"Cards on the Table" (Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost)

Hebrews 4:12-16

12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. 14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

            One of my favorite movie series of the past few years is the Bourne trilogy. In case you haven’t seen any of the movies, they are based on three books written by the late Robert Ludlum about a top-secret, American spy named Jason Bourne who is found adrift in the ocean, and when he comes to, he can’t remember who he is or how he wound up floating in the water. Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, and these movies are the definition of non-stop action. There are car chases, explosions, people running on rooftops, and all of it takes place in countries all over the world.

The fight scenes, well they’re something else.  They are unbelievably well-choreographed, with Jason Bourne not only taking and throwing punches and kicks, but also using all sorts of objects as improvised weapons. In the second movie in the series, The Bourne Supremacy, Bourne is caught in the home of another spy, and after a long fist fight Bourne rolls up a magazine and proceeds to use it as a weapon. Then, after rendering his opponent unconscious, he sticks the magazine in a toaster in order to ignite a gas leak to blow up the house.

I remember when I first saw that scene; I thought to myself, “Did he just use a magazine? A magazine!?!?” See, like many of you, I’ve sat in doctors’ offices where outdated issues of Golf Digest are indiscriminately shuffled with Highlights, and Field & Stream. I’ve sat on twenty different airplanes this year, and all of them had at least two inflight magazines in the pocket in front of me, and at least once a week I get some catalog, some brochure, some magazine in the mail, and not once—not once—has it ever occurred to me that any of those periodicals could be used a deadly weapon! That’s not their intended use, though, is it? A magazine is supposed to provide information, entertainment, coupons, or puzzles to pass the time. A magazine isn’t supposed to be wielded as a weapon, used to harm another person, but in the hands of a fictional character like Jason Bourne, it can quickly become a weapon that can inflict immense pain.

I suppose I feel the same way when I see those billboards you pass sometimes on the highway. You know the ones I’m talking about—not the countless Alexander Shunnarah billboards—those with Bible verses scrolled in a menacing font, attempting to create converts at 70 miles per hour. I suppose it’s also how I feel about those religious folks who quote cherry-picked Bible verses in order to defend themselves in an otherwise indefensible situation. It’s how I feel about those politicians and other public figures who defend their opinions by quoting a few words from the Bible (completely out of context), or those Christians who proof text an obscure verse to bully unbelievers and those with whom they disagree, those bumper stickers, flyers, t-shirts, and church signs that all use the words of scripture like a rolled up magazine in the hands of Jason Bourne. Because for so many Christians, the words of Holy Scripture are wielded like improvised weapons against their adversaries, against their neighbors, and so often it’s the words of Hebrews 4 that are used to justify such an abuse of scripture.

“Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword…” Why, that makes it sound as if the word of God in scripture ought to be used as a weapon, doesn’t it? These words make it sound as if scripture has been filed to a fine point, polished and sharpened for battle, ready to be wielded by the faithful against any and all challengers—especially those with different ideas, viewpoints, and convictions than us. I suppose if those words stood alone, one could justifiably cite them as a call to arms, a rallying cry for the faithful to take their bibles in their hands and begin to thrash them to and fro at whatever and whoever stands in the way of their religious traditions and spiritual comfort. But how arrogant is it to believe that the words of scripture are words aimed at everyone else but us, that they are words meant to be wielded by us against others? How arrogant to think the words of scripture are for everyone else and not us?

The writer of Hebrews goes on in our text this morning to say, “the word of God…divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” Did you catch those important phrases in there: “no creature is hidden…all are naked…we must render an account…”? When the writer of this epistle speaks of the word of God being living, active, and sharp as a two-edged sword, what he’s referring to is the way in which the words of God (especially as we have them in the person of Jesus Christ) penetrate our arrogance, our ignorance, our sin, our pain, our grief, our doubt, our despair, our loneliness, our everything so that we are utterly and completely exposed before Almighty God. And if we’re truly honest with ourselves, that’s why we are so quick to point the Bible at others, to swing the sharpened edge of scripture at those different from us, because we know if we let the Holy Spirit speak to us through the words of scripture, we will be laid bare before God, and all our cards will be on the table.

It’s not easy showing our hand. It’s not easy being vulnerable, uncovered, naked, “laid bare,” before anyone, but there’s something all the more uneasy about the thought of being exposed to God. It reminds me of the little boy who was asking his mom questions after church one Sunday. “Momma,” the little boys asked, “is it true that God is everywhere?” “Yes, sweetie,” she answered him. “Even at school?” “Yes, sweetheart. Even at school?” “What about at home?” “Yes, child. Even at home?” “Everywhere at home?” “Yes,” she said, a bit worried about where this line of questioning was going. “Even in the bathroom?!” For many of us, we seem to have outgrown the idea that God is omniscient or omnipresent; we no longer think of him the way young children think of Santa Claus (“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake…”). We’ve left such ideas behind. mostly because they make us uncomfortable, so the thought of scripture speaking truth into our lives as if God knows everything going on with us seems like an invasion of our privacy, as if God walked in the bathroom without knocking!

But here’s the thing: rather than the thought of God as some strange stalker, watching our every move, these words from Hebrews actually give me a deep sense of hope and encouragement, because I don’t see God as a divine being who sits invisibly in the corner noting my every action, feeling, and thought, counting every bad thought against every good one. No, these words tell me that I worship a God who knows all my junk and still seeks me out, still loves me! God is not a deity who sits in heaven with binoculars in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other, waiting to strike you down at the first sign of failure; God is a God who is alive in Christ Jesus, a God who has been where we have been, felt what we have felt, been through the temptations, joys, heartaches, and pains we have been through. Or to put it the way the author of Hebrews puts it: “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

You see, the word of God is not some sharpened stick given to us so we can jab each other in the eye when we fail to live up to each other’s standards of faith. The word of God exposes us all for who we truly are; it strips away all pretenses, all of our constructed reputations, all of our “holier-than-thou” attitudes. It leaves us naked before an all-knowing God, and that honestly terrifies us. But rather than leaving us exposed, rather than shaming us in our frailty, in our brokenness, in our weakness, in our sin, Christ says to us, “I know where you are, because I’ve felt that hurt, I’ve been tempted with those temptations, I’ve struggled with those same feelings of doubt, loneliness, and despair. I’ve been there for you, because I love you. I know where you’ve been and I know where you are, and I still love you.”

Perhaps that’s what really scares us, to think that we can be so truly messed up and God still loves us. Maybe that’s what we really struggle to believe, not that God is everywhere and knows everything—after all, that seems to be what being God is all about—but that even though God sees everything and knows everything about us, God still loves us—Jesus still loves us enough to pursue us, to call us into relationship with him, to trust us with the mission of God’s kingdom, the work of reconciliation, and the joy of love. Maybe that’s what we really struggle to believe.

Rather than being frightened to defensiveness, rather than taking up the word of God and the gospel of Christ as a weapon to wield against our enemies, let us approach the thrown of grace with boldness, knowing that God knows all of our baggage, all of our agendas, all of our faults from the very beginning. Let us approach God as a friend who knows us better than we know ourselves, and still chooses to love us. May we know that even though all of our cards are on the table, even though we are naked, even though we are exposed, weak, and vulnerable in our own fragile, sinful state, Jesus still calls us. Jesus still calls us to the mission of God in the world, a mission of faith, hope, and love, a mission of reconciliation and peace, a mission for a kingdom that doesn’t point fingers and sharpened swords at one another, a mission for a kingdom full of equally fallen, fragile, broken, hurting, arrogant, needy, lonely, heartbroken, wounded people. Jesus still calls each of us into a deeper relationship with God and with one another, so let us answer that call boldly, knowing God already knows you better than you know yourself, and God still loves you. Amen.