The Unfinished Story

The unfinished story

Luke 12:49-59; Hebrews 11:29-12.2

Christianity, they say, is an unfinished story.   We hear of God’s work in the past and we catch glimpses of the future, but the action is still playing out, the characters are still developing, the story still unfolding.  In that story all of us have vital parts to play, roles which will not alter the central plot lines but which still matter in this great cosmic drama.   God calls all of us onto the stage and into the action, inviting us to share in the joy and the glory of God’s great production.   And of all the books in the Bible, it is perhaps the letter to the Hebrews that emphasizes this theme most strongly; for the letter is both a statement of Christ’s great and saving work, and a summons for us too to participate in the ongoing drama which is our redemption.

            For our author (whoever they may be), is writing for a community anxious about its place in sacred history, wondering just where we have got to in the story of God’s people, what the next scenes might look like.    It is a community whose whole identity is shaped by that story so far, whose reference points are the great heroes of the Hebrew Bible and whose religious practices are those of the Jewish Temple.   In the gospel they have sensed the climax of that story, the fulfilling of the law in the life of Jesus, and for much of the letter the author is helping them work this through.  He tells them that though God once spoke through the prophets and was worshipped through regular sacrifice, now we have Jesus the true Word of God, the mediator of the eternal covenant, the high priest whose sacrifice redeems us once and for all.  But the very perfection of Christ’s acts, their eternal significance, left the community puzzled.  What do you do when everything has already been done?

And our author recognises the force of this challenge, a fear that the power and glory of the gospel might overshadow all other human history, might cast it all aside into pale insignificance.   Set against the divine life of Jesus, even the greatest earthly figures could lose their lustre, their acts and struggles at best a faint reflection of true virtue and courage.  But this, says our author, would be to mistake the real nature of our heroes, whose worth is not in doubt and whose deeds are not in competition with each other, or with Christ.  Instead, it was their very faith in God that led them to such heroism.  The courage and wisdom of Rahab and Gideon and David and all those ancient saints flowed from their faith in a God who was with them and who redeemed them, in a covenant uniting God and humanity in freedom and grace.  That faith did not diminish the value and importance of their lives, of their bravery and commitment – indeed, it drew them into struggles and victories greater than they could possibly imagine.

But now their baton passes to us, and we must take our place alongside them, among this great cloud of witnesses.  We too must allow that same spirit to direct and sustain us, looking to them and now to Jesus, the ‘pioneer and perfector’ of our faith, in whom all people are reconciled to God and to each other. 

For us the challenges and anxieties will be different, not the fear of wild animals or the threat of violent persecution, perhaps now the more everyday temptations to selfishness or indifference, or maybe just to doubt whether any of it really matters in our tough and complex world.  But for us too, Hebrews is a letter of encouragement, because however insignificant and powerless we may feel, however mundane our own lives may seem, we too are part of this great story.  And we too can share in the faith and the joy of all God’s people, through the eternal covenant of steadfast love made ours in Jesus Christ.

If we wonder what that means for us, though, then Jesus’s words in Luke’s gospel may give us pause.  In some of the most striking and alarming verses in the New Testament, Jesus casts his mission in terms not of peace but of division and conflict, of families at odds with each other and kinship groups broken apart.  This, he tells his disciples, is the harsh reality they will face when there is opposition to the breaking in of the Kingdom of God, to the transformation that God is bringing about.  Yet those words of fire and fracture are not the end of the chapter, and Jesus has not finished speaking to those who are gathered around him.  Immediately he turns to the crowd, the interested listeners who have flocked to hear his message, who sense the coming kingdom on the horizon, a cosmic event like heat and storms.   They are expectant, they know Jesus matters, but they cannot quite see how, or if this celestial event might mean anything for their own lives.  They are wondering if God has a role for them in this drama, or should they merely step back and watch?

Jesus’s message to the crowds is clear and urgent – addressed to each and every one of them.  Try to be reconciled, he says. Settle your differences as much as you can, reach out to each other in love and friendship.   God is drawing all people together, inviting all to share in God’s salvation and liberation, and in response we are now freed to make peace, even with those who have hurt and upset us.  This is not an excuse to yield to injustice, or to overlook oppression; the peace we must seek is God’s own peace, a peace whose cost and division Jesus will experience so completely.  We too must accept the rejection and even division that will sometimes follow when God’s peace is made known in the world.   Yet we must not give up, for we know that however tiny our own efforts may be, they are made part of God’s own reconciliation of all things in Christ, a reconciliation achieved for all time through the cross and resurrection, through the eternal covenant sealed by Christ.   And in that covenant we too are united together, in the life and love of the Holy Trinity. 

For though the covenant is eternal, the drama is still unfolding, the story still unfinished.  Each of us has a part to play with which is unique and irreplaceable, all members of God’s people held together in love.  Gathered here in this Church, we join together once more in the great story of our salvation.  As we come to the eucharist, as we share in the bread and wine which are for us the body and blood of Christ, we too are drawn into God’s reconciliation of all things, which is ours through Christ.  And we are nourished and strengthened to live out that reconciliation, in faith and hope and love.