Sermon
I once heard an interview with Barbara Kingsolver in which she described what it was like to have the movie industry offer to make a movie based on her book The Bean Trees. In The Bean Trees, a baby who is later named Turtle is one of the main characters. The movie that was presented to Barbara Kingsolver had adapted the book so much, they had completely eliminated Turtle. In her interview Barbara Kingsolver said that would be like calling a movie based on Tom Sawyer, “That River Movie.”
Imagine Hollywood making a movie about the Bible and leaving out Jesus. I'm sure it would be an interesting movie, but it would also completely miss the point. Just like leaving Turtle out of a movie The Bean Trees. If you've read The Bean Trees, if you know the Bible the movie might leave you stymied. If you aren't aware of the original, the movie you are presented with might just be fine.
The audience for our scripture for today have read the book. When the author summarizes the events of the crossing of the Red Sea, he emphasizes the right people and scenes. The audience knows the rest. When the author summarizes the events of Jericho, unlike Hollywood who might have named that story The Wall Movie, he refreshes the memories of the audience with just enough crucial detail. My memory of listening to Mahalia Jackson singing “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho” as a kid is of a great song, great jazz, great voice, but not of enough details to know the point of the story, especially to a kid without knowledge of Hebrew bible stories. The faithfulness in God that led to the wall finally falling. The same happens in verse 31, with just enough lead in to the story of Rehab to remind the audience to bring that entire series of events to mind. Then, without even naming the events, the author goes on to list only the names of others who played a role in their own historic settings. Only the names, because the audience would remember the rest based only on their names. Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel. And finally, the author of Hebrews doesn't mention names or events, and only mentions categories of people – the prophets, others, they, and “all these” and the ways they were treated and died.
All of these snatches of huge events over generations and generations of time, caught in just a few words. The only reason those words made any sense is because the audience knew the stories in full. The mention of the Red Sea, Jericho and Rahab are mentioned as examples of times when faith led to great victory and good outcomes. But as the author lists more and more names and examples of the lives of people of faith, it starts to sound more and more frightening. What are we to do with these diverse stories?
All of these people and situations, heroes or nameless, miraculous or tragic endings, were witnesses to a life of faith. These witnesses were not just observers. They were more like action figures. Our biblical stories of enduring faith are filled with glorious endings – depicting greatness and glory for people of God. Other biblical stories tell of tragedies and suffering – depicting a life of suffering for followers of God. You can see how if one only focuses on a part of scripture, you can make a case for the idea that if you follow God you will have a perfect life. In the same way, if you only focus on the suffering of some followers, one can make a case for the idea that it requires great suffering to be a true follower of God.
We know that people of all stripes both suffer and do well. The author of Hebrews is not making a call to martyrdom. He is making a call to endurance. The audience of the time was made up of people who were very discouraged and demoralized. They were wanderers (one original meaning of the word Hebrews). Feeling lost or disconnected from God does not mean we have been abandoned by God. The scripture today reminds them and us first of all, to remember; and in that realize that they are not alone and that God has worked through many different circumstances – for the long haul. The more time we spend engaged in our lives, the more examples we can build up in our memories. Examples of times when God was there for us. Examples of times when we thought God was not with us but we were wrong. More time should give us a larger sample size.
Our memories are crucial to our faith. While life does not always repeat itself exactly, our memories are how our brains help us to solve and consider current problems.1 Science has shown that whenever we run into a problem our brains go back through memories for similar circumstances, facts, feelings and use them to see if they apply to our current situation. This happens in a nanosecond and happens multiple times. This is helpful in general as we consider what it would be like to have to relearn to walk or turn a page or open a door every time we needed to walk or read or pass through a door. On a larger scale we learn to trust in this same way. We would be leery of repeating discomfort or harm if we ran into a situation just like one that had hurt us in the past. On the other hand, I know that I learned to like birthday parties because I got to eat cake. It's a conditioned response. What we're talking about is much more complicated although along the same lines.
The way our memories drive our lives speaks to the importance of stories, liturgies, patterns of worship. Every person has their own story or narrative. Most of us are connected to a community called family, or called friends, or coworkers or outliers, etc. Hebrews was written to people of a community that share ancestors and those ancestral stories. Reminding them of the faithfulness of those ancestors was a way to invoke that superpower that our brain has, and cause the listeners to bring all of those different examples to mind. The author didn't mention the qualities of the people in the stories, he praised the faith of the people in the stories.
All of our spiritual ancestors held fast to a faith that told them that God has always been present and working in the lives of the people. When we have faith we trust the next moments just a little more. We trust the next week, the next month, next year. We trust that the future will be better than we think because God has something even better in store. We trust that fact because we remember the past.
We have been grazing through the gospel of Luke for the last few weeks, and today we take a little detour through Hebrews. The gospel of Luke has been providing snapshots of ways to be a good disciple: from themes of hospitality with Mary and Martha, themes of generosity from the man who interrupted Jesus with hopes of arbitration in his family inheritance saga and we asked ourselves what it meant to be generous with God, and finally last week, we talked about God's generosity towards us and how God's greatest desire is for our well being. We talked about trying to let go of whatever had a grip on us and prevented us from trusting God's generosity. And today our detour to Hebrews is a message to the whole community. WE can do things because God has done things for US in the past. WE worship with liturgy and prayers and common words and a common meal because repetition in our liturgy and our rituals cements the memories of those things that our faith tells us. This scripture encourages us to continue to engage in worship, in prayer, in fellowship, in play, in spiritual growth as a community. A community is not only a group of individuals together. Here at Bethany, we don't share the same age, the same gender, the same health conditions, the same individual histories, the same athletic abilities, and I don't even know if we all like root beer! A community's strength is in what it does share. It shares identity through the part of our history where we overlap, here in this building, or within the Christian faith, a shared commitment, a shared way of viewing the world, a shared love.
If we were to write this scripture for ourselves, who and what circumstances might we list from our own family ancestors that remind us of enduring faith? What might we write to include ancestors or situations that were not able to reach their perfect completion? When you struggle now, what to you remember about the faithfulness of others that helps you to stay connected to your faith? Not everyone has faith ancestors, and certainly we can only go back so far. God though, goes back forever. Stories of God's faithfulness and of individual and community faithfulness go back forever. I especially invite those without any history of any kind of recognized God presence, to start paying attention now. Even in your mind now, say to yourself, “God, are you here?”
If you wonder if God is with you, just ask. Every now and then. And then more often, and keep asking. That itself is faithfulness. I only started to recognize God in my own history many years after the fact. Some people never do – that's not judgment. Not recognizing God in ones' life is not a shortcoming of the person looking. Often things need to be removed from blocking our sight, weighing so heavily on us, darkening our hearts. Nevertheless, God is there. Keep the faith. Run the race. There will be darkness, there will be doubt, there will be discouragement. But God has good in store for us, even better than we can imagine.
Amen.
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