A Tale of Two Mountains (Hebrews 12:18-29)

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 8/25/13

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only” This is the famous opening lines from the classic novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. And quite frankly it is one of my favorite books of all time, which I’m sure many of my friends and family are tired of hearing about. The book contrasts the successful times in London with the uprising happening just across the pond in Paris.  This opening line seems to capture the contrast so perfectly, it was the best of times it was the worst of times.  Our passage from Hebrews today also works upon a contrast and comparison, but this is not a tale of two cities, this is a tale of two mountains; Mount Horeb and Mount Zion. One big difference should be pointed out here; the comparison of Mount Horeb and Mount Zion is not a best of times, worst of times scenario, it is instead a good times, better times situation.

            With that being said, let’s jump right into our text for today and see how this comparison takes place. The author of Hebrews begins by talking about the Israelites and how they had experienced the presence of God.  As we have noticed throughout our study of Hebrews, the author likes to use Biblical examples in poetic ways in order to make his point, and once again the author does that here. He says, “You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.”  The early readers of Hebrews who were well versed in Biblical stories, would have automatically equated these types of descriptions with stories of encounters with God. There is a fire in the burning bush with Moses as well as fire on the side of the mountain with Elijah as well as a tempest for him as well.  Darkness and gloom categorize many of the prophet’s call stories from Ezekiel to Isaiah. More importantly, most of these descriptions also retell the Israelites encounter with God at Mount Horeb. That is why the passage continues by saying, “(For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death."  Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear.")  

            Now the importance of the Israelites encounter of God at Mount Horeb is often missed by Christians today.  We tend to view it as a great story, with awesome events; portrayed by Charlton Heston.  This encounter for God for the Israelites is more than just a great story, this encounter is crucial to their faith.  Prior to Moses God has made a covenant to Abraham of land and descendants. Many of these descendants ended up as slaves in Egypt and so God tells Moses that he will be faithful to his covenant and tells him, “You will be my people and I will be your God.”  After escaping Egypt and wandering in the wilderness, many began to wonder how does this covenant work?  How are we to be God’s people, and how God our God?  And so we come to this critical juncture in the story, where Moses goes up the mountain and receives the law from God. Once again, we often misunderstand the importance of the law for the Israelites. This law was the answer to their question. These laws where the way in which they were to be in covenant with God. These laws showed the Israelites God’s desire for them, and it helped them to live faithfully to will of God.  It was in this experience, this encounter with God that many began to understand and live out the covenant that God made with his people.

            And so the author of Hebrews comes back to this crucial event to make an important point. He points out that in this most pivotal of events, God seemed to be something and someone who was far off and distant, something that could not be touched.  He points out all of the frightful ways in which God was revealed: fire, darkness, gloom, tempest, trumpets. He points out that if an animal touched the Mountain they would die. He points out that Moses himself even trembled with fear as he approached the mountain.  The author of Hebrews points out here that the typical experience of God was that God was unapproachable, that God was untouchable.

            The author shifts quickly from this description of God at Mount Horeb and talks about God in a new way saying, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,  and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.  The author now talks about the Mountain of Zion, the city of God.  A mountain in which we are able to gather with the angels in a feast. This is no longer like the separation, the distance, the gloom like we experienced at Mount Horeb; this is a feast, in the presence of God!

            So how did this happen? How did we get from an unapproachable mountain full of fear and trembling, and arrive at a mountain of joy and festivities?  The answer is Jesus, of course. “and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”  Once again a comparison and contrast is being made here, between the blood that Jesus offered and the blood that Abel offered. Now when we here blood and Abel, our first instinct is probably to think about the death of Abel and the spilling of his blood at the hands of Cain; but this is not what Hebrews is talking about here. Instead Hebrews is most likely referring to the offering that the two brothers brought before the Lord. Cain brought fruit, but Abel brought fat portions from the firstborn of his flock, which caused the Lord to look upon Abel with favor. Therefore the blood talked about here in Hebrews is the blood of a sacrificed animal.  Once again it is important to understand the importance of this sacrifice.  Ever since this event, the sacrifice had become a central aspect of worship, especially worship in the Temple once it was constructed.  It was expected that a sacrifice would be brought before the Lord in the Temple. When it was brought forth it would be taken by the priest behind the curtain and offered to God.  Only priests and Levites were allowed behind the curtain, because it was seen as the holy place in which God dwelt.  Once again Hebrews is using this imagery to show the distance that seemed to exist between God and the Israelites.

            However the sacrifice of animals is compared and contrasted here with Jesus. Whereas the blood of Abel was actually the blood of an animal sacrificed to God, The blood of Jesus was in fact his own blood; it was his own sacrifice.  This sacrifice was not hidden behind the curtain, but instead Jesus was raised up on Calvary for all to see.  Jesus broke the seeming distance between us and God. Jesus after all is God incarnate; Jesus after all is Emmanuel, God with us.  Jesus is the great priest that intercedes for us. We no longer need to bring sacrifices to the Temple, because Jesus ‘sacrifice covers us all. Jesus metaphorically brings God out of the Temple, brings God off of the mountain, and makes God obtainable and present. And with his ascension we are given the Holy Spirit to be with us and to lead us. This is how we are able to look towards the mountain of Zion with hope, because of the sacrifice and presence of Christ, of God with us.

            And so the author of Hebrews goes on to talk about what is shaken and what is not, saying, “At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven." This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of what is shaken--that is, created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain. The author is reminding us that at Mount Horeb, when God spoke, the earth trembled; the people trembled for fear. The author however is also using the term shakable to talk about those things are finite. And so he talks about how once again all will be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain. In other words the finite will be separated from the infinite, the everlasting.  It kind of reminds me of a device I got to use in my college biology course called the centrifuge. The centrifuge helps you to talk a mixed compound and separate the mixture into a more basic form. How does it work? Well through shaking, or spinning to be more accurate. You pour the compound into little tubes, put the tubes into the centrifuge and turn it on. The centrifuge starts to spin and the lighter part of the compound falls to the outside; kind like on some of the carnival rides, while the heaver substance is then separated and falls into the middle where it can be collected.  This shaking that we talk about in Hebrews is a lot like the centrifuge, where that which is finite, meaning that which is not everlasting, is pulled away, extracted, so that all that remains in infinite, is everlasting. But why is this important? Why does it matter that the infinite is separated from the finite?  Is this a message of doom and gloom intended to scare us into believing? No.  In fact it is quite the opposite, this is a message of hope.  This is a message that we are able to sit in the company of God.  Just follow the whole passage and you can see that this is what they are building up to.  That at one time on Mount Horeb God seemed so distant and so fearful, but that at Mount Zion we are in God’s company with joy. That in the beginning an offering of sacrifice in the Temple was the way to interact with God, that the Law given to Moses and the Israelites were the way to be in covenant with God, but that now there is a new covenant through the blood of Christ, Through God who became flesh and died and rose again for our sins.  It is a message of hope that in a world that can often confuse and hinder us from truly seeing God, there will be a time where that will be no longer a hindrance and that all that is eternal remains. It truly is a message of hope, for that beautiful Kingdom of God.

            And so the question remains how do  we act now. What do we now that we have hope in this kingdom?  What do we do now that we have Jesus Christ who is our great priest? How should we act? Well, Hebrews gives us the answer and it may not be what you are expecting. For while this whole time Hebrews has been contrasting the difference between Mount Horeb and Mount Zion, it has never said that they were wrong in how they acted towards God. Hebrews tells us that, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.”  We should respond in reverence. We shall remember that the God that is so close to us is still God Almighty. That we should gather in praise for what God has done for us. That we should gather with hope for what is in store, but that we should always remember that God is God. And so we worship God not to get something out of it for ourselves, but we bring ourselves as a living sacrifice before God.  We go forth from worship and serve, and gather again to praise God’s glorious name. When we do this, when we listen to the Tale of two mountains and take it to heart, then maybe we won’t be saying it was the best of times it was the worst of times, instead we may lift up praise like in the end of Dickens’classic book saying, “

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Breakfast With Nana (Hebrews 11:29-12:2)

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 8/18/13

 

 

If you remember last week when we looked at the book of Hebrews we talked all about faith. We talked about how faith and hope so forever tied together, and that our hope lied in the fact that the Kingdom of God was brought forth by Christ and yet not here in its completion. We talked about how this gives us a hope of a transformed world even in the midst of the brokenness we see around us, and we found that this hope gives us faith to live by each day.  We found that this chapter of Hebrews liked to use Biblical examples of people living by faith, and in particular last week we talked about the faith of Abraham and his descendants.  Today we pick up in the same chapter, and once again the author is using Biblical examples of faith. The reason for this however has seemed to change.  Last week we saw that the author used Abraham in particular to teach us about faith and about hope. Now in this part of the chapter the author is no longer focusing on one person, but is giving a long list of those who have lived by faith, from The Israelites in the wilderness, to Rahab, to David, and yes Daniel. This list seems to indicate a switch from explain what faith is, to showing how faith has been faithfully lived out. Hebrews is giving us a long list of saints for us to admire, to learn from, and to emulate their faithfulness.

            When we start to talk about saints in today’s church it becomes hard for us to relate to them. We usually picture saints as those old men and women who are now etched in stone on the side of cathedrals. At Duke Chapel for example as you enter into the massive doors leading into the chapel, stone figures of John Wesley, Francis Asbury, George Whitfield, and Martin Luther surround and watch you as you enter. If we aren’t thinking saints of the past such as these we start thinking about modern day saints such as Mother Teresa. And as is the case in today’s passage we also think of the Biblical saints, Abraham, David, Moses and so on. All of this usually leaves us feeling small and inadequate. We either beat ourselves up for never being as good as those saints, or we say, “They were special, I don’t need to learn from them.” And yet, here in Hebrews we find that we are supposed to learn from the faith of these saints.

            That is the good news however; we aren’t supposed to follow the actions of these great saints, we are supposed to follow their faith. As we discovered during the sermon series we did a month ago and as we are still discovering in our Bible study, all of us are called to live and serve God in our own unique way.  We all have different spiritual gifts, talents, experiences that shape how we live out our faith. Not all are called to lead an enslaved people into the wilderness. Not all are called to house spies that will eventually lead to the destruction of your hometown. Not all are called to imprisoned in a den of lions, and not all are called to be King. When we think about what each of these saints did, we realize that they were all called for very different and unique circumstances, ones that I doubt many of us will be called to do. We are therefore not supposed to simply emulate the actions of these saints, but instead we learn from the faith that leads them. How did Moses faithfully stand up to injustice? How did Rahab faithfully use what means she had to house and support other’s missions. How did Daniel remain faithful in the midst of trials and fear? How did David faithfully discern the will of God?  When we look to the saints these are the questions that we should be asking. These are the questions that will help us in our own calls.

            And still, it becomes easy to answer these questions by saying, “they were able to do all of these things because they were great people, special people, unlike us.” Yet many of these great saints also had great flaws. We celebrate David as the great King of Israel but he committed adultery and used his power as King to have Bathsheba’s husband killed in war. We lift up Rahab as one of the main reasons why the Israelites were able to take Jericho, but Rahab was a prostitute. We lift up Moses for leading the Israelites out of Egypt, but Moses himself was a murder. To add to this, Hebrews all mentions the faith of the Egyptians as whole group, not singling out one “special” person but lifting up the faith of the whole people. If that wasn’t enough he talks about those special people who died for their faith, but the author doesn’t even name any of them. All of this tells us that learning from the saints is trying to just emulate them; because as we have seen many of the saints we revere we just as flawed as us, and that there are just as many saints who have lived in faith who we do not even know. What we do learn from them is how to live faithfully.

            Here lies one of the most crucial elements of this whole chapter. Why is it important for us to learn this faith from the saints who have gone before us? Do we learn faith for our own personal benefit, for our own welfare?  The answer here is no.  As we talked about last week, our faith is rooted in the hope in the Kingdom of God.  If we learned our faith from these saints simply for our own benefit we would be greatly disappointed. Sure, some of these saints that were listed received great success. The ones that come to the top of the mind are once again the Egyptians and their freedom,  David and his rise to King, and Daniel and his safety in the lion’s den.  For as many success stories Hebrews lists, it also however lists just as many hardships and trials. “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented- of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.”  And Hebrews reminds us that both who found success on Earth as well as those who found hardship and trials, “all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised,” If we follow the faith of our fathers and mothers, the faith of the saints, for our own personal benefit, then we have to be prepared for the fact that is quite possible, even likely that we will not receive what we are looking for.

            Why then do we lead lives of faith like those saints before us?  It is because we are called to work together with the saints in working towards the Kingdom of God. Just as the saints faithfully followed the will of God; bringing some great success and others hardship, we too are called to faithfully follow God’s will. As Hebrews puts it, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,”  The author of Hebrews compares it to a race. A race in which requires training; by laying aside those things that hold us back and slow us down from running the race. A race that also requires perseverance, which is why it is so critical to have the faith of the saints. Learning from them seeing how to persevere in our success as well as in our failure. It is not a race not is not unique to us; it is a race that has been run by so many before us, and most likely will be run by many after us.  It is a race in which we run, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”  What makes the race even sweeter is that we are surrounded so great a cloud of witness. It is not just that others have gone before us, but those that have run the race are still with us.

            We may wonder how this is possible, are we talking about ghosts or spirits that surround us? I would have to say no, that is not what we are talking about, what we are talking about is presence.  So what do I mean by that? First and foremost I must start this discussion by saying that there is an element of mystery to the cloud of witnesses, and I think that may be a good thing. Too often in our society we have to have all the answers or it just doesn’t make sense to us; but by embracing the mystery we acknowledging that we are not the sources of all knowledge and that things exist that are beyond our realm of understanding.  With that being said, there are ways to help us understand how the cloud of witnesses are present with us.  One of the actions within the church in which we celebrate this the most is during Holy Communion. During communion we not only celebrate our communion with Christ, and we not only celebrate our communion with each other, we also celebrate our communion with all the saints, both living around the world as well as those who have passed away. Through the sacrament of Holy Communion we are bound together through the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, and we are able to get a glimpse of the heavenly banquet laid before us when Christ returns in final victory.  It is an amazing union of believers from all places, and yes even from all times.

            Still the question may be, how is this possible?  Well, there is a Cheerios commercial that has been on T.V. recently and someone online, (and I wish I remembered who it was so that I could give them proper credit), but someone pointed out how the commercial is a lot like our understanding of the communion of saints.  The  commercial starts off with a mother and son eating breakfast together.  The boy looks at his mom and says, “Mom, did Nana ever give you cheerios when you were a little kid.” The mother nods and says, yeah she did. The boy continues his questioning by asking,  “Were Cheerios the same back then?”  The mother replies,  “Cheerios has pretty much been the same forever. “ Here the boy makes such a profound statement that catches the mother off guard and brings a tear to her eyes.  He says, “So, when we have cheerios it is like we are having breakfast with Nana.” Breakfast with Nana.  In a way that is what communion is like.  Though it may be celebrated in different ways, the essence of Communion really has not changed since Christ himself.  For two thousand years people have come to the table to be in communion with Christ and with each other. When we come to the table it may not be breakfast with Nana, but it is communion with the saints.

            And yet Hebrews reminds us that we are surrounds by that cloud of witnesses. That everything we do through Christ we do in participation with the saints. We run the race before us, the same race as David and Daniel, the same race as St. Francis and Mother Teresa, and yes the same race as many of our parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and friends. If that doesn’t excite you I don’t know what will.  This service that we are called to is one that people have been called to all over the world and throughout time. That our lives are not some insignificant blip on the radar of history, but that each of us are part of a much larger story, and greater race. That we can find assurance from those who have gone for us; celebration when things are good, and solidarity with the martyrs when things go bad.  With this cloud of witnesses surrounding us, I don’t know about you, but I have more confidence,  more endurance to run this great race before us, knowing that Christ is before us leading us in our way.

Gotta Have Faith (Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16)

Sermon as preached 8/11/13 at Lambs and Evington UMC

 

 

When I was growing up, there was a cartoon on Nickelodeon called Hey Arnold about all of the mishaps that a bunch of kids in the inner city would get into.  One of the episodes that I remember well, was one called “the vacant lot.”  In this episode, the kids get tired of playing baseball in the middle of the street because they would have to keep stopping for cars and because they kept breaking things.  One day as a few of them were walking home they saw an old abandoned lot, full of trash and debris. These kids did not see a trashy lot however, they saw a baseball field.  So each day these kids went to work clearing out the debris and pulling up the weeds all while the adults looked on and thought that they were nuts. But as days went by the lot became cleaner and cleaner until the only debris left were a hub cap, a tire and other debris used to designate bases. Finally as the kids start to play ball in the lot, the adults start to see the potential of this empty lot. One lady starts a garden in the outfield, The butcher uses the lot as a free range for his chickens, some of the elderly adults set up checker boards in the infield, so much so that the kids could not play ball anymore. To make a long story short however, adults realized what they had done and came together to make the lot a true baseball field with real bases and everything.  What the adults saw as an empty lot, the kids saw as a baseball field. They put their hope and faith to action and created and made a fine ragtag field, and even with the overtaking of the field by the adults, and may I say even because of the overtaking of the adults, the lot eventually became even more than what they had ever hoped for.   To see that empty and trashy lot turned into a real baseball field took a lot of faith by those kids.

            Faith is something that is so special, and yet something that we often don’t truly understand. For many faith is simply their belief system. After all one of the ways in which we describe different religions is by calling them faith traditions.  For others faith means trust. Like when we say we put our faith into someone, we are saying that we trust them. Still, others see faith as an expectation, I have faith things will turn around, and still finally for others faith is assurance; I have faith I am going to heaven. The tricky part about faith is that all of these ways of thinking about it are in some way correct. And yet all of these ways of thinking about faith are also incomplete by themselves.

            This is why in this section of the book of Hebrews, faith and understanding faith becomes the central theme. Before we dive into our lesson for today, let’s have a quick lesson on this book of the Bible since we will be studying for the next few Sundays. Hebrews is probably one of the less read books of the New Testament, and with its name Hebrews, many would probably expect to find it Old Testament. It is instead similar in some degree to many of the letters that we have in the New Testament from Paul such as 1 and 2Corinthians or Ephesians. Except for those letters are obvious to whom the audience it, churches in the those areas; Corinth and Ephesus and so on. This letter which may have been written by Paul as well, but more likely someone close to Paul such as Barnabas or Apollos, is vague on who is the intended audience.  The title Hebrews may make us think it is addressed to some of the Jewish communities, but when we read the book we find that many of the tenets of Christian faith are already assumed. It is then likely that it is addressed if not to a community of Jewish Christians, or at least to a community that understands and recognizes many of the Jewish traditions. All of this means that the letters were not meant to convert, but rather to teach and to instruct.

            And so in our passage for today the author begins to teach about faith and hits us right out front with the crux of the lesson. Verses 1-3 tell us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.  By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction things not seen. What deep and profound words. Here we begin to see many of our definitions of  faith merge together, assurance, hope, tradition, trust. Let us break down verse one and try to understand it even better. First the author says, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Faith and Hope. This is hopefully not the first time that you have heard these two terms used together. In fact over time these have developed into two of the three what we call theological virtues; Faith, Hope, and Love.  Now may be getting more and more familiar with you now, you may recognize it from 1 Corinthians 13; a chapter very popular at many weddings. " For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.  As we see these things, are inseparable, faith, hope, and love, and so when we talk about faith here in Hebrews, it is difficult to do it without talking about love and especially without talking about hope.

            The author of Hebrews makes this connection between hope and faith by tapping into some of the familiar Biblical stories, especially that of Abraham. For the author, the faith of Abraham centers all around the covenants that God made with him. The first covenant was that of a promised land that he would inherit. The second covenant was that of descendants. This was the hope that Abraham had, a hope for descendants and a hope for a promised land; and yet this was a hope that was nowhere near being realized. Hebrews reminds us that as far as land, Abraham had stayed in the promised land as a foreigner, not as the owner.  It also reminds us that the hope for children seemed ludicrous since Sarah was old and seemingly unable to have children.  This hope seemed unfounded, this hope was something that seemed to be intangible, and yet our passage today tells us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for.  Abraham had faith in God. Abraham had faith that God would not go against his covenant, that God would not break his word; Abraham had assurance that his hope was merited. Abraham had faith in God.

            There is a second part of that first verse that is equally important to understand.  It says, faith is “the convictions of things not seen.” Once again we see how faith and hope are so integrally tied together. Not only is faith the assurance of things hoped for, but it is also the conviction of things not seen. Once again going back to Abraham, we see that the hope that he has of having descendants has no real tangible basis. While though he may have been an alien in the promised land he as least could see and imagine what it is that he hoped for. When it came to having a line of descendants that dream seemed distant, impossible, even unimaginable.  How could he have descendants when he had no children?  How could he have children with Sarah being too old to bear them?  Still, Abraham had faith, he had a conviction in the promise that God made with him even if it seemed unimaginable. After Isaac was born the dream seemed alive, until in faith Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son.  If Isaac dies how could the lineage continue?  And yet once again we Abraham had the conviction that God would not fail on his promise even if it seemed that there was no way it could come true. Abraham lived in faith, though he could not foresee that the Lord would save Isaac, Abraham trusted the Lord and followed his commands.

            And yet, sometimes it seems as though it doesn’t matter how much faith we  have, what we hope for does not come true. It is like what we were talking about with prayer the other week, What happens when you pray for something and it doesn’t happen? The same question can be asked here, what happens when what you hope for is never actualized?  The author of Hebrews seems to anticipate this question, because as he is talking about Abraham he shifts and talks about Abraham’s descendants. He says, “Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore." All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” The author of Hebrews reminds us that even the descendants of Abraham lived as faithful servants of God and never received the promised land.  We know that even Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness never himself made it into the promised land. So what do we make of this? What do we make of the fact that there were so many who were hoping for that inheritance of the promise land and yet never lived to see it? It seems easy to give up, quit, to lose faith when our hopes and dreams aren’t realized.

            We must ask ourselves whose hopes and dreams are they? Are they the dreams that we desire, or do we desire the dreams of God? Hebrews says about those faithful descendants, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.” They desire a better country, a heavenly one. We see that the hope that these descendants had was more than just an earthly hope of land, riches, and power. Our passage tells us that if any of them sought that homeland, they could have simply turned back; and yet they continued on faithfully with the conviction of that which was unseen, a Kingdom of God.  In in the end we find that though they died without seeing this come to fruition, that upon their death they did receive a heavenly home.

            And yet heaven itself can become a stumbling block for many people’s faith. As I said we must ask whose hopes and dreams do we hold dear; is it our own or is it the Lord’s. If you are here this morning simply so you can claim your place in heaven when you die, I am sorry but you are here for the wrong reasons. Heaven has far too often become the reason for our faith, we become Christians so that we can avoid Hell and get to Heaven. For many churches this is the crux their of mission and evangelism. This is not why we become Christians. We become Christians because we love Jesus Christ, and seek to serve and grow closer to him. Heaven of course is of extreme importance, it provides us great hope, especially to those who are marginalized or killed for their faith. Still,  heaven is not the goal of Christianity; it is the assurance of rest from our labors of Kingdom building here on Earth” Through Christ we have been given a new hope, the hope of the Kingdom of God here on Earth.  Through his life, death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus initiated the Kingdom of God, and yet the Kingdom is obviously not fully here. It is what Wesley calls, “the already and the not yet.” Through Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live faithfully, working with God towards bringing forth that Kingdom. We can look around at a world full of terror and violence, and have faith; have an assurance of that hope given to us by Jesus Christ. We like the friends in Hey Arnold who can look at trashy empty lot and see a baseball field, are able to look at a broken world and see the Kingdom of God.