Is "Christ" Jesus' Last Name? 11/24/19 (Christ the King)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Is "Christ" Jesus' Last Name? 

Nov 24, 2019  Christ the King   Col 1:11-20

            You all have probably realized that I really like FaceBook and the internet.  I know I’m 65 and supposed to be too old to “get it.” I know I’m a Boomer, too, and I’ve heard the jokes about “OK, Boomer” as if I’m virtually irrelevant to 2020. Too bad!  I’ve especially liked Google, where I can ask just about anything, and find 200,000 articles that answer in some way.  Of course I also know to use places that are trustworthy.   I also like being able to pick my phone up and say, “Hey Siri, find directions to GreenStar Market” and let the computer look things up for me.

            So I was looking around what the internet offered about Jesus Christ for this day’s sermon, and came across a question in a site named Quora that asked this:

 (SLIDE) (Where did the Christ surname originate? Was that Mary’s name?)

            I almost laughed, that someone knew so little about Christianity and Jesus that they would ask this.  Then I stopped and said to myself, “Well, more and more people know very little about Christianity except the weird stuff that makes the news.”  Its an opportunity to share what we know about Jesus, and why the title “Christ” has become a part of how we refer to Jesus. 

            (SLIDE) (meme - Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name).

 No, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name.  Jesus’ name, before we Latinized its pronunciation, was Yeshua, or Joshua, which means “Savior” in Hebrew.  In Hebrew custom, he was probably identified by his parentage, so he would be Yeshua bar Yoseph, or Joshua son of Joseph.  Or he may have been known by his profession, like many older countries did, maybe Jesus Carpenter.  Some of the people in the Christian Scriptures are identified by their city of origin, like Mary of Magdala, or Mary the Magdalene -  so Jesus was sometimes called ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ (This is from the Quora site’s answer and other places.)

The earliest followers of Jesus were fellow Jews of that era, who saw Jesus’ attributes as those they expected the Messiah to exhibit - the Messiah, or anointed one of God, who would deliver them. So Jesus’ followers called him Messiah Jesus, or Jesus the Messiah.  Jesus the anointed one, anointed by God, as kings were anointed to their position.   “Messiah” is a title.  When our Scriptures were translated into Greek, the equivalent word for “anointed” was ‘christos’.  So Christ is the same title - Jesus who is the Christ, Jesus the Christ of God, the anointed of God. 

So actually, when a person says “Jesus Christ”, they are awarding Jesus the title, “God’s Anointed One,” which is the belief of Christianity.  When we use that name and title together, we are making a claim about who Jesus is.  We are stating our faith that Jesus is the one anointed by God as Messiah, Christ.

The historical Jesus was middle-eastern.  (SLIDE – meme of a dark-skinned Jesus)  I know we’re used to seeing pictures of a white Jesus, so he looks like us white folks.  If we had time this morning, I could show paintings of Jesus in various other cultural guises, too, as artists show Jesus as like them.  That’s interpretation, which we all do, because no one back in that era was taking pictures!  Folks who study skeletons and skulls of the middle-eastern graves have produced this picture (SLIDE - composite 1^st century Jewish face) that might be what a historical Jesus looked like.  In the last few years, experts have tried to construct what a Hebrew man may have looked like from various sources, and came up with this as a possible literal look. 

 Most of the portrayals of Jesus in paintings are not meant to be literal, though, but to convey or communicate what our Christian faith believes about who Jesus the Christ is.

(SLIDE - shepherd)  For example, this one is from 570 BC, from A CATACOMB, using  the common Greek and Roman motif of a shepherd with a lamb, and is a reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

(SLIDE - halo) This one is from a catacomb from the 4th century, and already shows the halo effect of Jesus’ divinity (or the openness of the 7th and spiritual chakra in Eastern traditions).   

(SLIDE - pantocrater) This one is from the 6th or 7th century, and from the monastery of St Catherine actually on Mt. Sinai, now in Egypt.  The open right hand making the sign of the benediction, or blessing, is used to show Jesus as the Christos, with the power and authority of God, like from the Hebrew names for God: Sabaot - Lord of all hosts, and El Shaddai, God Almighty.  Some think that the 2 sides of this painting’s face indicate both the human nature and the divine nature combined in Jesus the Christ. 

(SLIDE - on throne) Here’s another that shows Christ  as King, by seating him on the throne of God. 

I’ve tried to find words to explain the meaning of “Christ the King,” and its difficult.  If we let our minds imagine, let’s imagine that the title “Christ” carries overtones of God’s universal power and presence; open our minds to imagine Christ as timeless and cosmic; as part of the One God who is the source & maker of all being, the capital-L Life that keeps the planets spinning and rotating, and watches the stars from their births to their imploding deaths.  Imagine Christ as a part of the One God who is the essence, the “isness,” of all that “is.”  Imagine the wonder, the immensity, the scope, the force inside existence in all its forms.   That’s what the title of Christ carries.  This is mysterious, mystical, and overwhelming to imagine, for me. 

Yet at the same time, we also affirm God as intimate and as personal to us, as the one born in human flesh, Jesus.  Just at the point when we’re ready to throw our hands up and say that we will never be able to comprehend God (which is true), we also have Jesus, who walked in the earth’s dust, grew up through childhood and teenage years, ate food, had good friends, and suffered a human, physical death.  And we affirm that God’s Spirit also comes to dwell in our own selves, binding us up in a new family of God, placing us to live in the new realm of Christ’s reality. 

Back in my Boomer day, we’d call that mind-blowing. 

So who is Jesus the Christ to you?  I guess that’s the important question, after all this talk.  Our faith affirms that God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are all this, all together.  Totally universal, totally in the macro of the universe and the micro aspects beyond our discoveries about creation.  God has designed all and knits it all together.  God is capital-L Life.  God is capital -T Truth.  God is capital-P Peace.  God is the capital-W Way of living.  And yet this God seeks us out, provides for us to be forgiven and restored in relationship with God, and now lives within each of us.  God’s love is overwhelmingly large, yet also individually personal.  Jesus Christ died and was raised for the world, and for each of us.  Jesus Christ now sets us within the realm or kingdom or kindom of heaven, and desires that we walk this Jesus path. 

Now, next week the Church year starts over, and we will find ourselves metaphorically preparing ourselves, our inner selves, for Jesus to be birthed in us and therefore into the world.  This is probably my favorite doctrine or belief, what we call the Incarnation, or Enfleshing, of God.

This week, however, we celebrate all that Jesus the Christ is, and all that this means in Jesus’ right to tell us how God created humans to be, how God desires humans to act, and to tell us the truth about what its like to live in God’s realm, following God’s expectations and design.  As Christ, Jesus tells and shows us the reality of existence, the world view that comes from God’s self, the understanding and the context in which we live and move and have our being.

In our civil year here in the US, this is the week we commemorate some of our nation’s beginnings, with the feast of Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving gives us a picture of us as Europeans interacting wisely with the Native peoples of this country who were already here.  Its hard not to be aware of the native peoples of this land when we’re constantly driving past places with names like Onondaga Nation, Cayuga and Syracuse, Ithaca, and more (here in upstate NY)…. we can’t help but be reminded of those who were on this continent before our ancestors were, and who taught our European ancestors how to survive here. I wish the rest of our story with the native peoples stayed at that level of harmony we celebrate at Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately it didn’t, and we still have weeks like this past one, where unrest and racial discord showed up at our local university. The good will of Thanksgiving holds a hopeful picture that I hope inspires us.  May it be so. 

May the reality of God and Christ as King of all that is be a part of our lives this week, and enrich our thankfulness as we consider the love and grace God has towards us and all creation.   AMEN.

The Ultimate Assessing - Compassion 11/17/19 (Pentecost 23C)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

The Ultimate Assessing -  Our Compassion

Nov 17, 2019      Pentecost 23-C

            I generally take my sermon texts from something called the Revised Common Lectionary - “Lectio” means “to read,” so the lectionary is a set of scripture readings. Its designed to work through the major themes of Scripture every 3 years of Sundays. (There are daily lectionaries available, too, to guide a daily reading of Scripture, and one is available on the Presbyterian website.)  Lectionaries start at Advent & Christmas - ie Jesus’ birth, & go through the visit of the magi (Epiphany); then Jesus’ baptism at the start of his adult ministry; then in Lent through Easter we read yearly about how he was killed and then raised by God, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Over the long weeks of summer and fall until the next Advent, we explore other parts of Jesus’ life, as well as the start of the church as traced through the letters of various apostles to the early churches they started.  As we get towards the end of the church calendar, ie just before Advent, where we are now, there are always readings about the end of time, and God’s ultimate judging of how we’ve lived. Then the church year ends with  a celebration of Christ as ruler of all that is - time, creatures, creation, everything.  We go through the story of Christ every year, but with different scriptures.  By the time a pastor gets a good many years in as a preacher, we’ve been through the 3-year cycle a number of times, and are amazed how much more there always is to find, and how well it speaks to the state of issues in the world.  Hmmmm… must be the Holy Spirit in there somewhere! 

If the needs of the week and the needs of the congregation indicate a change, I don’t have to stick to the lectionary.  However, its a good discipline to keep me from just preaching my own favorite texts over and over, and ignoring those that may be difficult for me. Many mainline denominations follow the Revised Common Lectionary, so there are good study material available online - and, of course, bulletin covers and children’s bulletins and sometimes Study lessons can be made to match ….and musicians can plan ahead on anthems!

So today’s reading from Isaiah is a wonderful vision of a new heaven and new earth that God makes, our creative God who is always bringing new life out of death.  Isaiah’s vision dreams of the healing to some of the most poignant human sorrows and losses.  Its very human, isn’t it? And very concrete. Very specific and literal.  No more child loss or early deaths. No more ravages of property and losses of war.  God’s presence with us.  This last chapter of Isaiah doesn’t just end with, “they lived happily ever after,” a fairy-tale like ending without specifics.  The Hebrew prophets are very concerned with the practical and human needs of the living.  They’re concerned about hungry being fed, the naked clothed, the thirsty having clean water, wars being over. Its interesting that it doesn’t talk about people’s prayer lives, or how many hours they read the Scriptures, or if they have perfect attendance at church, which is what we think of when we think of religious people.

The Matthew 25 text we heard and read at the beginning of the service today had Jesus sounding a lot like the prophets of his own Hebrew tradition, didn’t it?  Jesus gives us a view of the end of time, where people stream towards God at the great day of judgement, and are divided into sheep and goats - and in this example, the sheep are the Christ-followers.  Jesus often called himself the Good Shepherd, and followers of God as sheep. Charlie Brown picked this up in the softball cartoons - if he’d just caught that fly ball, he could have been the hero,... instead he was the goat. 

So what was it that Jesus used to divide the sheep from the goats?  Was it by the # hours spent at church?  Nope.  Was it how many potlucks they cooked for? Nope. Was it if they were elected to church Council? Nope.  Was it if they were theology wonks? Nope.  Rather, people are divided according to whether they helped their neighbors of the world – making sure the hungry get food, making sure the thirsty have drink, making sure the naked get clothes, making sure those isolated in prison or with illness get visited. Again, like the Jewish prophets, its a literal and concrete thing - Did their hearts break over the difficulties of people’s lives, were they good neighbors?  And did their compassion bring them to helpful actions?  That’s what Jesus’ story here says.

Those who were, in life, indifferent to others, lost in getting what they wanted for themselves, those who stepped over Lazarus at their doors, those to whom these needy folks were invisible - they streamed off the other direction - the goats. 

(aside) The sheep and the goats always reminds me of Charlie Brown cartoons – he’s out there playing softball, and he’s so eager to be the hero – but he either fails to steal hoe or throw the last strike, and he’s left lying on the field saying, “I could’ve been the hero, but instead I’m the goat.”  That’s always the word Charles Schultz uses – “instead I’m the goat.”

Its interesting to me that BOTH groups asked Jesus, “When did we see you needy, Jesus?”  Even the folks who responded as good & caring neighbors to the world, the sheep, didn’t seem to know they were doing it as to Jesus.  Our first thought would be that those who DIDN’T do these good things, the goats, didn’t know it was Jesus who came to them in this guise. Actually, neither group is said to have recognized Jesus in the hurting people of the world. The first group, the sheep, simply had the tender hearts, just saw hurting people, and responded with care, as sharers of the planet and co-people of earth. I can hear the goat group thinking, “If we’d known it was you, Jesus, we’d have been different.” But it seems like the difference is in the heart of compassion, the caring for those with whom we share a common humanity.  Jesus answered each group similarly - “If you did it for the least of these, it was like it was to me.” And, “If you DIDN’T do it for the least of these, it was like you DIDN’T do it for me.” 

I guess the question is, how do we get to the point where our compassionate heart sees and cares for people & their needs spontaneously, like those sheep?  How do we move concern for ourselves out of the center of our being?  How do our eyes open to seeing the population of the world as we do our family? How do we become those who love our neighbors as we love ourselves?  I think this is where spending time with God in prayer, and wrestling with Scripture in our gathered congregations, comes in.  My teacher Matthew Fox used to say that the mystic and the prophet are two sides of the same coin - our visionary and spiritual experiences with God will lead us to sharing in the heart of God, and to a vision of transformed living on earth. We will learn God’s perspective, and God’s Spirit will open our hearts.

I’ve often said that being in congregations reminds me of those rock polishing kits available at Christmas – you take these old rocks, throw them in the barrel, add some grit, churn it all around for a longish while, and behold! Shiny rocks! Here we are all thrown together, none of us perfect, a little grit thrown in like problems or disagreements, and we are all tumbled around.  If we can look at it all as polishing us up, that’s a helpful thought…and its true.  Problems send us back to our knees.   

It doesn’t hurt to go ahead and get involved with these kinds of charitable acts, even if our hearts aren’t totally there yet.  Because the troubles and problems and inner conflicts that come up in doing the work, like grit, will send us right into prayer and contemplation. I’ve seen food bank helpers get bitter and jaded when they see folks trying to work the system, to “take advantage” of their charity.  Hopefully that bitterness gets taken back to prayer, and they search their hearts and ask God about it and wrestle with their hearts.  I’ve seen people who can’t seem to help themselves from making one bad decision after another, and it feels futile to try and assist.  I’ve heard all kinds of hard-luck stories from those who want a hand-out - and I’ve known hard-working people who come to a crisis and are too embarrassed to ask for help.  Some helping people try and distinguish between the truly needy and the con artists, and get burned out.  Hopefully that takes them back to prayer, too. 

 I admit that the older I get, the more I realize that life is hard; that we inherit more than blue eyes from our families - we learn coping methods, we learn angers, we learn prejudice, we learn views about life.  Not all are helpful.  And take this right, OK? I try to understand Income Tax or how to deal with insurance companies, and you know, its confusing! And I was considered a smart cookie, an A student.  We’re all trying to survive and figure out this living thing. Some of us are born on second or third base, though, when others aren’t even on a team. Its nothing to my credit that I was born into a more middle-class family; and its not to anyone’s discredit that they weren’t.

So what do we do with Jesus’ way of looking at our lives in Matthew 25?  I think that at LEAST we need to hear that God is concerned with people’s very earthly and basic human survival needs. God cares for human life.  And at LEAST we can see that Jesus desires for us, as disciples and followers, that we share this universal and practical concern. Christianity has often underemphasized living right by others in the world, and prioritized a personal making it to heaven.  What makes us into the humans God created us to be is our compassionate care for those around us. 

So we’re fortunate to get the clue from Jesus here - that our love for one another, with all there foibles, is actually showing love to God who made us.  We are on the right and godly path if we are growing in our care and seeing the persons behind the stereotypes; if needs of people other than ourselves are visible to us, and hurt our hearts. Yes, we will be overwhelmed by the amount of need.  Yes, folks won’t all thank us and treat us right; Yes, some hurt people will hurt us.  And yes, its all happened to God first - why should it be different for us?  And yes, God’s compassion continues to be extended - why should it be different for us? We can help with immediate needs, and we can find long-term solutions.  God can teach us empathy, God can inspire us with creative ideas, and give us the courage of our convictions. God can soften our hearts in the first place, as we consider what God has done in Jesus in the first place. 

May we be moved by deep and sacrificial love of God, and learn such compassion for each other.  AMEN.

A Vision of Peace for the World (Veterans Day weekend)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

A Vision of Peace for the World

Nov 10, 2019      Veterans Day      Micah 4

            I grew up at the city line of Washington, DC - my parents had worked in DC, and they knew their way around - so we went downtown to events pretty often.  As our aunts and uncles and cousins would come and stay with us to go sightseeing in DC, so we went to the national monument a lot.  One Nov 11, we noticed that there were flags all around the monument for a change - and we especially remarked it because Nov 11 is my sister’s birthday.  She claimed they were for her - I remember being jealous, because they didn’t put flags around the monument on MY birthday!  Of course the flags weren’t for my sister, although she could always get a reaction from me when she said it. 

            Nov 11 - the 11th month, the 11th day, the 11th hour - that was the day in 1918 that the armistice began, when we all laid down of arms at the end of the war to end all wars.  Although the papers weren’t signed until June 28, 1919, the day the fighting stopped and the arms were laid down has been considered the end of what we now call World War 1, because, unfortunately there was a World War 2 shortly after.  Hopefully, and God forbid, there will never be a World War 3… although certainly wars of lesser scope have continued. 

            Nobody wants another war, a more local war or a World War, with the devastation to land and people.  Nobody really wants more wars where crops are destroyed, hunger is rampant, more people are killed, normal peace and security are lost, and survivors flee to other countries as refugees for safety. While some military leaders are noble and seek to be their best even while having to order terrible things, others seem to find an outlet for their inner aggression, and enjoy the power over those they get to label as “enemies,” as if that makes any outrage allowable.  Even those who went for the Crusades, and all other wars, returned with discouragement and inner hurts at what they’ve had to see and do, if not outer wounds as well.  

            I don’t want to glorify war on this Armistice Day, where we originally celebrated the final laying down of arms. I like that celebration – that arms are laid down, fighting is over. Somehow we’ve switched to calling it Veteran’s Day.  Its a day of mixed and complicated emotions. While we certainly want to acknowledge those who had to participate, some who died, some of whom returned maimed in body or in spirit even though they survived - we don’t want to glorify war itself.  Most of us, if we explore inside ourselves, are torn - we don’t want the violence, the bloodshed, the destruction of land and crops and families -  although it seems like sometimes that war is the only alternative to stem evil rising in one place or another.  Christians from the early church founders have pondered what makes a war “just,” what makes killing of others “allowable” for followers of the Prince of Peace - who was himself killed by violence, although he did none.  Christ-followers have felt their faith called them to chosen differently in times of war, from those considered it their duty to the country to take arms against great threats to the peace of many innocents, to those who opted for alternative service, or conscientious objection.  Most of us grieve that wars become necessary, and are grateful for those who have had to endure what they’ve had to endure, in order that more peace might abound, those enslaved might be free, and those oppressed may be released and given opportunity for better life. 

            War seems to ultimately reveal the great distance between the calls for peace in our Scripture, and           the great sins and evils humans are capable of wreaking on one another for greed and power, to the point that it must be resisted and restrained.  Although thinking and caring leaders seek alternative pressures and negotiations, embargos and such to try and rein in those who would abuse their power and attempt to invade and conquer other countries, there are always those who seek to make profit from war, and may even encourage wars in order to enlarge their own wealth.  Literal war, killing and maiming and invading and the significant loss of life - it is a mixed bag of unfortunate necessity, given the scope of evil humans are capable of. 

We see the sin we are capable of, the coveting of what another country has, the greed for expansion of power and influence, the lust for power over whole other races.  And we have compassion for what this does to the other countries and its people, and we see the dangers to the whole human story if those powers succeed.  Its a difficult place to be, to declare war for those reasons theologians have declared “just.”  Its a moral dilemma for a thinking and caring person,  this calling for others to lay their lives on the line for a greater good. We ask a lot from them - if we expect them to not have difficulties in their own souls, if we expect them to return easily to pre-war life, if we expect them to not be hardened to killing, if we expect them to return to a love for enemies, as the Bible expects.    

            It almost feels too idealistic to read passages like that in Micah 4 (which is almost identical to a passage found in Isaiah 3); yet these visions from generations past contains words and images that have grabbed grieving and bereaved people by the heart, even starting way back before the time of Jesus.  These are words from our Jewish ancestors in faith, dreams and visions of a time when the city of God will attract those from all nations to come, and learn, and walk in the paths of God’s peace. At that point, GOD will judge, or arbitrate between the nations, so nations don’t have to fight it out in the devastation of wars.  In that blessed day, those words we love say, we will beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks.  In other words, people won’t need the implements of fighting any more, so those metal swords and metal spears, instruments of war, can be turned into farming implements.  Ok, that’s still old fashioned in terms of instruments of war, so how about this?  We can use our defense budgets for education, or for infrastructure, or for the arts.  All that money spent on weapons...wow.

            Isaiah 11 adds another visions of peace which we call The Peaceable Kingdom, where the wolf and lamb lie down together, the cows and bears eat side by side, the lion become a grazer of straw, and all shall be peaceful, no more ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ even. Then Isaiah goes on in ch 65 to say God will make a new heaven and a new earth, where no more will there be cries of distress or weeping, no more an infant that lives for a few days, or bearing children to see them die in calamities; no more raising crops that another person harvests (or burns so you can’t harvest it); we who build the houses will live in them, and anyone who fails to make it to 100 years would be considered too young.   The years of the prophet Isaiah’s work embraced many times of conflict, and many hopes for conflicts to cease.

            So Veteran’s Day is a time of mixed feelings - grief for those who died, relief perhaps for those who returned, recognizing that they are not totally the innocent person who first left; an expansion of heart that the conflict is over and arms are laid down.  Certainly a country that asked this fighting of their citizens owes them decent care for wounds inner and outer.  Countries like ours, who have not had foreign soldiers foraging and destroying our very land, need to give thanks for being spared - although we have fought among ourselves and our inhabitants.

            Certainly, as followers and disciples of Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace, we need to reaffirm the texts that carry a vision for peace.  We need to consider the words and actions of our Redeemer, who saw all humanity as in this fight against sin together, an inner struggle against powers that can grab us and deceive us. Jesus saw no one as an enemy, and chose his own submission to an unjust death instead of violence.  We are fortunate to have had examples of those learning to resist with non-violence, and returning no one evil for evil, but doing good to those who hate us.  We weigh these calls from our Scripture against the large-scale effects of evil, greed, power and what it does to people.  We examine our own motives, the often ugly desires that seem to rise up in us despite our prayers and dedication to God. 

            I find I more easily respond to this day if I call it Armistice Day, and look to our veterans in the light of their courage in fighting for a laying down of arms.  I don’t respond easily to a day that glorifies war.  It isn’t a simple thing, being involved in wars.  I do acknowledge the wisdom of not forgetting what people have given for the good of the world, of remembering the awfulness of what we asked of them, and the compassion for what we owe them in thanks and in health care.  A day to acknowledge how life has been able to percolate along in this country, as in not many others where war has destroyed their civilizations. 

            So its a mixed bag, this Armistice / Veteran’s day.  I chose in our worship today to emphasize the great themes and hopes of peace and understanding, and to recognize the gifts we’ve been given from those who gave their lives.  May God indeed bless our leaders with wisdom to keep us from lightly seeing war as an easy solution, and requiring the same sacrifices from other generations.  And may our leaders not neglect the responsibility of this country to care for the physical and mental needs of those who fought for us. AMEN.

What Does "Faith" Mean? (All Saints)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

What Does “FAITH” Mean?

Nov 3, All Saints C      Hebrews 11 (assorted) -12:3

 

I talked on the phone with a man the other day who invited me to join a group of folks in praying for our country, specifically to pray for our country to return to righteousness. I admit I immediately wondered if this call was from a conservative, ‘Back to the Bible’ type group with rigid ideas of what “Christian” values would look like for our country, like those getting a lot of press recently.  I do pray for our country and all countries, and I pray for “righteousness,” in the way I understand from the prophets in our Hebrew Scriptures, which I had a hunch might not be what he meant.  We were each a little cagey about how much we’d say.  In my reading, a righteous nation cares for the poor and sick, and looks out for those marginal people who have little voice or power on their own; people and nations honor God and the way God wants all people treated.  This might be fleshed out by acknowledging and overcoming the evils brought about of racism and discrimination, which are supported by unjust systems and unequal wealth and power. God’s word in the Old Testament, instructed his people that the foreigners and refugees in their midst were to be treated as worthy and human - which would speak to justice for  immigrants; God’s continued concern for the poor and hungry would ask a nation to end the suffering of poverty, in feeding and caring for even the least among us; God’s concern for the voiceless would ask a nation to honor the humanity of all people regardless of gender or color. Jesus echoed this when he said, As you did it to one of these, you did it to me. I can and do pray for us and our country in these respects. 

I had a feeling this caller might have a different agenda.  We used the same word, yet meant pretty different things by it. 

Our word for today, “faith,” is another word that has various uses and understandings.  I want to mention a couple, and look at what I think Hebrews 11 & 12 are saying.  There’s a certain usage of the word “faith” that refers to the body of doctrines and common practices, like when someone refers to “The Christian faith,” where ‘faith’ is a noun described by the adjective ‘Christian.’ If we googled Christian faith,  we’d find a set of beliefs and practices that differentiates us from, say, Jewish faith or Muslim faith.  The contents would have to necessarily be rather generic, because Christians can have different understandings about parts of our faith. For example, the article might list doctrines about Jesus as the Messiah, or Christ, sent by God; how Jesus’ death and resurrection lead to salvation and the amending of life; what sin is, and what eternal life is; the sacraments of baptism, and the celebration of communion, as we are doing today.  To be generic enough to describe all Christians, it probably wouldn’t get into the questions about what method of baptism, or the age of the baptized, or how to do communion, or to dispute the additional sacraments that we Protestants dropped but our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers maintain. That generic description of the Christian “faith” may go on to describe common themes in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as in seeing God as Creator, although not really debating how that came about; perhaps in seeing humans as having souls and that living towards God is the highest good.  It would take too long to explore the various camps within each tradition that may have fervent feelings about their distinct meanings and practices.

            The way I hear the word “faith” used in Hebrews 11 & 12 this morning, is less like a set of doctrines and practices, and more like an inner quality  - a quality of conviction,  a core quality within persons, a gut conviction,  a deep and inner motivation.  These faithful folks in Hebrews 11 did a lot of rather different things, and it doesn’t say anything about their doctrines. They trusted God - they trusted God’s love towards them, God’s good will towards them, God’s promises to them, that God held their future, that it was important to acknowledge what God said and do it.  There was this bedrock thing about God in the depth of their person - God is, God exists, God is the source of life, God seeks relationship with us, God cares how we live, God cares for our future..  What we do matters, how we live matters.  We belong to God, which is who we are.  God is, and that matters more than anything.

            Actually, if we think about it, those mentioned in Hebrews ch 11 lived way before Jesus was born - they are people from Jewish history, and didn’t know anything about Jesus.  So technically they aren’t Christians - even though the writer of Hebrews holds them up as examples of people of faith, looking FORWARD to what God would do in Jesus, just as we look BACK (at least thinking historically and linearly) on Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  In other words, Jesus is central, and the commitment and conviction is to God being FOR us. 

That’s what I think of in terms of “faith”, my friends: that deep inner trust and basic assumption that God is, and that living in relation to God in this world is our ultimate allegiance.  The letter from James, in our New Testament, asks people to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Jesus teaches us to pray that God’s will be done on earth, as it already is in heaven; that joining Jesus’ kindom means living and acting in the ways of that realm now and here.  This faith, this deep, gut-level acceptance, is a gift from God, the apostle Paul says, not an ego or will-power thing - rather, a transformation deep inside that’s like being born again.

Since our calendar is near All Saints Day, I thought we could perhaps add to the list of the faithful in Hebrews 11 from what we know of human history since Jesus. I came up with these: By faith, the Apostle Paul held to Jesus’ gospel even though he became persona non grata to his religious community; and through faith he traveled the Mediteraean area starting communities of Christ-followers - even among the Gentiles. 

            By faith, Hildegard of Bingen (one of my favorite mystics) trusted and even painted her visions, and wrote to and called out even the highest officials of the church in her day.

            In faith, Copernicus dug into the ways creation operated, seeing no difficulty between faith and science, even when his studies showed that the Earth rotates around the Sun, which idea was condemned by his church. Galileo and others who also studied and found this true were later excommunicated.

Through faith, Martin Luther wanted God’s Church to amend its ways, and found the courage to propose changes that eventually got him kicked out; and in faith like-minded folks gathered around him and continued to worship, in time starting the Protestant tradition.  

In faith, Martin Luther King Jr stood up for the dignity of all human persons regardless of color, and was assassinated for challenging his culture. 

By faith, Mother Teresa gave her life to assisting the sickest of the sick in her country, akin to the lepers of Jesus’ time, persuading leaders of the communities to support this work that recognized the dignity of the least among them; and in her determination, helped and inspired many. 

By faith, men and women have followed what God laid on their hearts, starting school and hospitals for those in need, planting churches, translating Scriptures into most world languages, reaching into prisons, establishing feeding programs, paying off student lunch bills, filling backpacks, advocating for justice, and so much more. 

So, at this All Saint’s Day, whose faith inspires you?  Whose faith challenges you?  Who are the saints who show you how to live for God, to pray, to hold to the ideals God gave you; who encourages you to say YES to your own call to service?

The reading from the letter to Hebrew Christians concludes by encouraging us to look to the example of Jesus, who, for the sake of the joy set before him, disregarded even the shame of being crucified like a criminal - because of his obedience to God.  He endured being rejected on so many levels, as well as physical suffering, for sticking to the call of God.  Consider Jesus, this letter says, when we need courage to do what that inner conviction calls us to. Consider Jesus, when what is calling us seems too hard.  Consider Jesus, when we grow weary and discouraged with seeing no results, of not seeming to make any difference in our ministries, when we are misunderstood and mistreated even by those God called us to serve; when others are raised up above us, when we don’t get thanked or recognized like we hoped for, when it doesn’t seem worth the effort any more.  Consider Jesus, and let that faith carry us on.  AMEN.