Hebrews 4:12-16
One of the beautiful things about our holy text is the variety of names for God, the diversity of metaphors for our relationship with the Divine. Some of us can relate to God as father and some cannot. That’s one of the reasons we use inclusive language. Some of us find the Good Shepherd image comforting, and others of us rebel at the implication that we are sheep. God is so much bigger than our language that we need lots of different options to even begin to describe the Divine.
The same is true for our language about the word of God. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Thy words are sweeter than honey. The word of God is compared to silver and rain and fire. And it also is called a sword. In the book of Ephesians we are encouraged to put on the whole armor of God, which includes “the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.” I am not comfortable with this image. Because of my pacifistic tendencies, putting on the accoutrements of war does not appeal to me. More importantly, I have experienced the Bible used as a weapon against me, and I know that some of you have, too. So I typically ignore this metaphor.
But there are two reasons why I have to take a closer look at today’s scripture and its use of the sword imagery. First, when the Bible talks about “the word of God” or “the word of the Lord,” most often it is not referring to itself. The Word of God does not mean just the Bible or the scriptures. The word of God is any type of Divine self-revelation, any way that we hear God speak. Second, this use of the sword is not as a weapon against other people. This passage is speaking of the sword being used to cut us to the bone. Now, I realize that may not seem much better, but stay with me.
In the United Church of Christ we typically think of the Bible not as a rulebook, but as a guidebook – not a list of dos and don’ts and the punishments if you disobey, but a guidebook that will help us on the journey, tell us where to find rest and nourishment, tell us about others who got lost and found their way.
Another way to look at it is that we consider the Bible not a monologue but a dialogue. We bring our own thoughts and experiences and stories to the conversation. This is not to say that our word trumps God’s word, or that we can simply walk away if we disagree. We are in covenantal relationship with the Bible, which means that we are connected and bonded together even when we struggle, just like a family member or close friend that we love even when we disagree.
There are certain people who we allow to have authority in our lives, people we choose to give power to because we trust them. Not our bosses or people with power of over us, but people we trust to have an authoritative voice in our lives. They are the only ones who can call us on our nonsense. If an acquaintance were to comment on whether it was appropriate for me to have a glass of wine or a martini at dinner, I would be offended and possibly angry. What gives them the right to say anything about it? But if someone I love and trust says to me, “Cindy, I’m worried about your drinking. You’ve been drinking more than usual, and I’m concerned about what’s going on.” If those words came from someone I love and trust, someone to whom I have given authority, then I have to listen.
A similar thing happened in my early years of ministry. I was working too many hours, and I had no balance in my life. I had a bad habit of taking only half days off. A friend asked me when was the last time I had taken a full day off. I looked at my calendar, and it had been two months …
and that was for a colonoscopy. First she reminded me that a colonoscopy is not a day off. And then she told me that it was irresponsible to run myself that ragged, because then I might not have enough reserve if a crisis arose. She told me I was on the verge of ministerial malpractice. That hurt. Because it was the truth.
As Christians, this is our relationship with the Bible—we give it authority as our sacred text. So when it says something to us that is painful, we have to consider whether it is painful because it is true. This is how I interpret the sword image in our passage. The word of God—not just the Bible, but the revelation of God—can sometimes cut us to the bone with the power of its truth. But it is a cut that heals. It is a scalpel, revealing and excising the damaged or diseased parts of us.
One of my commentaries has this to say about the Bible: “One can almost feel the words of Scripture slicing into our hearts—that sword of the Word—that weapon of grace that penetrates to the very marrow of our being. Which one of us [preachers], when [studying] a text during sermon preparation, has not been convicted by the very word we are studying—a word confronting us with our own weakness, our own deception, our own pride? Which one of us has not had to set aside a particular lectionary text, knowing that we cannot, with integrity, preach a text we are [apparently] incapable of practicing?”[1] That’s the kind of sword I’m talking about. As a preacher, I often find myself at the sharp end of those pointy and painful texts, which means I have an “advantage” that you don’t. It may be a little easier for you to avoid the scalpel, if you’re not studying scripture every week. But my word choice was intentional: I often find myself when I confront those painful texts. Of course, as I said earlier, the word of God is not limited to scripture. The word of God may come to you from that friend who you have given authority. The word of God may come to you from a post on Facebook about racism. The word of God may come to you when you catch yourself about to say something really hateful. The word of God can be a sword, a scalpel, that cuts us to the bone.
Our scripture goes on to tell us that “We have a great high priest … Jesus, the Son of God.” This high priest is able to sympathize with our weakness because he knows what it means to be human. This high priest is able to understand our failures because he, too, was tempted. “Whatever weakness, whatever secret sin of the heart, whatever lack of trust the word expose[s], Jesus, too, has faced.”[2] So we can find comfort in knowing that Jesus, our high priest, was human, like us.
Personally, there’s something else I find comfort in, when I have been pierced by the sword of truth. I find comfort because the scalpel of truth opens us, reveals the truth of us, to ourselves—our eyes see what God has already seen. And God’s eyes are loving eyes.
Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-woman a cappella African American ensemble. They sing a beautiful song called “No Mirrors in My Nana’s House.”
There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house.
There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house.
And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
I never knew that my skin was too black. I never knew that my nose was too flat.
I never knew that my clothes didn’t fit. I never knew there were things that I’d missed,
cause the beauty in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun);
…was in her eyes.
There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house.
And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
I was intrigued by the cracks in the walls. I tasted, with joy, the dust that would fall.
The noise in the hallway was music to me. The trash and the rubbish just cushioned my feet.
And the beauty in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
…was in her eyes.
There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house.
And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
The world outside was a magical place. I only knew love. I never knew hate,
and the beauty in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
…was in her eyes.
There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house.
And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
“Chil’, look deep into my eyes.” “Chil’, look deep into my eyes.”
“Chil’, look deep…”
Child, look deep into my eyes. The eyes of love, the eyes of God … These are eyes that see all, and judge us not by our failures but our tries. These are eyes that see all and love us all the more for our humanity, for that is the way our Creator made us. There is nothing more wonderful than to have someone who sees you completely, with all your faults and failures and addictions and stupidities, and loves you completely and unconditionally . . . not overlooking your faults, but seeing you through them.
Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness. Approach God with boldness. Not hesitantly out of fear. Not timidly out of shame. Approach God with boldness because you are God’s beloved.
Last month there was a wonderful conference in Minneapolis that I wish I had attended. The speakers were some of the top women in Christian ministry circles—not the well-known theologians and the world-renowned preachers, but the writers and the pastors and the trouble-makers in their thirties and forties. One of my favorite pictures from the event is Rachel Held Evans, a thirty-something writer looking like a stereotypical church person in her sheath dress and sweater, next to Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor known for her use of profanity in a tight sleeveless clergy shirt to show off her full sleeve tattoos. It was that kind of conference.
The theme was “Why Christian?” “Why—with all the atrocities past and present committed in God’s name, amidst all the hostile divisions ripping apart Christ’s Church, in spite of all our own doubts and frustrations and fears about faith—are we still Christian? Why do we still have skin in the game?”[3]
Here were the answers from a wide variety of speakers:
“I am a Christian because the good news is good news for all.”
“I am a Christian because of Scripture, because … I love being caught up in a sweeping story in which I am not the central character … because I have found that some of the texts that are the most terrifying turn into the ones that are most comforting and truthful, particularly to those on the margins.”
“I am a Christian because this is an embodied religion. I am a Christian because having a body wasn’t always good news for me, but then I met Good News that had a body. In Jesus I met a God who spits and kisses, who yells and cries. I am a messy and embodied person and this is a messy and embodied faith.”[4]
As for me, I am a Christian because I believe in a God who sees me, who sees all the weaknesses I try so hard to hide, who sees all the bad choices I have made over the years, and still says, “My beloved child, be bold! Be bold in your faith and in your doubt. Be bold in your love and your forgiveness. Be bold in your knowledge that you can’t mess up big enough to change my love. Be bold.”
[1] Andrews, Susan R. “Pastoral Perspective” Feasting on the Word Year B, Volume 4, p. 158.
[2] Peeler, Amy L.B. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2653
[3] Rachel Held Evans. “On Giving Testimony: Why ‘Why Christian?’ Worked.”
[4] Ibid.