I know that I am not alone in this here today… three weeks ago I made one of those New Year’s resolutions to take off some weight.
Pity me, because this is no small thing. First, I’ll be 42 this year. Even when I was 32 it really wasn’t that much work to drop a few extra pounds… but something happened.
At 42 they seem to go on really easy, but they come off only with a great deal of effort.
Second, life’s demands are against me. I go to meetings for a living. I am always at meetings… executive meetings, donor meetings, church meetings, meetings with business people, and academic people, and church people. And when I’m not at a meeting, I am sitting at my desk preparing for the next set of meetings.
We all know what we do at meetings… nothing! At least nothing that resembles any physical activity. To make matters worse, while we are sedentary around the meeting tables what do we do? We eat. And not just the lunch meetings, and breakfast meetings, and dinner meetings… we bring the snacks in for all the other meetings too.
I suppose if I had any sense, I would make one of my couple of jobs something that included a little exercise.
But the real problem for me is simple; I love food. I really love food. I love good food. I have enjoyed some extraordinary meals. I love home cooking, and I enjoy wonderful food at my house. And I have enjoyed spectacular meals at some pretty special restaurants. I enjoy the way good food smells, and the way it looks, and certainly the way it tastes. I like the rituals associated with food. Multi-course meals are a blast. I really enjoy meals that are an event like dim sum or fondue.
But I don’t think my biggest problem is that I love good food. I think the biggest problem is that I love bad food. As much as I enjoy a finely prepared meal with the most exquisite ingredients, I can get a great deal of satisfaction out of a bag of nacho cheese Doritos. The desert pastries at the Four Seasons are delightful, but a cinnamon sugar Pop Tart is pretty good too. Steak Daniels at Daniel’s Broiler, that lean filet topped with Dungeness crab and béarnaise sauce, is off the charts… but I like Spam too.
I really like the Hostess Chocolate Donette. You know… these little donuts wrapped in cellophane that are near the cash register at most convenience stores. I dare not look at the ingredients; I’m fairly sure that they are white sugar, white flour, lard, glue, black tar and some magic chemicals. 75 calories in these bite size gems; all you have to do is eat six of ‘em to get your recommended daily allowance of saturated fat.
I love these bad little boys… and I know that I’m not alone. The official Web site for Hostess Snack Cakes (www.twinkies.com) reports that they churn out 2 billion of these little gut bombs annually.
This is the stuff that this roll around my middle is made of.
I’m really happy for the moments that stuff like this is passing through my mouth. And one is never enough, because as good as I feel when I’m eating this stuff, there’s another feeling that is the close second. That feeling is the feeling I get when I’m full. Well, not really just full... but packed full. So, for example, when it comes to pizza around the middle of slice #3 I’m starting to feel full… but slices #4 and #5 (or maybe even #6) are the ones that give you that packed full feeling. That state where you need to recline to find any relief. Combine a pallet for donettes and pizza with the love for that packed full feeling, and it is a wonder I’m as svelte as I am!
The passage that John read to us this morning from Hebrews uses the imagery of food to get our attention and help us understand something more about this Christian life to which we are called. It contrasts good food and bad food, as well as food for the mature and food for the immature.
When we read food here in the Book of Hebrews, we aren’t thinking of Donettes (at least we shouldn’t be thinking of Donettes), we are understanding this to mean something more along the lines of food for our minds, hearts, and spirits.
The pastor who originally penned these words opens this passage by saying, “look, I have really good food for our soul here, but you don’t seem to care.” It is as if we were all packed full of those waxy chocolate Donettes, and then somebody comes along with something really good… but we can’t even think about having a bite because we’re packed full of junk. Or worse yet… we might be hungry, but we’ve so dulled our appetite for good food with junk food that we don’t even know a good thing when we see it.
Here at the end of Hebrews 5, the pastor is addressing those who should be growing up and leading others… but instead they insist on remaining in infancy. They don’t have adult appetites.
Remember that Steak Daniels I described earlier? If you would have put that USDA prime fillet topped with Dungeness crab and served with asparagus in front of me when I was 9, I would have thought that I was being punished. When all I wanted was a hot dog, that plate that I find so delicious today would have seemed disgusting when I was a child. I had not developed an adult appetite.
Refined, adult appetites can discern quality. Here in this passage we’re encouraged to develop our spiritual appetites in such a way that we can discern quality. One way that we could define our ongoing sanctification, or development of personal holiness, is that we want to loose our appetites for evil and hunger after what is good. We pass up the empty calories that satisfied our immature pallets and seek out good, solid food.
Speaking of solid food… these next 5 verses are particularly difficult. When we chew on the commentaries, looking for clarity, we find a wide variety of interpretation. Since this is supposed to be a short sermon and not a masters-level seminar, we are not going to spend a lot of time delving into the different ways this passage gets interpreted. Suffice it to say that most seem to settle the difficulties by applying the biases of their theological positions.
Those who believe that it easy, or even possible, for a Christian to backslide in such a way that they can forfeit salvation, read this passage as a warning. The Calvinists don’t even consider the idea that this could have anything to do with a Christian believer’s salvation, but think more in terms of this being a passage about being in useful service… not that one could become unsaved, but that one could be disqualified from useful service. Either position is still pretty serious. In this regard, I think it was Tim’s dad, Professor Kowalski, that I heard saying “God seems to be a Calvinist but He wants us to be Armenians.”
Still others think more in terms of this passage not speaking of individual believers, but more in categorical terms of the Jewish people, or possibly the Jewish leaders who, having the benefit of study and the responsibility of leadership, chose to be enemies of Jesus and those who follow Him.
As for me… I don’t have all the answers. What is clear is that the whole book of Hebrews encourages us to move forward in our faith. It is calling us to maturity, not be going back to childish ways. The whole of Scripture, and especially the New Testament, causes me to know that this Christian walk is not meant to be on a slippery tightrope precariously strung across the hot flames of Hell. I know from Scripture, and my own personal experience (thank you Lord), that this walk is not a one-slip-and-your-dead proposition. So we would err by interpreting this passage as an indictment on the less than perfect… but rather we should take it as an encouragement to keep moving on and up with God. We want to be those who produce a crop for God and receive His ongoing blessings.
The passage that follows here gives us a basis for this optimistic view. Remembering that these to whom this pastor is writing are already indicted as being less than perfect. These are those who need to grow up. These are those who should be leading others yet need to be spoon fed like infants… yet the pastor is convinced of better things for them.
We are reminded here of our faithful Father in Heaven who is pleased with our steps of faith toward Him. We are encouraged to keep moving forward, to continue to grow up and mature so that we can inherit what has been promised.
I’m grateful for that word inherit. Even though we see words like work and diligence in this passage, in the end, all that we receive from God is an inheritance. We don’t earn God’s eternal blessing, but through faith and patience we inherit what has been promised.
We have been brought into God’s family; we are His and have been given His name. The inheritance is all His; we can’t earn any more or less of it. We work not to earn the inheritance, but more to live up to the name we have been given. Christian service isn’t so we can earn anything, but that we might honor the One who saves us and calls us.
So what?
What should we carry away from this passage today? We want to continue to mature, what step can we take today as we continue to grow with God?
I think that this imagery of food is really helpful to us. Just as we understand that these bodies of ours depend on good food to be healthy; we can understand that our spirits and minds need solid nourishment.
In really simple terms, we can think along the lines of both eating good food and serving good food.
We want to develop our appetite for good things. We start, of course, with our appetite for God’s Word, the Bible. Just like we need food and water everyday for our bodies, we need God’s Word everyday for our spirits.
This metaphor really argues for early devotions, doesn’t it? Personally, I prefer to read in the evening, but when I think about all the junk that I run across during the course of the day that could potentially fill me up, I realize how far superior it is to fill up early with the goodness of God’s Word early.
When we discipline ourselves to literally feast on the good solid truth of God’s Word, when we make ourselves students of the Bible, we do acquire ability to discern between good and evil, truth and lies.
I’m reminded of the story of a currency specialist who worked with the US Treasury. He was talking about how they trained people to identify counterfeit currency. The interviewer seemed surprised that the curriculum didn’t include careful examination of counterfeit bills, but rather exclusively focused on genuine currency. The specialist explained that the best way to detect a counterfeit is to be intimately familiar with the real thing.
It is the same way with us regarding the Truth of God’s Word and the solid understanding that comes from study.
Beyond our responsibility to pursue solid food for ourselves, we have a responsibility to serve good food to others as well.
We are endeavoring to do just that here. We work to provide good teaching here from the pulpit. I’m sure we don’t always connect with each one here on a given Sunday, but our aim is to provide something worthwhile for everyone… something that will draw us all closer to God. This isn’t easy, of course, since we have a variety of people here with different experiences, and different levels of maturity. But I’m confident that the Holy Spirit helps us work through God’s Word in such a way that there is something for most of us that helps us continue to grow up and mature.
We may be known as a place that serves good food after the service… but our higher goal is that we would serve good, solid, superior food during the course of our worship services. Food for our bodies at the end of our morning as we encourage one another… sure… but also food for our minds, souls, hearts and spirits as we sing, pray, and study together.
So today, let us pray to these ends:
• Thanks for God’s leading and provision
• Appetite for Good Food
• Grace added to our discipline
• Leading to share Good News
• Gifts of wisdom, and patience, and generosity for teaching
