Christianity has long used Jews as scapegoats. This is, of course, wrong on many levels. Things did not start off well as Christianity and Judaism split ways very early on in the beginning of Christianity. There was persecution of Christians by Jews. But then as Christianity spread like wildfire the tables were turned. This has led to all sorts of killings and destruction. Our scriptures, written in the time of those early persecutions, have, unfortunately, become enduring teachings that make things continue.
Christian scriptures generally call us to have a positive view of Judaism. And, as our text in Hebrews does today, calls us to learn from Judaism’s own self-criticism.
I am not a scholar of all the world’s cultures and literature, but from what I do know, the ancient Jews are the only ones who have a pretty negative self-understanding. Most cultures minimize the things that make them look bad, and overexaggerate the things that make them look good. But the ancient Jews were willing to be brutally honest with themselves, and/or they knew something about human nature that the rest don’t.
You’ve heard and maybe know well the stories of the origin of the Jewish people. The book of Genesis concludes with Joseph moving his eleven brothers and his father to Egypt to escape the severe famine. Over time their population grows to be mighty, but they are enslaved by the Egyptians. God hears their cries of distress.
The book of Exodus opens with the birth of Moses. Moses is not a good person and there is nothing about his faith that would make him stand out. Yet God chooses him to free the people and lead them to the Promised Land. After the ten plagues the Egyptians finally set them free. They leave rejoicing, but not for long. They almost immediately begin grumbling against Moses and God. They say they want to go back. God is patient with them, miraculously protecting them from their enemies and providing them with all their needs. Yet they grumble. They are quickly led to the Promised Land and invited to enter. Yet they become scared and do not trust God. God’s patience wears thin and condemns them to 40 years in the wilderness. God reasons that perhaps the next generation will be more faithful.
But they weren’t.
They do eventually come to the Promised Land, but they do not do as God asks. The Old Testament goes on to describe generations of faithless people who fail to do what God asks. God tries everything from great kindness to severe punishment and nothing works. Yet God remains faithful to them.
Yes, the ancient Jews had no great moral vision of themselves. The only thing that they knew was that God was good, long-suffering, and faithful to them. In that rested their hope.
We read part of that story in our passage from Hebrews for today. The author warns his Christian readers that they aren’t so different from the Jews. They too are apt to go astray and be disobedient.
If you go through those verses from Hebrews with a fine-tooth comb you’re going to find some logical gaps and inconsistencies. We have to remember that Hebrews is a sermon, not a theological treatise. It skips through some details for brevity sake. But we still get the idea. Two Old Testament themes are pulled together. One is the 40 year wilderness journey. The other is the creation account from Genesis 1. There God creates in six days and rests on the seventh.
Hebrews merges the idea of creation being completed by the seventh day and God resting, with the 40 year wilderness journey completed by entering the Promised Land, …and there is still a promised day of rest ahead. That promised day of rest is the time when God brings the creation to its ultimate conclusion. Then the time of the labor of the universe is over.
It is an interesting combination of thoughts – that we should see our lives as like the forty-year journey in the wilderness, and we will ultimately rest when we reach the promised fulfillment of creation.
So how are we going to act in the wilderness journey of life? Will we be like the Israelites: grumbling, unfaithful, and wanting to go back; or will we be a new people bound and committed in faith to God through the love of Jesus? Obviously we want to be part of that new people! But we face the same challenges they did.
It could be said that our society has gone off the rails in many ways. We could make long lists and find many things to blame. I believe Hebrews gets at the core of what it all is. This is one of the many blessings of Hebrews and its strongly Jewish roots, which do not shy away from the dark and problematic side of humanity.
Drawing from the people’s unfaithfulness in the wilderness Hebrews says, “Take care, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” It’s an easy statement, and it pretty much sums up the root of our society’s ills. Let me shift to today’s language using the work of Rebecca McLaughlin in her book How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life. She says:
[Imagine a prescription…] “that if taken at least weekly – could elongate your life expectancy by seven years, significantly increase your change of happiness, and substantially reduce the likelihood you’ll suffer from depression.
“Thinking this is too good to be true, you check for side effects. They’re listed as a greater sense of meaning, greater likelihood of volunteering, and more generosity toward those in need. Once again, you’re skeptical. This must be a scam. You turn to the back cover to see where this information comes from. There you find this medication has been extensively researched by none other than the Harvard School of Public Health. Would you take the pills?”
As the title of her book suggests, that prescription is church participation – or specifically weekly worship attendance and participation in a faith community. McLaughlin cites several 2016 and newer publications by Harvard that pretty conclusively show that the happiest, emotionally most stable, and most fulfilled people in our society are those who regularly participate in religion. It is not exclusive to Christianity. Judaism shows the same effect. The results of Islam and others haven’t been studied in enough detail yet.
This is surprising, especially coming from Harvard. A year ago in the political theology class I took we had a lecture by a faculty member of the Harvard Divinity School. She was an atheist. It says a lot about Harvard’s Divinity School - founded by Puritans to promote Christianity - that they now hire atheists to teach religion.
McLaughin’s writings points out the very same thing that Hebrews points out. Before you can get a benefit from church you have to accept what the church is based upon. The church is not based on people being morally superior or having perfect actions or being somehow righteous. The church is based on the truth that all humans are sinners in need of God’s grace. I’ve said many times from this pulpit that unless you recognize you’re a sinner in need of God’s grace then you’ll get nothing from me and nothing from a worship service. The sign over the door that you walked through to get into the sanctuary says “Sinners Only. This is a space of grace.”
Hebrews knows it is our human nature to want to fall away from the living God. Our society today teaches that you can fulfill yourself. That you should not bother with religion because it will just depress or oppress you. That by determining your own unique path through life you will be free and happy. And all of it is a lie. Harvard has proven it.
What is the root of our society’s ills? It is our refusal to accept the idea of sinfulness. We do not want to accept that we are broken at our core. God and God alone can fix that. So we will drift away from God, rejecting the only real place that, as Harvard shows, can actually fulfill us. And thus as Hebrews warns, people never reach the Promised Land, the ultimate rest and fulfillment.
Our job is to stay faithful to the journey God has before us. It isn’t always an easy journey, but nothing really worth having is easy. Life, then, is the journey to the promised land of ultimate rest and peace.
And if we dare to do it – of course Jesus told us to do it – we share the good news with others. Even the unpopular but true news that regular participation in church really does make life measurably better.
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