Many of you are familiar with the book A Long Walk to Water, which is a children’s book about the early life of Salva Dut. Dut was born in 1974 in southern Sudan. At age eleven the Sudanese civil war reached his home. He was at school when soldiers arrived. The teacher told the students to flee, and they did. He ran into the bush and eventually reached a refugee camp in Ethiopia. He lived there for six years until civil war broke out in Ethiopia. Fleeing again, he led 1500 boys on an 18 month journey to Kenya, where they reached the Kakuma Refugee Camp. 500 of the boys died on the journey. He was one of the Sudanese “Lost Boys”. In 1996 he received sponsorship from a family in Rochester and moved to the United States. After settling in he enrolled at Monroe Community College and worked three jobs to pay for his education. He eventually founded Water for South Sudan in order to help stabilize people’s lives in rural Sudan.
I think Dut’s story helps us to understand a very important point in the passage we read from Hebrews we read today. That point is that God is stable, consistent, and reliable. I suspect that’s something we take for granted, but should not.
Let’s go back to life in a refugee camp for a couple minutes. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to live like that. You’re displaced from your home for an indefinite amount of time, or perhaps permanently. You were forced to leave by forces beyond your control; probably a civil war or an invading army. You lose not only your home but you also lose all the security that you have built for yourself. No more job, possibly permanent loss of any real estate owned, possibly no more retirement savings, investment portfolios, or any of the things we do to secure our lives. You’re adrift for an indeterminate amount of time, and any possible return to your old life is not at all within your control. Perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to resettle in a new country. But then you’ll have to start life all over again, and possibly learn a new language. Or perhaps you’ll spend the rest of your life in the refugee camp. That’s a bleak outlook for life. It is especially bleak if you’re a child or young adult.
In some ways, Salva Dut was lucky. He’d shown to the leaders in the refugee camp that he was intelligent, conscientious, hard-working, and had an agreeable personality. He was picked out among thousands to come to the United States. Any young person who lacks skills or intelligence will most likely spend their entire lives imprisoned in a refugee camp. They’ll have no freedom, poor education, no jobs, no hope; and perhaps worst – no real meaning to their lives. That’s bleak. But reverse the situation. Look at it from the perspective of a nation receiving refugees for permanent resettlement. How can any nation accept great numbers of people who have low skill levels unless the country can provide jobs, housing, and a whole lot of support?
Refugees are often at the mercy of endlessly shifting national and international dynamics.
Let’s be sure we’re thankful for the relative stability in our own lives. And let’s also be thankful for the absolute stability we have from God.
It is that absolute stability from God that the author of Hebrews wants us to put in our hearts. For, what if our faith lives were just as chaotic and unpredictable as a life in a refugee camp? What if God was fickle? What if God changed his mind from time to time on a whim? What if God were a great scientist and all of us are just lab rats God is running experiments on?
That may all sound ridiculous to us, but it would not have been to ancient peoples. In the Babylonian creation myths there was the idea that humans were created to be the servants and slaves of the deities. In ancient Greek mythology the gods were an unpredictable bunch whose lives would make for a great soap opera. People were trying to manipulate the gods to have their favor. The gods were manipulating each other. There was duplicity and lying. The gods were fickle. They would change their minds and change their loyalties.
I suppose it was a way in which the ancient Greek religions could explain the chaos and unpredictability of life, but it would be a horrible way to live if it were true. The ancient Greek gods acted a lot like poorly behaved humans and they were always trying to one up one another.
I’m not certain how the average person in ancient Greek society lived out their religion. And I’m not certain the average person in ancient Greek society actually believed all the myths about the gods. I do know that those who were highly educated thought it was all nonsense. I suspect the average person didn’t believe it all either, but they would still do things to earn the favor of the gods because they believed they’d provide protection from other forces; like chaos and random chance.
It is into this environment that the ancient Jews carried their beliefs that there was one and only one God. There were no others. And that this only God had created all things, and that nothing came into being without God.
Also, that God created humans in God’s own image. Humans were created to be in relationship with God, and that was a relationship that was distinctly different from God’s relationship with the rest of the created order. Also, that people were created basically good. Human failings were an aberration of God’s good design.
God was solid, consistent, and dependable. God did not play games with people.
All of that sounds correct to our ears. But the author of Hebrews knew it created a problem. (We hinted at this a couple of weeks ago.) If God is solid, consistent, and dependable, then how can Jesus come in and claim that the path to salvation is now fundamentally different? How could it be that right relationship with God used to be based on temple sacrifices and rituals but now it is based on believing that Jesus of Nazareth was God come to life?
When we look at it that way it is concerning! The two approaches are radically different. Was there something wrong with the old way? If there was something wrong with the old way then why did God create it in the first place? Shouldn’t God have known from the beginning that it would have problems? Has God changed his mind? And if God has changed his mind, then will God change his mind again?
Is a life of faith with God any different than life in a refugee camp, where outside forces keep changing reality? If it is the same, then best you can do is to try your best to keep up, and ultimately hope that somehow, someway, you will actually be saved.
When Hebrews talks so much about the temple system like we read last week, and when it talks about the tabernacle system like we read this week, it is teaching us that God is indeed solid and dependable and consistent. Our faith is secure.
The change from the tabernacle to the temple was not a huge one. Basically the same systems were in place. The tabernacle system had been set up when Moses was the leader because the people were in their wilderness journey. Once they’d reached the Promised Land and established homes and eventually a government, then the temporariness of the tabernacle was replaced with the permanence of the temple.
And now, in order to make the shift from the temple to Jesus God has not rejected the temple system. God has not rejected the old religious laws. Remember, in Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not on stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”
So, the religious laws stay. God had not made a mistake in creating them, and God had not somehow changed his mind. Instead, the old religious laws were a forerunner of what God had in mind all along. And now, in Jesus they are not abolished but fulfilled.
All of that means that if the way to right relationship with God has changed it is not because God has changed any requirements. It means that in Jesus God has fulfilled them, without our need to work.
So, God is consistent, solid, and dependable.
All of this is good news. A life of instability as found in a refugee camp is bad. But even our relatively stable lives are susceptible to chaos, chance, and the bad decisions of ourselves and others. Through it all God stays constant. God’s love, grace, and forgiveness are with us always.
This is excellent news for us. God our creator keeps a solid hold on us whether life goes well or is hard. Ultimately we know that we are saved. Eternal life will certainly be good.
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