needs to know and get him to the place he is meant to go.

Which means that Hebrews and the Creeds and so much of how we have been and how we are telling the story is getting it half wrong when we put the suffering Christ above the loving Jesus. We have to have both.

Because we are called to be both.

The author of Hebrews is trying to introduce Jesus to a people who need to be reminded of Jesus, who need to know Jesus. 

And maybe this morning that is what we need, a reminder of who Jesus is. 

But it does not stop there because our call is to become more like Jesus. Which means we have to also face the toughest call of being human: vulnerability, letting go so that love can lead where love will lead even when that hurts.

Because that just might be how we save the world, embracing suffering which means opening our hearts so wide that it hurts, just like Jesus did. 

It’s the words of the great contemplative teacher Richard Rohr: “Love, I believe, is the only way to initially and safely open the door of awareness and aliveness, and then suffering for that love keeps the door open and available for ever greater growth. We dare not refuse love or suffering or we close the door to life itself. By honoring God’s image in our own deep capacity to love, and then extending it to both the innocent and the non-innocent, we achieve the triumph of love.” 

It’s the words of Mother Teresa: “If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love.” 

That seems to be our call…. It’s how we find Jesus and how we share Jesus.

Here is what I know right now, we know suffering but we might have forgotten love. It’s time that we face the suffering by opening our hearts as wide as we can. It’s how we reintroduce ourselves to Jesus and how we tell others about Jesus. 

And it’s hard, scary and risky work. And yet it’s also true. 

We get back in line and try again and sometimes we drop it and sometimes it hits us and sometimes we catch it... oh and First Austin, Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you with a heart open as wide as humanely and divinely possible.

May the same be for us.

Amen and Amen.

*artwork: Falling in Love, by Gordon P. Junior, artwanted.com/Gordan