15 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him? 7 You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet.” In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them]9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. 12 He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.” Heb. 2: 15-21
Is there anyone here currently in middle school? Would you mind telling us what you like about middle school? And about what you don’t like?
My Dad and my stepmother taught at a middle school in inner-city Toledo, Ohio. What they liked about that age is that these are youth with whom adults can have deep, meaningful, logical conversations about big, deep topics that are new to them, and which enthuse and excite them. That’s where their reasoning capacity has come. It’s a wonderful age when great causes, ideas and ideals, interests, arts, activities and subjects can grab us, that may never let us go for the rest of our lives. Over the years, several people have contacted my Dad and stepmom to tell them how much they and their teaching enthused them, and how they’re still pursuing what they learned, sometimes as a profession.
It’s also an age when we may latch onto heroes and role models, who tell us something about who we want to become. For me, at age 12, those heroes were Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and the Beatles. The assassinations of those first two heroes was very crushing to me. Later in life I would discover that all of those heroes were imperfect and had their shortcomings. And over time the great causes and ideals which seemed so clear and which grabbed me with such power became more complex, not quite as black and white nor simple as they seemed at age 13.
But we don’t always talk about those years in such glowing terms, do we? Another common reflection about the middle school years is how cruel we could be to each other. And cliquish. For it’s a time of great change and confusion. Our bodies start to do strange things, and to feel strange things. If we haven’t figured out by age 12 that our parents don’t walk on water and that sometimes they are just downright drop-dead clueless, then we haven’t been paying attention. That provokes a crisis of personal identity, dignity and security versus our need for community and connection, one that we never quite get settled in our life. We just learn to manage it. But at age 13, we’re just getting started managing these complexities.
Because, as our ideals, our personality, our interests, our causes and our perceptions of the world develop, we come to realize that they are not identical to those of our parents, nor to everyone else in our family. To learn whom God is making us to be, and be true to that, more and more we have to say, “I disagree,” or “I don’t see it that way,” or “But have you considered?” if we’re polite, or, when we’re having a meltdown: “You just don’t get it!”
And yet these suddenly clueless old fogies are the very people who gave you life, who give you food and clothing and your allowance, who give you a roof over your head, who drive you to school or to basketball or soccer or music lessons, who even gave you your name! This middle-school dilemma is beautifully summed up in the title of a book that Becky and I found helpful when our daughters were that age: “Mom and Dad, Get Out of My Life! But First, Would You Take Me and Sheryl to the Mall?”
There’s no way around these tensions and dilemmas but through them. But learn to manage them, and you have helpful tools for the rest of your life.
Now why am I talking about middle school on World Communion Sunday? Because the world in which the church exists and does mission is like one giant middle school now, for good and for bad. Like middle school, ours is an age of exciting discoveries in medicine, technology, communications, energy, and of great ideas and ideals. As for the church worldwide, we’re growing up into that wonderful image of John’s Revelation, chapter 7: a people of every tribe, tongue and nation.
But ours is also an age of insecurity and of frenzied fighting over dignity and identity, where inspiring ideals are going to seed and becoming rabid, militant ideologies, not just here, but everywhere. And it’s getting worse. Remember the one big global fight over Communism or Capitalism 30 years ago? Those were the good old days. Now it seems like everyone, everywhere, is fighting over everything, especially over identity and dignity. The Catalans and the Basques fighting for independence, identity and dignity in Spain, Russian minorities in Ukraine and the Baltic Republics, with manipulation and meddling from Vladimir Putin. And here in America, differences and disagreements over liberal or conservative politics and theology are not only verbal and intellectual; they’ve gone tribal.
If we were fighting just over the best ideas and practices, we could come up with experiments and compromises. But the fights basically come down to identity and dignity. If we think, or fear, that identity and dignity are only a zero sum game, like they seemed to be in middle school, then any victory for your side, even the least concession to your side, is a humiliating defeat for my side, even a mortal threat. If I can’t secure my identity at your expense as a victor over you, and so have power over you, then I’ll settle for an identity at your expense as your victim, and so gain the moral high ground over you. In such a dog-eat-dog world of competition, resentment, reactivity, fear and loathing, the middle school students among us, even on their worst days, are more adult than the adults anymore. And it’s infecting the church, I’m sad to say.
Wait, I’m not done with the bad news. That growing, worldwide battle over identity and dignity is feeding another thing that is growing for the worldwide church: persecution. Today, we are sharing communion with churches and Christians who must do this in secret, for fear of pain, punishment, imprisonment or even death.
Even secular agencies in the United Nations acknowledge the rapid growth in religious persecution of religious minorities in the world. The most dangerous places to be Christian today are Eritrea, Somalia, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, the Central Asian Republics, Pakistan, Lybia and drug gang-infested parts of Latin America. After a decade of relative freedom, persecution is cranking up again in China, too.
This growing persecution is not just about Christian doctrine. It’s about tribal and national identity. What radical Muslims in Somalia or Pakistan, and radical Hindu nationalists in India, and Communists in North Korea and China have in common is that they increasingly see the presence of any Christians among them as a threat to their dignity and identity. Not only do the Christians among them not share their beliefs and mission, their loyalty is suspect. Should North Korea have to fight America, or China or Pakistan against India, will the Christians among them join and support the fight? Or will they be more loyal to Jesus, to his peace teachings, and to other Christians on the other side of the battle lines? And so they persecute some of the most peaceful, productive, law-abiding and helpful citizens among them.
The world needs better kinds of identity and dignity. And that’s the good news today. God has a better, more secure identity and dignity in mind for us. Today’s text from Hebrews 2 tells us two awesome and amazing truths about ourselves, about our identity and a dignity, within and without the church of Jesus Christ. They are a God-given identity and dignity. Therefore, they cannot be taken away by any mortal, nor by any circumstance in life. We do not win them in a zero-sum game in which my identity and dignity can only come at your expense lest your dignity and identity come at the expense of mine. It is not a dignity nor an identity that we must earn in a winner-take-all free-for-all that leaves only one person standing above all the others in the end.
For all people on this planet, Christian or not, we hear that God has made us humans just “a little lower than the angels; and crowned us with glory and honor, putting everything material under our feet, as those made in God’s image, to be God’s representatives and care-takers of his temple, this earth. Let’s remember that whenever we relate to someone else who disagrees with us strongly about something, who may even see us as competitors to defeat: they are not our enemies to destroy lest they destroy us; they are bearers and sharers with us of the image of God, like us, just a little lower than the angels, for us to love and to serve as we would God himself.
But to a despised and persecuted church, Hebrews 2 says something even more inspiring, comforting and amazing about our identity and dignity. Ours are a dignity and an identity that were bought for us with the most precious gift in the universe, guaranteed by a power which overcame even death, a dignity and an eternal, unshakable identity which are offered to us, which are given to us. The glory and grandeur of our dignity and identity are unmerited and unlimited, and not because we had the good sense and the virtue to identify with the right group and the right ideology. They are guaranteed by Someone who identified with us. Though that Someone is the most high and holy person in the universe, we hear today that “he is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters”: Jesus. Through him God has stepped into our skin, into our shoes, to partake of our humanity and our vulnerability, so that we might be partakers together of God’s glory and sanctity. In Christ, God has taken on our fallen, fractured identity and dignity, our frailty and our sufferings, out of love, and exchanged them for his divine identity and dignity. This divine dignity and identity are gifts we receive, not trophies we achieve.
Nor do we have to fight any mortals over this dignity and identity, just the powers of hell that would pit us against each other. As God’s kingdom has gone global, ours is an identity and a dignity that actually grows with the sharing, worldwide. The bread and the cup that we share today with so many Christians and churches around the world, speak of this wonderful exchange of our fallen, fractious dignity and identity of ours for those of God. The bread and the cup speak of how God gives himself to us through the body and blood of Christ, to be the bread of life for us, even of eternal life. That also unites us with Christians everywhere who share the same Lord, the same faith, the same identity and dignity with us, and therefore, the bread and the cup with us today, too.
Remember that, too, whenever the tribes of this earth try to stir up our fears and resentments, seeking to enlist us in their tribal wars against enemy tribes, in Russia or China or in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, conservatives or progressives, upper class or middle class or lower class, of color, gender, nationality, immigration status, or whatever. Our dignity and identity are not based on those shaky and mutually exclusive things. No matter who we are, no matter what we have done, no matter where we are, our dignity and identity are secure, not because of how we see ourselves, nor because of how others see us, but because of how God through Christ sees us. And Christ is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters.