A Sermon for World Communion Sunday by the Rev. Laura M. Cheifetz
Preached at the Chapel of the Presbyterian Center
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Hebrews 1:1–4; 2:5–12
Kelly Gissendaner, the only woman on Georgia’s death row, was executed last night. Her death had been scheduled twice before, but delayed. She was remarkable not only because of her crime (conspiring with her boyfriend to kill her husband, a murder carried out by her boyfriend, who is almost eligible for parole) and her sentence, but because she was a case in which the criminal justice system did what we want it to do: transform those who willfully do something terrible into people fully aware of the consequences and the evil of their action. Kelly had been transformed, remorseful for her actions, resting in a deeply-rooted faith cultivated by theologians such as Jurgen Moltmann (who became her penpal and even attended her graduation from a prison-based theology program sponsored by four seminaries). She was known for counseling fellow inmates and had reconciled with her children. Moltmann, her children, and even the Pope asked the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole to commute her sentence from death to life without parole.
One of her theology professors, Jennifer McBride, wrote of a conversation she had with one of the women in the theology program, who told her that the delay of Gissendaner’s execution early in the yearhad reawakened her faith.[1]The woman said, “It had been so long since I had seen God move.” Jennifer asked, “What if the worst still happens? How will that affect your faith?”
She responded: “I’ve thought about that a lot. All I can say is that I needed to know that God is still moving. Now I know.”
Hebrews is about hope, especially for early Christians, who struggled with the concept that Jesus was human, that he died. It was written to those Christians who had been Jews, and found themselves disillusioned, wanting to slip back to the more stable religion that did not center around a Messiah who had been, embarrassingly, executed by the state. This passage explains how it is that Jesus is, in fact, the better choice; that angels who had not died on earth were merely servants of God, while Jesus, who had died on earth, is the Son of God.
It is hard for many of us, like those early Christians, in this world of sin and suffering, to keep the faith that God is moving. After all, Jesus already came and was raised. It is, supposedly, a new heaven and a new earth.
Hebrews shows us the hope we live in… not the light and optimistic surface kind, but the depth of hope that can flourish in the midst of suffering.
This is not a text that tells us what we have to do to be saved… it is a text praising God and lifting up Christ. We hear what God wants for all humanity: God’s glory, a role model of salvation who suffered as humans suffer – this suffering is an example of the world gone wrong, something that God wants to set right
And God is enough.
I had a moment 15 years ago at a women’s church gathering. I remember being very annoyed (not an uncommon thing, either the annoyed feeling or the church gathering). I don’t even remember what annoyed me, specifically. At closing worship, we the gathered sang, prayed, and went forward row by row to partake of communion. In that moment, I was reminded that the table gathers us, even when we do not like each other, or when we do not know each other. We were made sisters in Christ. We are known by the one who calls us to the table. We are called to the table with death row inmates, with people of faith around the world, with people building relationships throughout space and time, even the ones who preach hate and intolerance, or who believe executing a criminal is a just and good thing. We are called to the table, especially this Sunday, when all Christians around the world celebrate communion, our brothers and sisters. It is a very big table, and we might not be altogether pleased with the people who share it with us, but in Christ, we are made brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, and of one another. Amen.
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