The Real Thing
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
For Sundays In Advent, Christmas, And Epiphany
How do you know something is a genuine article, "The Real Thing"? Remember the great experiment that the Coca-Cola Company tried? They decided to replace their historical formula with a new product called Coke. People did not like the new Coke, so a cola civil war began with members of the public lining up behind the new Coke or behind the Coca-Cola Classic. Eventually the classic formula was much preferred and the inferior "copy," Coke, was sent to the scrapheap of cola history. Even the commercials began to trumpet, "It's the real thing!"
Some analysts insist that the Coca-Cola Company created the whole scenario to boost sales of its original Coca-Cola formula. Who knows? Certainly the public felt that it could taste and recognize the real thing.
Today's text is one we moderns can certainly understand. Did Jesus enter heaven once and for all as the real thing to take away our sin? Was once enough to cover everyone?
Wonder why this author had to keep writing about the sacrifice of Jesus being the real thing? The book of Hebrews sometimes reads like an integrity check on Jesus and his followers. One wonders if Christians had not been victimized by collaborative efforts to set traps to catch the hopeful.
As we reflect on this scripture which insists that Jesus was the real thing and only had to sacrifice once, we would do well to remember that heaven has a history. Human beings have thirsted for heaven and even killed for heaven. As Carol and Philip Zaleski have noted, "In every flourishing culture the image of heaven is perpetually renewed."1 Countries change their names and borders. Humans are born, live, and die. But no picture of heaven ever becomes totally obsolete. From poets and painters to philosophers and theologians, heaven and how to get there have always been big business. Most societies have found earth to be hardly bearable without a vision of heaven.
We, like the audience of the author of Hebrews, want to know, "Is Jesus the Real Thing?" Are we destined to die but once and was the sacrifice of Jesus but once a sufficient occurrence to cover everyone?
In all matters of life and death, tragedy and comedy can be woven together. The serious people point out the literalistic formulas relating to scriptural texts about sacrifice and salvation. Jesus doesn't have to keep doing it over and over again. Once is enough for the real thing. Humans only die once. This was probably big news to some religious believers when Hebrews was first written. According to Graeco-Roman traditions, there were various astronomical spheres in heaven, up to as many as ten. A cosmic ladder supposedly joined the earth to heaven, keeping the high god very distant. In that culture, birth itself was seen as a downward journey, a fall, where the soul picked up from each sphere the qualities which marked its character. In like manner, the return journey to heaven at the end of life was viewed as a dangerous and complicated ordeal.2 There were powerful figures at each sub-heaven or level of ascent to block the return. The notion of a human being destined to die but once was good news to those who read or heard the epistle to the Hebrews. Even better news was the message that Jesus covered everything in a once and for all sacrifice. Otherwise, Jesus would be bouncing around like a crazy pinball every time someone died and started moving upward. People took this once and for all sacrifice concept and the single death of humans quite seriously in the early church. Many still do.
On the other hand, perhaps we contemporary Christians do not see enough humor in sacred scripture. Just look at the answers being given and the questions that must lie behind them. The boring routines of the priests, forever entering the same place doing the same old thing, year after year, with blood that isn't even their own are vividly portrayed.
Maybe we are too much like Augustine when we read scripture. Saint Augustine, whose relationship with his mother, Monica, was a little unhealthy, got beatific when envisioning heaven. He described one such vision he and Monica shared. Mother and son leaned against a window at Ostia and looked over a garden. According to Augustine, their conversation grew so filled with love and longing that they began to ascend toward perfect wisdom and then for a brief instant to touch it before returning to the flesh. Is such comrades-in-rapture the communion of the saints to which the sacrifice of the real thing (Jesus) takes us?
Step back for a moment. May not the actual imagery of Hebrews be something more palatable to a humorist like Mark Twain? The images abound: man-made sanctuaries that are copies of the true one; the redundant high priests; blood that is stolen from someplace else; a Christ held hostage to endless sufferings back to the creation of the world; Christ appearing not to bear sin but to bring salvation to those who are waiting. These are the kinds of issues that Mark Twain relished when he wrote about human perceptions of heaven. How do you handle crowd control for billions of spirits assembled not only from earth but also from other worlds? How do you handle the middle-class hedonists who just want golf, sex, and great shopping?
Where do we come out in our thirst for the real thing? In a strange way you and I have become adept at looking at Jesus' sacrifice through other people's windows. The number of books on the shelves about angels are probably exceeded only by the accounts of how to ensure heaven for yourself as a kind of just reward for spirituality. This scripture from Hebrews invites us to cease being religious peeping Toms.
We are all lost. We have historically tried to make whatever culture we are lost in look as much like heaven as we can. In the West our longings have taken shape around the earthly cities of Athens, Jerusalem, Rome, and New York. On the other end of the spectrum have been those of us from more rural cultures. We, perhaps, can resonate with the dead Shoeless Joe Jackson in the movie Field of Dreams. He asks, "Is this heaven?" The living farmer replies, "It's Iowa."
Heavenly literature has generally revolved around topography. Today's scripture does not do that. Frankly, it goes to great lengths to move us away from places and things, even holy places and things. It tries to get us to examine the magnitude of having a heavenly parent who loves you.
Having an earthly father or mother die is a traumatic experience. When both are dead it can be defeating. As long as a parent is alive you are, in Anne Lamott's words, "still the apple of someone's eye."3
When those parents are deceased, there is a certain desolation. No longer having the love of a mother or a father is sad. Regardless of how imperfect and complex these people were, we still call and thirst for those who never can come back.
Here, then, is where the scripture takes over our deepest longings. Jesus is the real thing. Jesus has already pre-cast a sacrifice that ushers us into a place where we are the apple of God's eye. We are the ones who wait. Christ comes to us at the end of our journey, not to sacrifice for our sins. Christ comes to us to bring salvation. That is the real thing. Our sins are not life's eternal realities. Our salvation is the real thing. Despair can be replaced by hope when we can be assured of something we cannot get by any earthly process.
____________
1. Carol Zaleski and Philip Zaleski, eds., The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 3.
2. Ibid., p. 81.
3. Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), p. 225.
Some analysts insist that the Coca-Cola Company created the whole scenario to boost sales of its original Coca-Cola formula. Who knows? Certainly the public felt that it could taste and recognize the real thing.
Today's text is one we moderns can certainly understand. Did Jesus enter heaven once and for all as the real thing to take away our sin? Was once enough to cover everyone?
Wonder why this author had to keep writing about the sacrifice of Jesus being the real thing? The book of Hebrews sometimes reads like an integrity check on Jesus and his followers. One wonders if Christians had not been victimized by collaborative efforts to set traps to catch the hopeful.
As we reflect on this scripture which insists that Jesus was the real thing and only had to sacrifice once, we would do well to remember that heaven has a history. Human beings have thirsted for heaven and even killed for heaven. As Carol and Philip Zaleski have noted, "In every flourishing culture the image of heaven is perpetually renewed."1 Countries change their names and borders. Humans are born, live, and die. But no picture of heaven ever becomes totally obsolete. From poets and painters to philosophers and theologians, heaven and how to get there have always been big business. Most societies have found earth to be hardly bearable without a vision of heaven.
We, like the audience of the author of Hebrews, want to know, "Is Jesus the Real Thing?" Are we destined to die but once and was the sacrifice of Jesus but once a sufficient occurrence to cover everyone?
In all matters of life and death, tragedy and comedy can be woven together. The serious people point out the literalistic formulas relating to scriptural texts about sacrifice and salvation. Jesus doesn't have to keep doing it over and over again. Once is enough for the real thing. Humans only die once. This was probably big news to some religious believers when Hebrews was first written. According to Graeco-Roman traditions, there were various astronomical spheres in heaven, up to as many as ten. A cosmic ladder supposedly joined the earth to heaven, keeping the high god very distant. In that culture, birth itself was seen as a downward journey, a fall, where the soul picked up from each sphere the qualities which marked its character. In like manner, the return journey to heaven at the end of life was viewed as a dangerous and complicated ordeal.2 There were powerful figures at each sub-heaven or level of ascent to block the return. The notion of a human being destined to die but once was good news to those who read or heard the epistle to the Hebrews. Even better news was the message that Jesus covered everything in a once and for all sacrifice. Otherwise, Jesus would be bouncing around like a crazy pinball every time someone died and started moving upward. People took this once and for all sacrifice concept and the single death of humans quite seriously in the early church. Many still do.
On the other hand, perhaps we contemporary Christians do not see enough humor in sacred scripture. Just look at the answers being given and the questions that must lie behind them. The boring routines of the priests, forever entering the same place doing the same old thing, year after year, with blood that isn't even their own are vividly portrayed.
Maybe we are too much like Augustine when we read scripture. Saint Augustine, whose relationship with his mother, Monica, was a little unhealthy, got beatific when envisioning heaven. He described one such vision he and Monica shared. Mother and son leaned against a window at Ostia and looked over a garden. According to Augustine, their conversation grew so filled with love and longing that they began to ascend toward perfect wisdom and then for a brief instant to touch it before returning to the flesh. Is such comrades-in-rapture the communion of the saints to which the sacrifice of the real thing (Jesus) takes us?
Step back for a moment. May not the actual imagery of Hebrews be something more palatable to a humorist like Mark Twain? The images abound: man-made sanctuaries that are copies of the true one; the redundant high priests; blood that is stolen from someplace else; a Christ held hostage to endless sufferings back to the creation of the world; Christ appearing not to bear sin but to bring salvation to those who are waiting. These are the kinds of issues that Mark Twain relished when he wrote about human perceptions of heaven. How do you handle crowd control for billions of spirits assembled not only from earth but also from other worlds? How do you handle the middle-class hedonists who just want golf, sex, and great shopping?
Where do we come out in our thirst for the real thing? In a strange way you and I have become adept at looking at Jesus' sacrifice through other people's windows. The number of books on the shelves about angels are probably exceeded only by the accounts of how to ensure heaven for yourself as a kind of just reward for spirituality. This scripture from Hebrews invites us to cease being religious peeping Toms.
We are all lost. We have historically tried to make whatever culture we are lost in look as much like heaven as we can. In the West our longings have taken shape around the earthly cities of Athens, Jerusalem, Rome, and New York. On the other end of the spectrum have been those of us from more rural cultures. We, perhaps, can resonate with the dead Shoeless Joe Jackson in the movie Field of Dreams. He asks, "Is this heaven?" The living farmer replies, "It's Iowa."
Heavenly literature has generally revolved around topography. Today's scripture does not do that. Frankly, it goes to great lengths to move us away from places and things, even holy places and things. It tries to get us to examine the magnitude of having a heavenly parent who loves you.
Having an earthly father or mother die is a traumatic experience. When both are dead it can be defeating. As long as a parent is alive you are, in Anne Lamott's words, "still the apple of someone's eye."3
When those parents are deceased, there is a certain desolation. No longer having the love of a mother or a father is sad. Regardless of how imperfect and complex these people were, we still call and thirst for those who never can come back.
Here, then, is where the scripture takes over our deepest longings. Jesus is the real thing. Jesus has already pre-cast a sacrifice that ushers us into a place where we are the apple of God's eye. We are the ones who wait. Christ comes to us at the end of our journey, not to sacrifice for our sins. Christ comes to us to bring salvation. That is the real thing. Our sins are not life's eternal realities. Our salvation is the real thing. Despair can be replaced by hope when we can be assured of something we cannot get by any earthly process.
____________
1. Carol Zaleski and Philip Zaleski, eds., The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 3.
2. Ibid., p. 81.
3. Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), p. 225.
