“Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters….” (Hebrews 2: 11)
FOR WORLD COMMUNION SUNDAY, 2015
Because he was so tall and strong and could carry canoes and cargo such long distances without tiring or complaining, the Huron Indians called him “Echon,” their word for “ox”. Maybe that was also a joke, a pun, because his French name, Jean, may have sounded like, “Echon,” in their Huron accents. Fortunately, Father Jean de Brebeuf did not take himself so seriously that he couldn’t laugh along with the Huron at himself as he struggled to learn their language and their ways, and as he shared the joys and the hardships of their lives in the woods and on the waters of the Great Lakes region, nearly four hundred years ago.
Sometimes, though, they called him worse names than “Ox.” Like “sorcerer,” when they noticed that he and other French people did not succumb to the new diseases that were decimating them. Maybe that book he carried, with its strange markings that conveyed powerful words from The Great Spirit, was the source of their suffering. So, a council of Huron chiefs passed a sentence of death upon Jean, for suspicion of sorcery. But when the Huron saw his brave, calm and patient manner, the peace with which we stayed put and kept participating in their rigorous lives, unarmed, and with which he went to sleep every night, they kept commuting the death sentence.
To other Frenchmen who wanted also to come do missionary work among the Natives of the Great Lakes, Jean de Brebeuf wrote the following advice:
“You must love these Hurons, ransomed by the blood of the Son of God, as brothers; you must never keep the Indians waiting at the time of embarking; carry a tinder-box or a piece of burning-glass, or both, to make fire for them during the day for smoking, and in the evening when it is necessary to camp, as these little services win their hearts; try to eat the food they offer you, and eat all you can, for you may not eat again for hours; eat as soon as the day breaks, for Indians, when on the trail, eat only at the rising and the setting of the sun; be prompt in embarking and disembarking and do not carry any water or sand into the canoe; be the least troublesome to the Indians; do not ask questions: silence is golden; bear with their imperfections, and you must try always to be and to appear cheerful; share little gifts with them; always carry something during the portages; do not be ceremonious with the Indians; do not paddle unless you intend always to paddle; the Indians will keep later that opinion of you which they have formed during the trip; always show any other Indians you meet on the way a cheerful face and show that you readily accept the fatigues of the journey.”
Do you get the sense from these words that Jean not only came to understand the Huron deeply, but that he also loved and respected them greatly? Four centuries later, Jean de Brebeuf is considered by many Huron people to be one of their own. For one thing, it was he who first put their language into writing and created the first Huron dictionary, showing great respect for the people, the language and the culture. He helped save the language so that it is still taught and spoken today. The first Christmas carol in North American was composed in the Huron language. Jean is to thank for that. It’s #190 in our Blue Hymnal. More about that in a few months, when Advent comes round.
What especially endeared Jean to the Huron was that, when Iroquois Indian raiders attacked the Huron village where he was living, Jean refused to flee, as a Huron chief advised him to do. Instead, he stayed to pray with the dying, to go into captivity with the survivors, and to die with them at Iroquois hands. Though he never pretended to be anything other than French, though he never identified as Huron, he identified with the Huron, deeply, respectfully, and even sacrificially. At a time when most of Jean’s fellow Europeans dismissed the Native North Americans as “savages” and “barbarians” and even “uncivilized,” Jean de Brebeuf was not ashamed to live their lives, eat their food, sleep in their lodges, speak their language, share their hardships, call them “brothers,” and “sisters,” even to die among them and with them.
Does that remind you of anyone? Of someone here in our midst today? Of the One who is “the Word become flesh,” and who “dwelt among us?” Who, like the poor to whom he preached good news, “had nowhere to lay his head?” Who stood among repentant sinners in the Jordan River for John’s baptism, who, though he could not identify as a sinner, willingly identified with us sinners? The One who, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2: 6-8)
The person of Jean de Brebeuf is so compelling, and the effects of his ministry are so enduring, because he lived out the pattern of the Servant Christ, who came not just to do things for us, but to identify with us, even in our sufferings and hardships, to accompany us in the wilderness voyages of our lives. As the writer of Hebrews put it, “Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters….(Heb. 2:11) ” Those words are the focus of this message today: the amazing grace in the fact that Jesus is not ashamed to be found with us, and among us, to accompany us, in solidarity with us, to identify with us even to the point of shamelessly calling us “brothers” and “sisters.”
That was what I needed to hear some forty years ago, when I knew that something had happened in my life, and that it had something to do with Jesus. But it would be another month before I could call myself “Christian.”
Me, a Christian? Like the people who brought the Crusades to the Middle East 8 centuries ago, to kill Muslims, Jews and even other Christians? Christians? And who did roughly the same to Indians of Central and South America a century later? Christians? The folks who today sometimes agitate so awkwardly and ignorantly to burn or ban certain books in schools? Who so often can’t address any moral question without attacking people?
At least the ones who make the news.
Not that the world does any better. And at least the Christians carry the very beliefs and the very book that calls them to better things, and which most severely criticizes their own conduct. And then there are the Christians like Jean de Brebeuf among the Huron, or Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, or Martin Luther King, Jr. here in the United States. And many, many more leading quiet, gracious and godly lives. If we knew what some of them were up against, and have had to deal with, our jaws would drop; we would nominate them for Nobel Peace Prizes.
Still, it was about a month into my new faith life that I finally owned the name “Christian,” not because I was so sure that I could show everyone how to carry the name right and do Jesus proud, but because I came to understand that I could not. Even if I avoided the mistakes of the medieval Crusaders, I was coming up with sins and errors of my own every day. I don’t doubt that I still do. It was more like, if the Christians will have me, then I’ll have them.
Do I want to identify as a Christian, and with Christians? Tragically, some people had to face that question, at the end of their young lives this week, in that terrible mass shooting at Umpqua Community College. Our grief must be as great for all the people whom he killed.
Thirty years ago, I read an article in the New York Times about how attending church increases your likelihood of getting a job, especially if it’s your potential boss’s church. Now the surveys are starting to say the opposite, although religious discrimination is still worst against Muslims. Are we sure we want to identify with these increasingly unpopular people, the Christians? Especially after all the scandals by which the church keeps shooting itself in the foot?
Our increasingly secularist society is more and more offended by the church for being too strict and judgmental. Sometimes we are. Meanwhile in the Islamic world, increasingly strident militants are taking us to task for not being strict and judgmental enough. Many of the refugees fleeing ISIS from Syria are Christians. And in Communist China and Vietnam, there’s a new round of church building demolitions and the imprisonment of pastors.
That was roughly the same problem that The Letter to Hebrews addresses: public shaming for identifying with Christ, shame for identifying with other Christians, shame for being Christian. Under pressure from their families and neighbors, these Jewish Christians were dampening the fires of their faith, hiding or downplaying their testimony, and withdrawing from worship with each other, so as not to be seen with each other. That’s why Hebrews 10: 25 says, “Do not neglect to keep meeting together, as some are wont to do, but keep encouraging each other, especially as you see the Day drawing near.” That’s why, in the next few verses, the author says, “Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.”
So, what changed since your initial burst of courage and enthusiasm? the author of Hebrews asks. Has the world finally found something better to offer you in exchange for the assurance of God’s everlasting love? Jesus is not ashamed of you, nor will he ever draw back from you. So, Don’t fear to identify with the one who willingly identifies with us to the point of calling us “brother,” and “sister.” “For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now enthroned at the right hand of the Father.” That joy, for Jesus, is sharing his throne with us, the very fallible, human church, his bride.
That’s the point of this World Communion Sunday, when churches around the world, of many different denominations, are celebrating our solidarity with Christ and each other with the service of the bread and the cup. It’s a way of saying, “I am not ashamed.” As Paul wrote in Romans 1: 16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” Nor am I ashamed to identify with Jesus, even though governments, armies and economies scorn and scoff his ethic of mercy, generosity and peace. Nor am I ashamed to be counted among his very imperfect people all around the world and all throughout history, as hard as that might be some times, as hot as it is getting for us. But we know that if ever we do find the perfect Christians in the perfect church, we must not go there; we’ll only ruin it.
Like Jean de Brebeuf among the Huron, Christ identifies so unashamedly and unreservedly with us that he instituted the rite of communion that we shall share as a way of reminding us of how intimately he gives himself in spiritual union to us. Christ’s courageous and compassionate identification with us is the very the source of our salvation, and of all the blessings that flow from God’s grace. Sharing the bread and cup demonstrates how he so offers himself that he becomes us and we become him in a way like how the food we eat so intimately becomes us.
At which point I’m in way over my head and had better just wrap this up by saying, Come, share the common loaf, the common cup, as a way of pushing back against the shame that the world heaped upon Christ, and sometimes upon Christians. Come, so as to say, I am not ashamed to identify with the One who was not ashamed to so readily identify himself with me; nor am I ashamed to so intimately identify myself with all the others around the world and throughout time who have identified with Jesus and with me. Amen.