Perfect for us: A (maybe) Heresy

Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,
‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   or mortals, that you care for them?
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
   you have crowned them with glory and honour,
   subjecting all things under their feet.’
Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,
‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
   in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’

We’re done with the book of James (sadly! I had so much fun preaching on James)— today we begin to go through selected passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews. Similarly to James, Hebrews is classified as an epistle, or a letter, but is actually more of a sermon. James was attributed to James the brother of Jesus, but it is taken pretty much as fact at this point that the writer was an unknown Christian Jew. Hebrews is similarly attributed to Paul, but it was pretty definitively not written by Paul. And both these sermons were written to second generation Christians who were getting frustrated, impatient, and scared. Frustrated and impatient that the kingdom of God had not happened on earth, and scared because they were being constantly bullied and persecuted by the powerful—so both these sermons were written as encouragement to struggling Jesus-followers in a trying time.

But aside from these historical similarities, these two sermons could not be more different. James was very much focused on the earthly realm and what to avoid and what to fight against; he was wary of all of its temptations and sins and his ultimate goal in that sermon was the kind of effort it takes to live well in a world that makes being a good person near impossible. And ironically, despite being so grounded, James talks very little of Jesus, our savior, both human and divine. Hebrews, on the other hand, is other-worldly. It begins almost like a fairy tale— instead of “once upon a time,” it’s “Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors…”. It’s about cosmology—about God and angels and the heavens. But more than anything, it’s about Jesus, and our faith in him and the suffering and trials he went through. It’s about Jesus and his resurrection and in our belief that new life, that a new world is possible.

But there is one more thing James and Hebrews have in common— perfection.  James preached about how we humans could reach perfection—by listening to one another, by speaking truths only, by doing good works inspired by and because of our deep faith. But the author of Hebrews preaches about how Jesus became perfect.

But wasn’t Jesus already perfect? He’s Jesus, after all! Sure—this is one of those sacred paradoxes, one of those holy contradictions. Jesus, for us, becomes the perfect savoir for humankind because he experiences the human condition as we do. He experienced grief, pain, and suffering. He experienced joy and celebration and love. And this is why he is the perfect savoir. Chapter 2, verse 10: “It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all thigs exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” The pioneer—the ultimate, the first, the only God to come to our level and suffer all the joys and pains of the human condition and is made perfect through those sufferings.

When I preached on James, I talked about how that was an often maligned or at the very least disregarded text, because it was thought to contradict Paul’s belief of “salvation by faith alone,” of faith being the be-all-end-all; since, as we discussed James stated that faith without good works is dead. But this wasn’t actually a contradiction at all. It was simply that we do good works because of our faith, because that’s what our faith tells us to do.

James actually complements the theology of Paul by making it known that it’s that incredible faith that saves us that Paul writes of that inspires us to do those good works that will bring about the kingdom of God.

Hebrews complements James perfectly too, despite its immense differences. We can’t have an earth as it is in heaven without fixing the earth. So James is there to ground us, to encourage us (and sometimes almost scold us) into thinking before speaking, into caring for the poor and the oppressed. He’s there to get us to be hyper aware of the temptations and the sins of this world so that we can avoid them and support one another in avoiding them. Hebrews reminds us of what’s possible, and it tells us how it’s possible. Hebrews sings the praises of Jesus and focuses on the suffering he went through to become our perfect savior. Hebrews reminds us of what was, what is, what has happened, and therefore, what can be.

God has tried to communicate with us using the prophets of old—those who tell us unpopular truths we don’t want to hear; so we call them fear-mongerers, we call them crazy, we laugh at them, we throw them in jail; and so God sent us Jesus, a literal child of God, knowing the only way humanity and the perfection of God could truly be one was to combine them God-self. And so now that divine love can be truly felt because of the suffering Jesus experienced.

Growing up, I never liked the focus on the suffering of Jesus. My dad, a “recovering Catholic,” as they say, had such a visceral, negative reaction to the emphasis that Catholic church tended to put on the suffering, the blood and the core of the Passion and the crucifixion, and I was very much influenced by his antipathy towards that emphasis; and I get it, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think we need to necessarily focus on the gore and whatnot… but as my theology has evolved, I’ve really come around to this focus on Jesus’ suffering. But not just those final days—his whole, short life on this earth. He didn’t just suffer at his death. He suffered frustration by trying to speak truths to his sometimes willfully ignorant disciples. He suffered grief at the deaths of his friends like Lazarus; and with Lazarus he also suffered self-loathing, that he could not get there in time to save him before he died. He suffered fear and anxiety, knowing what awaited him, and also seeing his loved ones like John the Baptist imprisoned and put to death by the state. He suffered righteous anger when he saw the sacred temple being used to extort and take advantage of poor worshippers. And he suffered the joys of the human condition—community with his friends and followers. He celebrated weddings and used his holy powers to make good wine so they could continue celebrating into the night. He experienced the true love of family and friends. And I say he suffered the joys because he knew it would all end. He knew his time on this earth was finite. And don’t we all experience the existential sadness and longing, knowing that our time here on earth with our loved ones is finite?

Jesus suffered the human condition. And that’s what makes Jesus a perfect savior. God is perfect. But God wasn’t a perfect God for humankind until Jesus… until God experienced the human condition through Jesus. And maybe what I just preached here is a heresy. And if it is, I’ll own that. I’ll be a heretic.

Because it’s the humanity of Jesus, it’s his experience throughout his life, both joyful and terrifying, that allow me to never feel alone. It’s the fact that I know the God I pray to knows every pain I’ve ever felt, knows my deepest grief, my worst fear, my greatest joy in the same grounded and earthly way I have felt those griefs, fears, and joys— “For this reason, Jesus is not ashamed to call them (us) brothers and sisters…”. Our savior, our God, is not ashamed to be counted as one of us. That is the most incredible thing, to me, about our faith. Our savior is one of us.

I was talking to someone the other day about how there’s a piece of advice, or rather, some wisdom that works for me, that I would never say to anyone else—and it’s that the suffering we’ve been through is worth it, is part of God’s plan, shapes us into a better person. Now, this generally works for me because I’ve had the resources and the tools to make it through my own different griefs and traumas and get to the other side, and those sufferings, whatever horrible. Traumatic experiences I’ve had, have made me into a better person and a better pastor. Now, to be clear, I am not that better pastor or person while I am going through those traumas—but after I’ve processed, prayed, talked it through in therapy and made it to the other side, my empathy has been multiplied. But that’s me. I’ve been privileged to have had things like therapy and family support at my disposal during difficult times. Since our world is not a just one, not everyone is in such a place. Not everyone will be able to take their traumas and shape them into something positive.

And for those times when we’re deep in a hole of sadness we feel like we’ll never get out of; for those people who won’t have what they need on hand to get them out of that dark places, at the very, very least, we have the knowledge that Jesus knows our pain. We have the belief and the faith that we are we are not alone. That’s why Jesus “tasted death for everyone,” as the author of Hebrews writes. “…by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone,” is the full clause there. By the grace of God, Jesus tasted death. And so by the grace of God, we are free from being alone, no matter our lot in life. By the grace of God, we are saved from complete isolation, are saved from abandonment. By the grace of God, we are saved because Jesus wasn’t. And then he became the perfect God for humankind.

I feel like I’ve gotten a little more mystical, a little more out-there, a little more purely theological than I usually do for this sermon—but that’s fitting. The book of Hebrews is known to be one of the most sophisticated and deeply thought-out books of the Bible. It wants to teach us about how Jesus came to be. It wants to teach us what his life, death, and resurrection really means for humanity. It wants to share with us huge and mind-blowing truths in convincing and inspiring ways. But despite all its cosmology, all its sophisticated allusions to the Gospels and the Old Testament, all its poetry and rhythm, what it really wants to do is remind us that Jesus was one of us—that Jesus became one of us so God could become a perfect God for humankind.

So what do we do with this information? Well first of all, we use it in our darker hours, as I mentioned before. We understand that we are never alone in our suffering—or our joy!—because our own savior “tasted death,” our own savior suffered the human condition. It has always given me strength knowing that I’m never alone, no matter what I’m feeling. We can also take this information and work on perfection ourselves, if we can, when we have the strength. I’m going to mention the Catholics again— in their Eucharistic prayer, they ask “…that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

We must strive for the perfect world for which Christ lived and died and was resurrected. We are able to be one with our savior because he became one with us. And so we are never alone. This deep and thoughtful and other-worldly Christology that the author of Hebrews writes of perfectly complements the grounded, difficult work and effort that James writes of, that we’ve talked about in the previous weeks— the good works we must do to keep our faith alive.

And together—with the perfect combination of those good works, with the knowledge and the faith that Jesus is one of us lowly humans in every single way and we are never, ever alone—we will have the strength to bring about that earth as it is in heaven… and we will reach that humble perfection. Amen.