Getting The Last Word--October 28, 2021

Getting The Last Word--October 28, 2021

"So we can say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?'" [Hebrews 13:6]

There are two ways to hear this verse. One is a cheap and shallow willful misunderstanding that pretends God has promised to make us bulletproof. The other is the honest, open-eyed confidence that trusts God always has an ace up the divine sleeve to play, even after death has done its worst.

The trouble is, we have a way of opting for the cheap and shallow, even when we know better. 

The writer of Hebrews certain knows better.  He's under no illusions that faith in God will spare you from difficulty or defeat.  We've already listened as he has retold the family stories of the household of God, and it's been full of hardship and hostility, from Abel being murdered by his brother to prophets run out of town to Jesus himself, lynched on a cross with the approval of the religious and political establishment.  The writer of Hebrews has reminded us that torture, imprisonment, or death are all very real possibilities for the followers of a crucified Lord. So today's verse is clearly not telling us that nothing bad can happen for people who believe in God.  As tempting as it is to tell ourselves that, that's just a deliberate misreading of the whole thrust of the Scriptures.

While we're at it, that also means we don't get to claim that bad things would stop happening--in our families, our communities, or our country--if we would only "take things back for God."  Claiming you believe in God is not a recipe for avoiding trouble--if anything, it's just the opposite (if, indeed, Jesus is being truthful when he says his followers will have to take up their cross and follow him--and I believe he is). So let's dispense once and for all with the damnably bad-faith theological malpractice that says, "If Christians would only rise up and take [back] this country in the name of God, then the economy would get better, violence would stop, the pandemic malaise would go away, and natural disasters would all stop." That's not what it means to claim, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid."  That ain't how it works, and it never has been.

All right, so then... what does it mean to say, "What can anyone do to me?" as the psalm being quoted here in Hebrews says?  If God hasn't made us bulletproof... if being a Christian does not mean I won't get COVID (although a vaccine sure would help your chances)... if faith doesn't mean I can drive recklessly and never get in an accident... if going to church doesn't decrease the likelihood of hurricanes or tornadoes... then what does this verse mean?

I think it has a great deal to do with our God's way of bringing us through trouble, rather than "beaming us up" out of it, a la Star Trek.  God's promised presence is as the One who accompanies us through the valley of the shadow of death while we are going through it, not as some blanket guarantee we'll never have to step foot there.  Ours is a faith story of resurrection that has come through death, rather than of never having to die. The promise here in Hebrews then is not that God will never let anything bad happen to us or to those we love--but rather that God will never let the tragedies of life get the final say.  God insists on there being another word to be spoken, another verse to the song, another chapter to the story.  Like the beautiful line of the Ray Makeever's hymn goes, "Death be now, but never last." That's the way this promise works.  

To affirm, with the writer of Hebrews, "The Lord is my helper, what can anyone do to me?" is to say, "After even death has done its worst, God reserves the right to call me back to life."  It is to sing, along with our older brother in the faith Martin Luther, "Though hordes of devils fill the land, all threat'ning to devour us, we tremble not, unmoved we stand--they cannot overpower us."  They will rage, but God will not let the powers of evil get the last word.  They will threaten, but God will not be intimidated.  They will do as much damage as they can to all of God's good world... but God is committed to mending the universe and transforming its broken places into something beautiful as well, like a master kintsugi artist repairing a porcelain vessel with gold in the cracks.

Today, we can have the courage to admit that tragedies happen, and they happen to people of deep faith as well as to people of no faith.  We don't have to pretend some invulnerability is a selling point of our faith--it's not.  Instead, we can hold onto the way God's promise to get the last word can make us brave--brave enough to tell the truth about the pains and troubles we face in this life, brave enough to share the sufferings of others, and brave enough to keep holding on until God speaks the new word that comes after death does its worst.

Today, we can face honestly whatever rotten things come our way, because we trust that God still gets the last word.

Lord God, make us brave enough to love others and share their heartaches as we trust your commitment to being our helper, now and always.