Hebrews 10

Summary of vs 1-10

The law is only a shadow of the good to come—not the realities themselves. 

Sacrifices are done according to the law. 

                If the law is imperfect then so are the sacrifices.

                If they were perfect, they would not have needed to be repeated time and time again.

Christ clarifies that burnt offerings and sin sacrifices were not what God desired.  Instead God wanted us to be in right relationship and so God sent Jesus, the one who came to do God’s will.

And through him, we are made holy once and for all.

When we look at the practices of sacrifices, we see the priests offering them repeatedly, right? But when Jesus does it—he only does it once and then takes his place at the right hand of God.   At other times we have talked about how Jesus was both the sacrifice, the lamb, the offering that was made, and the priest—the one who offered the sacrifice on behalf of the people.  Jesus was both the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice, so what he did had no flaws, no short comings, what he did was perfect.

                Through Christ’s sacrifice, we are sanctified.  When we accept Christ, when we allow ourselves to be sanctified by his perfect sacrifice, we are made new.  The divine laws are written on our hearts and in our minds and our sins are not only forgiven, they are forgotten.

                What God does perfectly in Christ is sufficient for all of us for all time.

(trans)

                The author of Hebrews goes on to say this:  because we have been purified by the perfect sacrifice and we have Jesus as our intermediary, let’s draw close to God with a true heart and full assurance of faith.  We go cleansed and free. So let’s go forth with hope. And let’s make sure we encourage one another in this journey.  We need one another.  We need to see each other, hear our stories, our triumphs and our victories.  We need to be fortified in fellowship and encourage one another as we get closer and closer to God.  

                Ok. So what?  

                Well, I think a lot of times, we come to the table of holy communion as if this were an old school sacricice.  I mean, we talk about the sacrifice of Jesus,but we treat it like a goat or lamb sacricice.  We accept only partial forgiveness.  We release only a small parat of our misdeeds and assume the “big” stuff won’t or can’t be forgiven.  

                What a loss for us. Christ came because he saw that our sacrifices were imperfect and he knew that we could be fully forgiven and fully reconciled with God and with one another.  So he came, offered his own body and made the perfect sacrifice.  And then we waste it.  We, by failing to claim all of what God has offered, we disrespect and disregard what has been given to us.

                God wants you to have full forgiveness. God wants you to have full freedom.  So why not receive that gift?  Today is the day to lay it all before God, all of your sins, all of your misgivings, and to be forgiven, 100%, not in part, but in full.  

                Will you receive that gift?  

                Before we enter into communion, we are going to take a few minutes of silence to confess what’s on our hearts and to ask god to give us the courage to fully receive the grace which is offered to us.

                Let us pray…

The Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37

This scripture is an oldie but a goodie. Even folks not raised in the church know the gist of this story.  We even have a “Samaritan law” that protects a Good Samaritan citizen who tries to help someone in need.  We know the general storyline, but do we know the specifics?  Let’s look closely just to be sure.

                The story is not just a story in itself, it’s an answer to a question: Who is my neighbor?  An expert in Hebrew law is talking with Jesus and wants to know how he can inherit eternal life?  When Jesus asks him what the law says, he cites 2 Hebrew scriptures:

1)      Deuteronomy 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.

2)     And Leviticus 19:18: “Love your neighbor as yourself”

Jesus validated the man’s answer and then the man inquires “Who is my neighbor?  To which Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan. So, let’s see how well you remember and how closely you were listening:

·         A man was traveling from where to where?  (Jerusalem to Jericho)

·         And what happened to him? (He was attacked by a band of robbers—stripped, beaten, and left for dead)

·         How many people came upon him on the road? (3)

·         Who was the first? (a priest)

·         What did he do? (walked around)

·         à why do you think the priest left him?  Maybe he had work to do. Maybe he was keeping cleanliness laws and didn’t want to defile himself, thus preventing him from fulfilling his priestly responsibilities.  Maybe he was in a rush.  Whatever the reason, he didn’t stop, he just kept on walking.

·         Who was the second? (a Levite)

·         What’s a Levite? (an assistant to the priest)

·         What did he do? (He walked around)

·         à we don’t know the specifics of why here either, but maybe it was for similar reasons? 

·         Who was the 3^rd? (a Samaritan)

·         Who were the Samaritans? (enemies of the jews—We know from a different story in the gospels that the disciples wanted to walk around Samaria entirely so they wouldn’t have to deal with the Samaritans—that’s how bad their relationship was)

·         What did the Samaritan do?  (cleaned and bandaged him, gave him a ride on his donkey, cared for him at the inn, paid for him to stay, asked the inn keeper to take care of him, and came back to pay the rest of the bill)

The Samaritans response was thorough and profound. He could have stopped after cleaning and bandaging the man’s wounds but he didn’t; and he could have stopped after taking him to town, but he didn’t stop there either. Instead, he did EVERYTHING he can. 

·         He gave him a place to stay

·         He cared for him

·         He paid his way

·         And he came back to insure that everything was ok.

This Samaritan is amazing and he’s the one Jesus defines as neighbor. 

So we’ve heard this story, we’ve proven we know this story, it’s a done deal right?  We’ve heard the story so many times, we could tell it ourselves? So why do we need to hear it again?  Probably because no matter how well we know the story, we don’t always live the story.  Like the priest, we often get caught up in our work and in our responsibilities that we have tunnel vision. We are so focused on the end goal of our day—whatever accomplishment that may be --that we fail to see the real needs of those around us. We don’t see that they are hungry, that they need a ride to work, a shoulder to cry on, help with their immigration documents, a hot shower, or a true friend. 

Or worse yet, maybe we do see, but we just don’t care.  Or maybe all we are focused on is the title that describes them—not a Samaritan for us, but instead:

·         A drunk

·         A jerk

·         An illegal alien

·         A lesbian woman

·         A prostitute

·         A homeless man

·         A tagger

·         A democrat

·         A republican

·         A gang banger

·         A drug dealer

·         A pot smoker

·         A liberal

·         A conservative

We become so fixated on what we think we know about someone that we fail to see who that person really is. Because they most certainly are not a title.  Instead, they’re a person with a story to tell. A person with hopes and fears, with aspirations and failures. And our job is to treat them as neighbor. Not the kind of neighbor you wave at as you pass by, but instead the kind you know by name. the kind you pray for. The kind you check in on, the kind of neighbor you get to know so you can stop assuming and start living as Christ tells us we should in order to inherit eternal life.

Now, of course, this is easier said than done.  Jesus doesn’t ask us to do what is easy, he asks us to do what is right.  Loving our enemy, not just briefly and from a distance, but passionately with everything we have, is often impossibly hard.  But as hard as it may be, it’s still what we are called to do.  Not only is it hard to go above and beyond for those we don’t know well, but it’s harder still to go above and beyond for those we fear, those we look down upon, those we hate.  And worse yet, it’s not popular.  You could bet good money that the Samaritan’s friends did not look highly upon his choice to help the Jewish man.  I’m sure they ridiculed him and gave him guff. I’m sure they reminded him of all the bad blood and past incidents that had taken place between the Jews and the Samaritans.  But he didn’t care. He did it anyway.  He even went back to pay the bill. He didn’t leave the man high and dry stuck with a bill at the inn he couldn’t pay.  He cared for him, from beginning to end, no matter the costs. 

 I’d venture, we normally like the idea of the Good Samaritan.  We want to be the Samaritan, the one who does good, the one who sees someone in need and helps.  But often, I think our view of the Samaritan is superficial. I don’t think many of us, myself included, think about how much is truly involved in being a neighbor as the Samaritan was. I enjoy helping people, it’s my life’s work, but I definitely pause when something is going to take “too much time” or take me away from another commitment.  I’m not always ready to drop everything to help to the fullest extent.  It takes time. It takes energy. It takes money. But it’s what I’m called to do. And somehow I don’t think I’m the only one who is reluctant. 

Are you reluctant?  Have you been hung up on what you think you know that you are unwilling to do the real work of being a neighbor and helping to meet all their needs? 

Have you walked past a homeless man, assuming he’s only a drunk or a vagrant who is on the street only because he won’t get up and do for himself? Who doesn’t have a job because he won’t look for one?  Who doesn’t have a home because he squandered his money?  Have you made these assumptions and walked away?  Or have you stopped to hear his story? Have you insured he had a place to stay and food on his plate? Have you tried to help him find work? Not just referred him to some store down the street that is hiring, but helped him fill out a job application or prepare for an interview? 

Have you walked past a Spanish speaking neighbor assuming they are here illegally?  Have you imagined them swimming through a river to cross the border or hoping a fence in the middle of the night?  Have you made these assumptions and walked on by?  Or have you listened to her story? Have you learned the names of her family members?  Have you helped her get the help she needs?  Or did you just assume? 

We hate to be implicated. We hate being confronted with our choices. We have the freedom to do what we want and we want to feel justified in those decisions.  We don’t want to be challenged.  I don’t, and I’m sure you don’t either.  But Jesus doesn’t really care about those desires. Jesus cares about how we act and what we do. And he cares, not just when we do what is easy.  He cares, more than anything, what we do when it is hard and undesirable.  

1 Corinthians 11: 23-34

 

In each of his letters, Paul is addressing a specific community; in this one it is the church in Corinth, there is also the church in Colossus, the one in Ephesus, the one in Thessalonica, and others.  The letters are responsive to an issue, or various issues, within that specific church.  The problem is we don’t get the information or letter he received from the community, we only have his response to what was shared.  So, in order to understand Paul’s letter, we can’t read it straight off the page as strict directions to us, it wasn’t addressed directly to us. Instead, we have to understand the context it was written for. In this case, we need to learn a little about the church in Corinth. 

The church in Corinth is divided…we see they struggle with division on various issues throughout the 2 letters.  What we know here is that in Greece,

·         people were divided by class and social status.

·         People were treated differently based on their status

o   We have flickers of that now, but social status isn’t always obvious to us.  So if someone isn’t in a known role, we may have no concept of what their economic status is.

·         But in Greece, status was known, it had to be known, because it dictated social etiquette. 

·         That was Greek culture and it filtered down into Christian culture and became apparent even during communion.

·         Those distinctions would have been held at meal times too—that’s what we see here.

o   Upper class people would have been fed more food and wine and better quality food.

o   Lower class people would have been offered less food and lower quality food.

o   This became so profound in the Corinthian church that as Paul says here—some left drunk and others left hungry. The rich were encouraged to feast and gorge themselves, to the point of being drunk, where the poor were offered so little that they left hungry. 

o   That was a gross distinction.

·         Now, Paul couldn’t change all of Greek culture, but he could change what the church was doing.  Just because the culture created a distinction did not mean the church had to uphold it.

And while eating at home to not embarrass others during communion is hardly our issue when we take but a morsel of bread, treating each other with love and equality and without social distinction is still very relevant for us.          Now, that’s just part of the caution to us when we take communion--to remember that as children of God we are equal—that regardless of the distinctions our world makes between us, God does not make those same distinctions.

The other part of Paul’s caution deals with self-examination—part of that is related to the first issue in that no one should believe him or herself higher than another and if we do we need to do some serious self examination before we take communion.  We should take communion and be humbled by what Christ has done, not haughty and proud of our own accomplishments.

The second part of the caution deals with acknowledging what communion actually signifies. We don’t have to understand it fully—I’m not even sure we can understand all of it—in many ways parts of communion will forever be a mystery, but we do need to acknowledge that this isn’t just bread and juice—it is something set apart, something sacred. And it’s sacred because of Christ and his sacrifice and suffering.

Taking communion should give us pause, we should take time to think about and reflect on what it really means.  Now, we shouldn’t be overly cautious… not in the sense of not taking because we are afraid to screw it up.  Afterall, this is a gift offered to us as sinners…we won’t ever be perfect before we take communion. It is communion that perfects us.