August 22, 2004
By Jack Price

The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews was written to Jewish followers of The Way.  For them, Christianity was not a new religion, but a new sect of Judaism.  The writer of Hebrews speaks to a Jewish faith understanding.  It also includes powerful images for Christians – “come boldly before throne of grace,” “faith is substance of things hope for; evidence of things not seen,” “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” and “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  The passage from Hebrews that serves as a basic for this sermon also  reflects Jewish tradition.

The writer emphasizes that faith in Jesus is not faith in something that can be touched.  It is not like the Ark of the Covenant or the Ten Commandments contained in the ark.  It is not like the holy mountain where Moses met God and not even in a human Jesus.

            True faith cannot be contained.  It is beyond any descriptions, even mysterious and terrifying ones.  Faith is in a living God.  And there are many descriptions, cosmic and awesome, of such faith. 

Jesus was God revealed in human life.  The risen Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, infinitely superior to the old covenant.  The truth of Jesus cannot be shaken.  It is an eternal truth, superior to temporal truth.  The bottom line of this passage is the recognition of how amazing are God and Jesus.

This summer, at Crossroads’ Church Camp, I had the opportunity to transport three women of our congregation up the mountain for a day-long hike down.  The hike was to go through several ecological areas of land, including fragile tundra.  When I inquired about how they would traverse the tundra, I was told that it is important to stay on the trails where possible.  When there was no trail, it was important to step on rocks.  When you accidentally overturn a rock, it was important to return it to its original place.  And, finally, watch out for the muck and mire!

This image really applies to theological exploration.  The New Testament writers were constantly seeking images to explain and illuminate the mysterious, and to communicate their experience of the numinous.  They often returned to the Hebrew scriptures and used Jewish images as starting places.

Walking a path through tundra land is a powerful image for theological understanding.  Being on the path is like walking faithfully within the tradition.  We follow the path of basic truth even while being open to the deeper and larger truth around us. 

Author GK Chesterton offers another image of the life of faith.  He compares it to driving a speeding chariot down a  winding mountain road.  One is constantly shifting right and left just to stay on road and not crash.  Our understanding of God tends to shift slight -- a little left, a little right – as our self-understanding grows and as circumstances change, as we mature and as life challenges us.

Both images are true for how we do theology, especially around our understanding of Jesus.  Our very name as Christians recognizes the centrality of Jesus, but what does that mean?  Is there a deeper understanding?  Is it okay to question?

There is an old gospel song:  “On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.”  The traditional formulation of Christian faith is “Jesus died to save us from our sins.”  Even to consider moving away from the traditional formulation can feel like wandering off the Christian path.  It can feel like moving onto shifting ground, sinking sand, and very shaky territory.

This summer, I have been doing a sermon series called “By Request,” because the congregation requested the themes for the series.  Today’s “By Request” theme is this idea of salvation and the consideration of a non-traditional view of what Jesus did.  As we follow this path, it is like walking through tundra, on fragile ground. 

As we follow this path, remember that faith is not in ideas about Jesus, but in the person of Jesus himself.  Faith is in the reality of the living Christ presence.  This presence is mediated through personal prayer and personal experience.  It is also mediated through the community of faith.

The truest foundational footing is staying on this path by seeking to know the living Christ more deeply, even though it can  feel like stepping off a familiar road and a traditional path onto shaky ground.  Remember to step on the rocks.  Christ himself is our firm footing.  Christ becomes our solid rock.

            How are we to understand faith in Jesus?  The New Testament offers several different ways of understanding who Jesus was, what Jesus did, and who Jesus is.  Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, suggests that there are two paradigms, ways of understanding, in practice among Christians today. 

            What Borg calls the “existing paradigm” reflects a more traditional and orthodox perspective.  In this view, the distinction between a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus is blurred.  There is an emphasis on Jesus’ identity as the “Son of God,” and “light of the world.”  The key part of this view is a belief that he knew and taught this understanding about himself.  Jesus saw the “saving significance of his death as the purpose of his life; he died for our sins.”  This view also generally accepts a Virgin birth, a physical bodily resurrection, Jesus as exclusive way of salvation, and Christianity as “the only true religion”.

            For many, this exiting paradigm fits well.  The problem is that such a view is “not persuasive” for many people within the Christian church.  Many others have left church in search of meaningful faith.  The existing paradigm is okay if it works for you, but what if this is a barrier to your faith and your practice of Christianity?

            An emerging paradigm is also present within Christianity.  This is a more non-traditional view.  It is a minority voice that has been present within the Church throughout the centuries.  This view recognizes a clear distinction between a “pre-Easter” and a “post-Easter” Jesus.

            The pre-Easter Jesus was completely human.  He was born, lived, ministered and healed, was executed, and is dead.  According to Borg, if he were not fully human, Jesus ceases to be a credible human being at all.  Most reputable scholars do not see in Jesus an awareness that his death was the primary purpose of his life.  It was rather the totality of his life – the healing, the teaching, including his death -- that mattered.  His death, in fact, was a natural consequence of his actions and words that presented a challenge to authority.

            The post-Easter Jesus was “what Jesus became after his death.”  This is the Christian experience and tradition.  This is the Jesus of abiding presence and Holy Spirit.  Jesus dying for the sin of the world is a post-Easter interpretation by the early church.  This interpretation became the orthodox standard of the Medieval Roman church for reasons that were a combination of spiritual and political.

            Borg suggests that there are five New Testament understandings of the cross.  There a political understanding.  According to this view, Jesus challenged the systemic evil, calling it a perversion of genuine religious practice, and the religious-political powers killed him. 

            There is the understanding that Jesus, through the cross “defeated the powers.”  In this view, the rulers of the darkness of this world executed Jesus.  In this act, they seemed to have defeated him, but God reversed their action.  God turned death into newness of life.

            There is the understanding that, in his death, Jesus provided a revelation of ”the way.”  Jesus’ commitment revealed the necessary commitment to the “way” of life in God.  That way seems inevitably to go through the cross, and through our crosses.

            There is the understanding that Jesus, in death, brought a revelation of the depth of God’s love.  There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  God’s love filled Jesus and revealed that love to us.

            There is the understanding of Jesus’ death as sacrificial.  This view comes close to the traditional understanding, but with a twist.  This is the view that Jesus brings an end to the sacrificial system.  He is not a substitute sacrifice, but the end of the need for any sacrifice to earn forgiveness.  Grace comes first and frees us from the need to offer sacrifices.  Ironically, within a few hundred years of his death, the church founded in Jesus’ name returned to a sacrificial system:  requiring confession, absolution, and proper belief in order to be saved.

            As we walk the windy road, and sometimes blaze the trail, of faithful discipleship, spiritual growth, and theological exploration, it is vital for us to step on solid rock.  Faith is in the living God, the mysterious and abiding Christ, and the   Holy Spirit.  Each understanding we have reveals a part of who God is.  Jesus’ life revealed as much of God as could be expressed in human life. 

Another image might help.  Niagra Falls is awe inspiring and mighty.  At the same time, it is not practical if you need a drink of water.  Behind the visitors center is a water fountain.  Both the fountain and the falls are conduits for water.  The falls reveal might and power and a cosmic awesomeness of the truth we call God.  It can nourish our minds with wonder and our hearts with excitement.  But we need the water fountain to nourish our bodies and enable them to grow.

            Now, here are two more images.  One is             a familiar story and the other a poem.  Some version of this story is probably familiar to many of you.  There was a traveling circus with an elephant.  It so happens that the elephant was stabled near one town where no elephant had ever been seen before.  Four curious citizens, anxious to see an elephant for the first time, sneak into the stable in the middle of night, in the dark.  Here is what they discovered by their touch, and how they each described an elephant to their town.  “The creature resembles a hosepipe (trunk).”  “The creature is like a fan (ear).”  The creature is a living pillar (leg).”  The creature is like broad throne (back).”  No description formed the complete picture.  Not even the composite description did.  They could only describe the part they felt, the part with which they had come into contact.  Their descriptions, also, were only in terms of things with which they were already familiar.  This is exactly how we do theology.

            This poem (slightly edited), by Edwina Gateley, is titled I Hear a Seed Growing:

                                    Ah, I am God because I am free

                                    And all those who would be free will find me

                                    Roaming, wandering, singing.

                                    Come, walk with me – come dance with me!

                                    I created you to sing – to dance, to love….                    

                                    If you cannot sing, nor dance, nor love,

                                    Because they put you in a box,

                                    Know that your God broke free and ran away

So send your spirit, then, to dance with her.

Dance, sing with the God

Whom no one can tame or chain.

Dance, beloved, Ah, “Dance”!

            God is more story than formula.  Let our theology be more poetry than prose.  Let our living be singing, dancing, and loving.  This is the most solid ground because it is the ground of all our being.  Join me and let our lives be lived singing, dancing, and loving in Christ.  For Jesus is our rock and, on Christ the solid rock, we stand.