Proper 24, Year B (BCP) Sermon

[Hebrews 4:12-13]

Proper 24 Year B (BCP) Sermon
St. Matthew’s, Mexico, Missouri
10-22-06

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Did any of you here see the movie “Saved” that came out a few years ago? [Pause] “Saved” was in theatres about five years ago, just as I was beginning seminary. It’s about a handful of students at an Evangelical high school, and gently pokes fun at the kind of trouble we get into when we think we know exactly what God wants us to do with our lives—that is, when we think we have pinned down exactly the word of God.

There’s this one great scene where a group of popular girls—(and at this Christian school, most “popular” also means most “blessed”)—decides that their friend Malone is acting so out of line that she must be possessed by a demon. In an operation that would have done the A Team or Charlie’s Angels proud, they whisk their her away into a moving van. They then attempt to perform an impromptu exorcism on her. Well, she struggles her way out of the vehicle and stalks off, accusing them of having no idea what Jesus is like. Infuriated, the ringleader of the popular girls hurls her Bible at Malone’s back, screaming, “I am FILLED with Christ’s love!” Malone picks up Bible and waves it at the other girl, and yells, “This isn’t a weapon!”

In today’s epistle reading from Hebrews, we read, “The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” But the author is quick to explain that the Word is not like a sword in that we can use it as a weapon, to attack others: it is like a sword for its ability to penetrate our own hearts, to cut us to the very quick. To quote: “The word of God is sharper than any two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

As we read and hear the Bible, we encounter the Word of God which is “active and lively,” which is “sharper than any two-edged sword.” Who hasn’t felt the sharpness, the sting, of the challenges we encounter in the Bible? The Word of God is hard and difficult at times.

Sometimes it seems to be asking more than we think we can give. For instance, last week’s Gospel reading challenged the rich young man—and implicitly, us—to leave our “many possessions” to better follow Christ. We are tempted to ask, as the disciples did, “Then who can be saved?” We're not sure we can do it. The Word of God seems to penetrate us like a scalpel, cutting “joints from marrow,” asking us to cut off the “spiritual fat” from our bodies:
to slice off our sins,
our wealth,
whatever may be keeping us from following Christ.

At other times, the Word of God seems sharp in a different way. We are confused and perplexed by seeming inconsistencies. Am I to leave house and family, to give away all my possessions to the poor, as last week’s Gospel seems to suggest? What about the passage in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus condemns the Pharisees for allowing children to give all their money to the Temple, thus forgetting the support they owe their parents? Or, should we “hold all things in common,” practicing the sort of primitive communism or communal sharing that the early Church practiced in Acts? The Word of God seems to be prompting us to do something about our wealth, but the Word of God doesn’t seem to hold still. It is lively and active, slippery, almost. It writhes and moves and shifts under our very grasp. Like a double edged sword, we try to grasp it only to find that we have grabbed the blade. Facing the fact of not always knowing exactly what God wants of us in every situation, we can understand what the author of Hebrews says: “The Word pierces until it divides soul from spirit.” We are divided within ourselves, hesitant, unsure.

I cannot deny the claim that the Word has upon me, but I cannot pin it down. It is larger than me. I encounter this Word in scripture and stand convicted before it. To put it one way: the Word judges me, I don’t judge the Word. I can only do my best to puzzle through the wonderful challenges that I encounter there, the living God who will not be pinned down by definitions or be put into a box. Each of us must work through our salvation in fear and trembling. As we do, God’s Word enters our conscience and weighs our efforts. As the letter to the Hebrew puts it: “It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

I am continually amazed at how, if I read scripture faithfully every day, God’s word seems to challenge and speak to me personally. Through this collection of writings set down half a world away and thousands of years ago, God’s Word speaks freshly.

Thank God for the liveliness,
the freshness,
the unpredictability,
the surprise of the Word of God!
Thank God that his Word is so active and uncontrollable that it can speak anew in each new place.

But, if all this is true, we'd better be careful about thinking we’ve got it all figured out, that we having the Bible definitively interpreted for all time. God’s Word is too slippery and awesome a thing for that. It is still speaking in new ways, right now, to each one of us in different ways, to our sisters and brothers in the pews around us, to believers in our own country and to believers in cultures very different from ours.

So this passage warns us from thinking we’ve got the Word so pinned down that we can use it as a weapon against someone else. If I think I have the Scripture so figured out that I can use it to attack my fellow believer, I am probably not listening to the Word at all, but to my own idea of it—to a Bible-shaped idol.

Remember, we are not told to judge each other in this passage: quite the opposite. We read: “Before the Word no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” I am told to concentrate more on the account I will have to make before God, to live as best I can according to my conscience and my understanding-- which that Word can see right through. I cannot know, unless we talk about it, the unique challenges and promptings that the Word has whispered in your heart. I cannot know, unless you tell me, how you are struggling to be accountable to God, how you are trying to be faithful to the Bible.

But I know one thing:
This [hold up Bible] is not a weapon.