Sermon on Hebrews 11.29-12.2

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Do you ever get those back-to-school nerves?

That fluttery feeling in your stomach, maybe your heart beating faster, maybe feeling a little sweaty, or maybe your shoulders creeping up toward your ears a little bit?

Or if you have a job, maybe you get a case of the “Sunday scaries,” where you’re feeling the pressure of the workweek inching its way into the end of your weekend or the end of a vacation?

All the new-ness of the first day of school can seem overwhelming and scary. Or exciting. Or a mixture of all of those feelings.

And because everything is so new, even if you’ve gone to school before, it can feel like you’re alone. You’re not there with your family, you’re in a new place with new people. You’re not sure what the rules are yet or if you’ll like your teacher.

That can be really scary.

In our Bible reading today, we heard the writer of the letter to the Hebrews talking to a group of early Jesus followers who were also scared.

They had a lot of difficulties in their lives. People didn’t understand Jesus followers, so they picked on them and made life difficult and even dangerous for them.

These early Jesus followers were feeling alone and were getting frightened. It seemed too hard to follow Jesus, so they were giving up.

So, the writer of this letter was reminding them that they weren’t alone.

They weren’t the only ones who had hard things happen to them.

And they weren’t the only ones who had experienced God.

The writer reminds them of their ancestors in faith, stretching all the way back to Abraham and Moses.

These were people who had to wait a long time for God’s promises to come true, people who did hard and scary things, because God asked them to.

But they were never alone. God was with them.

God parted the Red Sea so that God’s people could get away from the Egyptian army safely.

When the Israelites came to the Promised Land and found the city of Jericho, they were scared, because its walls were strong. They weren’t sure God’s promise would come true. But God caused the walls of Jericho to crumble, because God keeps God’s promises.

God used Rahab, an unlikely hero, to hide and protect the Israelite spies who were scouting out the Promised Land. And Rahab became a direct ancestor of Jesus.

The writer of Hebrews reminds the audience that they are in a long line of people who faced hard and scary circumstances but who were faithful. And God was faithful to them. They were not alone.

And neither were these early Jesus followers that the letter was written to. They had generations and generations of people of God cheering them on.

And so do we.

Children of God, we too are part of that long line of faithful people who faced hard and scary circumstances.

Whether we’re facing

1.    the start of a new school year,

2.    bullying—in person or online, at school or at work

3.    difficult conversations amid polarized viewpoints and scapegoating,

4.    the soul-sucking realities in our world today of climate change, white supremacy, or othering of any kind,

we can feel alone and hopeless.

But our reading today reminds us that we are not alone in trying to be faithful when things are hard.

Our ancestors in faith trusted that God would keep God’s promises.

And they kept following God, even when things got hard.

Now, you don’t have to get very far in the Bible to see that our ancestors in faith weren’t perfect in their faith. Far from it.

Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands instead of waiting for God’s promises to come true.

Moses didn’t want to do what God asked.

When God asked Jonah to go to Ninevah, Jonah ran in the other direction and ended up in the belly of a whale.

David, the man after God’s own heart, did some pretty messed up things.

So much of the Bible records the very human pattern of alternating between swearing up and down that we will trust God forever and getting nervous and taking matters into our own hands.

We are in a long line of people who try to trust God and fail miserably. We are all saints and sinners at the same time.

That’s where Jesus comes in. He is the “pioneer and perfector of faith.” That means he goes first—we have him as an example. And also, when we inevitably waver in our faith, he completes our faith for us.

The Holy Spirit works in us to create faith, to allow us to keep trusting in God even when things get hard.

Faith isn’t something we do on our own.

Faith is something we do together with God and with each other.

So,

We have God instilling and perfecting our faith,

We have a huge crowd of ancestors cheering us on,

And we have each other.

Which gets us back to the start of school.

Whether you’re getting ready to start school again or facing another workweek or whatever challenges you’re facing, you’re not alone.

You’ve got God, your ancestors, and everyone here cheering you on.

We want to do something special today for our young folks who are going back to school so that they will remember how much everyone here loves them.

I want to invite all the kids who are here up to the front, and please bring your backpacks if you have them today.

As we start a new year at school, I want to give you this special backpack tag so that whenever you look at it you can remember God loves you and is always with you, no matter what.

___________, this school year, may you be curious and kind, gentle and strong, brave and loving.

Grown-ups, if you have brought a laptop case or something you use for your vocational life, I invite you to hold it up, or just hold it in your hands, and receive this blessing:

In everything you do, may you be curious and kind, gentle and strong, brave and loving.

We have also collected school supplies to send to local classrooms so that everyone can have what they need to learn. Thank you for your generosity and for recognizing that we are cheering each other on, not just here in this space, but cheering for our neighbors too.

Let us pray:

God, our friend who is always with us, be with us through it all.

Be with us as we ride the bus.

Be with us as we walk.

Be with us as we buckle seat belts, zip-up jackets, and tie shoes.

However we get there, and whatever we wear,

bless this journey into something new.

For the grown-ups going back to school or going to work,

With-Us God, be with them too.

Thank you for our teachers, helpers, caregivers, and leaders,

and for all they do to help us learn and grow.

God, our friend who’s full of wonder, fill their hearts and bless their hands.

Amen.