25th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 28B

25th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 28B November 18, 2012 As Christians, we live in an in between time and space, that difficult no-man’s land of both “already” and “not yet.” Already Jesus has come—God is with us, offering himself, once and for all, as the single offering which has restored all creation which is groaning with longing. Already, Jesus has forgiven us, “placing his perfect life on the altar of heaven, offering ‘for all time a single sacrifice for sins’ thereby breaking the back of evil, sin, and suffering. In the resurrection, God proves that evil and death and suffering cannot withstand the force of God’s love and God’s longing to be reconciled with all creation. And yet—we look at the world around us and see the “not yet” of it all. All around us evil and sin and suffering and sadness seem to rock along unchanged, and the people of God groan along with all of creation, “How long, O Lord, must we bear it all?” God’s Kingdom has not yet come into its fullest fulfillment. We see this tension at work in the gospel of Mark today, as we remember that the writer of Mark was writing these words around the time when the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem as a result of the Jewish uprising. Already Jesus has come and restored and redeemed, the writer of Mark reminds his broken-hearted community, but all is not yet as it should be. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. We see it at work in the sermon that is known as the Letter of the Hebrews. The preacher is addressing a congregation that is suffering from decline; he is addressing a flock who is “tired and discouraged about the way evil seems to persist in the world. As a result the congregation has begun to question the value of being followers of Christ. Attendance at worship has begun to falter, zeal for mission has waned, and the kind of congregational life that is rich with love and compassion has begun to dissipate.” He is addressing a people who are weary and longing for the not yet to be realized and fulfilled. “How long, O Lord, must we bear it all,” they cry. We see it all around us—this tension between the already and the not yet. We come to church week after week, and we say the words together: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Week after week, we offer thanks to God and “we celebrate the memorial of our redemption” through Jesus’s death and resurrection. We ask God to “send us out into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve [God] with gladness and singleness of heart…” We celebrate and try to live into the already, and yet…. We learn of another person whom we love who is diagnosed with cancer. We watch as those we love age and are not able to do those things they once were able to do. We suffer financial hardship and distress, people losing their homes and scarcely able to survive. We participate in, witness, and sometimes fall victim to the ruthlessness that is rampant in our society that becomes the vehicle for our culture’s most prized asset—accomplishment—and the enforcing of our own agendas. We live lives that are forever changed in the wake of natural disasters that throw life into chaos and turmoil. We ourselves may even grow tired and discouraged about the way evil seems to persist in the world, and we cry out to God, “How long, O Lord, must we bear it?” Yes, it is true that all is not yet fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. And yet, the writer of Hebrews reminds his flock and us that “we are not just spectators; we are active participants in the saving work of God.” But how do we do that? “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” Yes, it may seem that nothing is changed, that evil is still running rampant in the world, but God has been with us in the person of Jesus, and God continues with us even still. God calls us to be active participants in the saving work of God by “provoking one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together but encouraging one another…”i First, it is important to show up for worship. I realize I’m “preaching to the choir” here, but it is in and through worship, in and through the prayers of our tradition that the hope of Christ is nurtured and strengthened in this community and within each of our hearts. And one of the beautiful things about the Episcopal liturgy, where we pray what we believe and we believe what we pray, is that during those times when we may not be able to give our hearts fully to God in belief, then the belief and the prayers of the community carry us through. Second, we need to actively work to provoke one another to love and good deeds and to encourage one another. What does that look like? The late Peter Gomes wrote an essay on this portion of the letter to Hebrews, and he wrote, “Perhaps in our public prayers we ought to make room for yet another category: ‘prayers of encouragement.’ We would think of ways in which we can encourage our fellow believers to love and good works. We would think of ways in which we can be of assistance to the people we know and with whom we share the faith and the pew. This means making an assessment of people’s strengths and opportunities rather than of their weaknesses and needs. We would also be praying that they may be encouraged to do something for themselves, something which God enables them to perform to the mutual benefit of the faith and the community. The second benefit of a word of encouragement [he writes] is that it strengthens both the believer and the fellowship by supplying that positive, affirming force that is so often missing in the routine of life. To live for rewards is always to live for success, and when success eludes us, as it often does, so too does the reward. We may live "for" reward, but we live "by" encouragement, which is what we need when things go well, and especially when things don’t go well. The trick is that we cannot encourage ourselves: even in this self-help culture of ours, we cannot yet do that. We must be encouraged by someone else, and it is our spiritual obligation to encourage one another. This definition of an effective New Testament church [he concludes] is short on doctrine and rules and long on fellowship and encouragement. It may be just what we need to hear as we see ‘the Day drawing near’."ii “Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” i.All the quotes up to this point, I know that I quoted from someone, but I didn’t note it at the time, and now I can’t find it…I think it was from one (or multiple) of the essays on Feasting on the Word for the Hebrews reading. ii.Peter J. Gomes [was] a professor at Harvard Divinity School and minister in Harvard’s Memorial Church. This article appeared in the Christian Century, Nov. 5, 1997, p. 1001, copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org.