Sermons

Sun, Oct 03, 2021

A perfect(ed) image of God

Series:Sermons
Duration:12 mins 48 secs

A lifetime ago now…

back when I was working as a veterinarian…

there was a whiteboard in the consultation room that I used…

and hardly a consult concluded without that board being filled with diagrams and explanations.

Whether it was trying to explain the life-cycle of fleas…

and why simply putting a flea collar on wasn’t enough…

or trying to explain how a broken leg would be repaired surgically…

I prided myself on my ability to communicate with my clients.

And, given that the practice was in a low socio-economic area…

and many of the people who brought in their pets were not particularly educated…

being able to explain things simply and accurately…

was crucial.

And I thought that I was particularly good at it––

certainly better than my other colleagues.

One day, a woman with two small children brought in her cat.

It had a large lump on its forehead…

which was causing one of its eyes to close over.

Instantly, I knew what was wrong. 

So, I started to explain:

her cat had clearly been in a fight…

which had caused this abscess;

what we needed to do was to knock it out briefly…

cut open the lump and flush all the goo out…

put in a bit of tubing to let it drain…

which, I would remove in a couple of days;

and, in about a week…

the cat would be back to normal.

The woman seemed happy enough and left the cat with me. 

About half an hour later…

one of the nurses mentioned to me, during a break between consults…

that the “cat-fight-abscess-woman” had rung back a little confused.

She wanted to know if an abscess was a form of cancer.

So much for my clear communication!

But it taught me a valuable lesson…

one that I carried with me into my theological studies…

my research and teaching…

and my preaching.

What I mean when I say something…

and what you hear me say…

are not necessarily the same.

Our background, learning, and life experience shape what we say…

and what we hear;

and they can influence the meanings that we bring to words.

 

In our reading this morning from the book known as “Hebrews”––

which was a sermon, rather than a letter…

and written in the second half of the first century…

by an anonymous Hebrew-Christian…

who was steeped in Greek Philosophy––

here, we’re confronted with the problem of language and imported meaning.

Much of our reading this morning is trying to explain who Jesus was…

and what he did.

And it does so with very carefully nuanced language.

Indeed, much of its vocabulary is unique to the New Testament.

But the problem is, many of the terms that our author uses became crucial centuries later…

when theologians began debating such matters…

and condemning their opponents for heresies––

condemnations that still stand today.

On the one hand, our author seems to present an image of a pre-existent Christ.

And yet, the language and imagery that he uses––

drawing on aspects of Plato’s thought…

as other Greek-leaning Hebrews appropriated it––

is much more nuanced.

What he regards as pre-existent is the Wisdom of God…

that is to say…

that God’s logic, God’s wisdom, was somehow personified…

as a sort-of separate ‘being’.

This Wisdom–– 

our author suggests–– 

was incarnated…

in the sense that God’s Wisdom spoke through the person of Jesus.

 

And, when our author speaks of Jesus as sharing the “very being” of God––

again, using a word that would later take on quite specific metaphysical ideas in later centuries––

he was trying to say…

simply…

that Jesus shared the same essence as God.

That is, that he shared God’s nature in the way that he existed…

and in what he did…

rather than that he was made of the same “substance” as God.

 

And our author also suggests…

in a number of places here…

that Jesus, in some sense, became God’s son.

That language…

and the implied sense of becoming––

which would later be known as “adoptionism”…

namely, that at some point after his ordinary birth…

the human being, Jesus, was adopted by God…

and became divine––

that was condemned as heretical in the fourth century.

So, many theologians struggle with the language in our reading this morning…

because they’re importing later meanings.

But our author doesn’t think in those categories.

His focus, here, is not on the substance of Jesus…

or God…

but on their activity.

In a functional sense, God’s Wisdom existed from eternity…

and it was incarnated in the person of Jesus…

in the sense that people experienced God’s wisdom…

God’s thinking…

God’s essence…

and God’s being…

through this person, Jesus… 

and, specifically…

through what he did.

His manner of being…

his interaction with people…

the things that he stood for…

the things that he did…

made God manifest, in a way…

and to an extent… 

that they had never been manifest before.

But, our author wants to affirm that Jesus was fully, truly human.

That means that he grew…

he changed…

he matured.

Over his life, he became or he grew into who he was as God’s son.

In a sense, through his life of obedience…

he became more fully who he always was.

 

And then we come to the really crucial bit of our reading:

“It was fitting that God…in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings”.

The whole point of God’s manifestation of God’s essence…

God’s nature…

in Jesus… 

was to bring God’s people “to glory”…

that is, to share in God’s honour…

and in God’s just rule over all things.

That, he suggests, is the destiny for all of God’s children…

“who…all have one Father”.

According to the author, Jesus has a unique role to play…

but not a unique end.

He was…

or he is…

the “pioneer of their salvation”

that is, he was a trailblazer––

the one who shows the path to follow.

Jesus shows us who we are meant to be as children of God.

And, according to the author, he does so “through sufferings”. 

Indeed, it is through his sufferings that Jesus is made “perfect”

or, literally, “mature”.

In other words, it is through his suffering that Jesus most fully manifests the essence of God…

the very nature of God;

and it is through his suffering that Jesus shows us who we were meant to be…

as children of God.

It is by our suffering on behalf of others…

that we realise the image of God in which we were made.

It is by our suffering on behalf of the world…

that we truly become who we are as children of God.

According to our author…

the fullest manifestation of the nature of God…

is seen in embodied empathy and compassion…

and self-sacrificial love––

that is fully lived out.

 

As children of God…

we’re called to follow the pioneer of our faith…

in going out of our way…

to help others realise the image of God into which they were born;

especially those who––

through circumstance or life’s vagaries––

cannot see that.

And we’re called to do that even though it will be personally costly…

and make us unpopular… 

with a world that does not know what it means… 

to be called to be children of God.

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