Sermon 9/1/2019 “Five nevers”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at Immanuel Chapel, Virginia Theological Seminary
Text: Hebrews 13:5
Day: 12Pentecost, Proper 17, Year C
Verse 5 of our second reading today from Hebrews 13 demanded to be preached this week. Verse 5 quotes a promise that God has made to his people, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Here’s how this verse first got my attention. I shared the Eucharist with someone resisting the need to move into assisted living. “I know God is with me no matter what,” this person said, “that’s the promise. And it’s true, even if things don’t work out the way I expect or want.” This person told me I could share this conversation with you as “testimony.” I heard this testimony as trust in God’s promise, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
This reminded me of a seminary colleague, a young “good ole boy” from North Carolina. He spent a lot of time in seminary assuring me and everyone else who was discouraged that, “God never drops us like a hot potato.” Sometimes, just for variety, he said this another way, “God never brings us half-way just to abandon us,” and “God never leaves us permanently in the wilderness.”
At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure I could trust God. That’s because God’s done some unexplainable things, some things so far beyond MY rational calculation. You know, things like:
- God allows evil to exist and bad things to happen. Mass shootings. Starving children. Terrorism. Drugs that cost a million dollars a dose. Addiction. Cancer. Hurricanes the size of our hemisphere. Death in general, especially death of those we love.
- What’s worse, God never explains WHY. The closest he’s come to an explanation is to ask Job if HE was around when God created all that is. In other words, God is God and we are not!
- And don’t even get me started on politics—either side!
TODAY I know the reason for these things isn’t any of our business. This is God’s business. Only God knows WHY. Our question, our business, is what we are to do to help those who are suffering while we continue to trust in God. OUR business is to understand that, whatever the wrong, BOTH the perpetrator and the VICTIM could be US, under different circumstances. Our business, our role as Christ-followers, is first of all to remember and to remind ourselves and others that God cares, God is present, and that love wins. God doesn’t drop us like a hot potato!
But that’s not exactly what our lesson says, is it? The actual words as they are expressed in Greek are, “No, I will not leave you; no, neither will I utterly forsake you.” Someone else translated this for me. Someone else noticed that God emphasized his promise with five negatives, “I will never, never, never, never, never leave you.”
Just as in English, in Greek the more something is repeated, the more emphasis it has. This verse assures us five-times over that God WILL NOT leave us.
Did you notice that in our lesson today, this verse is a quotation? The Book of Hebrews is a sermon, one of the best sermons ever, written sometime near the end of the first century of the Common Era. The person who preached this sermon to his Jewish congregation was reminding them of the promise God had first made to Abraham in Genesis 28:15, which says:
“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go,
and I will bring you back to this land.
I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
This Hebrew congregation knew that God had kept this promise, and that God had repeated this promise to Moses to give to the people who had abandoned slavery in Egypt for the wilderness. Deuteronomy 31:8 says:
“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you;
He will never leave you nor forsake you.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
And what do you think God said to his people as they were about to leave the wilderness for the land they had been promised?
“No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life.
As I was with Moses, so I will be with you;
I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5)
Then the Hebrews preacher reminded his persecuted congregation of God’s promise, “I will never, never, never, never, never leave you.” I won’t throw you to the ground like a hot potato. I won’t abandon you in the wilderness.” No matter what happened to them, God would be with them.
The preacher then gave them practical instructions for how to live in response to God’s promise, in response to God’s presence and providence:
- Love one another.
- Be good to strangers.
- Don’t misuse the gift of sex.
- Don’t let love of money or other material things drive our actions. AND
- Be content with what we have.
When we live this way, we grow closer to the God who loves us and promises to never leave us. When we live this way, we are better able to be a loving presence to others, a concrete reminder that God is with us always.
Our Creator has promised to be with us always, and we can count on God to be with us. God will never, never, never, never, never leave us, or forsake us.”
