But, we do see Jesus

Lectionary blog for Oct. 7, 2012
19th Sunday after Pentecost
Text: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

“As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus … ”

Almost every Saturday afternoon, I listen to the opera on the public radio station. Don’t be so surprised. I like opera. Not as much as I like Lynyrd Skynyrd or ZZ Top, but I like opera.

Well, OK, I don’t. Not really, but I like the idea of liking opera. Deep down inside, I feel like I ought to like opera, that a well-educated person should like opera, and so — on Saturday afternoons I listen to opera.

This is kind of like the theory my wife used in trying to feed our two sons liver and broccoli.

She thought if she put it in front of them often enough, eventually they would walk in the house one day and say, “Mom, what’s for supper? I could sure go for some liver and broccoli right about now.”

Anyway, I listen to opera in the vague hope that someday, somehow, I’ll start to like it and then I can count myself as a genuinely educated and cultured person. Every once in a great while I find myself kind of liking a piece, nodding my head and humming along and I think, “I’m starting to like this opera stuff after all.”

But then I realized that the opera pieces I like are the ones they used as soundtracks for the Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd cartoons I watched as a child and I’m back to square one. It’s not music appreciation; it’s just nostalgia for my childhood. I’m still listening, and I’m still hoping, but I’m 58. I don’t think this plan is working.

“As it is, we do not see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus … ”

Many people in our world today are seeking spiritual enlightenment. In recent public opinion polls, more people are willing to claim being “spiritual” than are willing to say that they are “religious.” Some people go looking for “spirituality” the way I have gone looking for “culture and sophistication” and with about the same level of success.

People explore the latest prayer techniques and different churches and praise bands and labyrinth walks and Alpha Bible Studies and the Wild Women of the Bible Weekends and Seeking Your Inner Child Men’s Drum Circle Sweat Lodge and I don’t know what all.

And whatever it is they think they’re looking for, if it isn’t where they are, well, it must be over the hill or around the corner or in the next place they look or the next.

“As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus … ”

The author of the book of Hebrews is, in this text, dealing with the fact that while the biblical witness is that God is in charge of the world, when we look around us, it is difficult to see the evidence that God (or God’s angels, “them”) is actually in charge of much of anything.

As one of my unbelieving college professors put it, “If God is really in charge, he, she or it is doing a lousy job.” War, drugs, disease, natural disaster, economic collapse, starvation; need I go on? Does this look like “everything in subjection … ” to God?

And let’s be honest with one another. The church, the place those of us gathered here have traditionally looked for hope and meaning, is in a confused place right now.

In almost all denominational families it is a time of change and uncertainty and discomfort. Arguments about sexuality and theology and worship and decline fill all our churches. It is a time when people are searching for what a prayer in the Lutheran Funeral Service calls a “sure and certain hope.”

The little word “yet” is vital to understanding not only this text but also the promise of the gospel to us at times like these. “As it is, we do not yet see … ” As much as we yearn for and look for and, yes, do battle for certainty and security, the Bible constantly reminds us of what Luther referred to as the “hiddenness of God.” It is sometimes referred to as the “already-but-not-yet” kingdom of God.

As we look around the world for God, God is often difficult to see, difficult to pin down. And sometimes, just when we think we have the holy in our hands, it slips away as we realize we were mistaken, as I was when I thought I liked opera but it turned out to be cartoons I liked.

The author of Hebrews reminds us that we are to look to Jesus to see what God is doing in the world. We are to look particularly at the fact that Jesus gave up his place at the right hand of God to become human like us. “Who for a little while became lower than the angels,” the text says. And that as a result of this coming into humanity with us, Jesus suffered and died and “tasted death for everyone.”

“… we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus … ” is the promise that in Jesus all we hope for and all we need is present.

In the community of faith we see Jesus in the midst of a world where God is often hard to find. We hear Christ’s voice in the readings and hymns and songs and liturgies and sermons. We see our Lord’s face in the faces around us; we feel the divine touch in the touch of another’s hand at the passing of the peace. Most of all we see and feel and receive Christ in the meal, in the bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus. “We do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus … ”

And we are called to go out into the world and help it to see and hear and feel Jesus too. There is a post-communion prayer from the United Methodist service of Holy Communion that goes something like this, “Just as this bread and cup have been Christ for us, send us out to be Christ for the world.”

Amen and amen

Talkback:

• Can you think of a time when you “saw” Jesus?
  
• Name some ways that you can be “Christ for the world.”

Delmer Chilton is originally from North Carolina and received his education at the University of North Carolina, Duke Divinity School and the Graduate Theological Foundation. He received his Lutheran training at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C. Ordained in 1977, Delmer has served parishes in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee.

You might also want to read:
When Jesus shows up unexpectedly
Finding Jesus in a post-modern world
Loving like Jesus