"Heartbreak"
Sitting outside the city wall with Christ
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Text: Hebrews 13:1-16
In 2002, the baseball player Juan Gonzales was signed to play with the Detroit Tigers. Over a 17-year career, he had a batting average of .295, and is considered one of the best hitters of the last 20 years. When he joined the Detroit Tigers he made an unusual request. You see, the left field wall at Tiger Stadium is set very far back, further than inmost other ball parks, and because Juan Gonzales likes to hit to the left, he thought it would be a good idea if they brought the wall in, rather than leave it where it was. He implored the people at Tiger Stadium to move the wall from 390 feet to 370 feet (which was still within regulation, in case you wondered), and they agreed. So, Juan Gonzales had the wall at Tiger Stadium moved in order that he could have more hits, more runs and more victories. It was a brilliant idea! I have thought about Juan Gonzales bringing in the wall as a very interesting analogy about what our gospel message is about today.
Lest you think this is a frivolous line of thought, let me tell you about another incident, an historic incident that I observed that concerned the moving of a wall. It was more than 26 years ago in a small town in South Africa, outside of Port Elizabeth. It was a town the borders of which had been established under what was known as the Group Areas Act, an apartheid law designed to keep blacks and whites living in separate parts of the city. Thus, people lived in isolation from one another: the blacks in one part of the town, the whites in another.
Then, the government decided it was going to conduct a mass relocation of blacks. The idea was to move them out of the town, and to take the property that was inside the town and hand it over to whites, so that they could expand and build. This relocation program was one of the most violent and most difficult things the people had to endure during the apartheid days. However, there was one twist: What were they going to do with all the blacks who had been buried in that community? Were they going to dig up all their graves and move the bodies out into the community where they had relocated the blacks, or were they going to leave them where they were? Such was the idiocy of apartheid!
Someone came up with a masterful idea: Change the boundaries of the town itself. You see, what had happened was that the town's boundaries had been based on where whites lived, and blacks lived outside the boundaries of that town. However, in the desire not to move those bodies, somebody came up with a great idea. Why not just move the boundaries of the town? Why not just move the walls further out so you would not need to disturb the bodies? They would be what was called (awfully) “honorary whites.” They could stay put.
It was a great idea! It became an even greater idea, because once they had decided that they were going to bring the gravesites within the confines of the town, all of a sudden, it meant that all of the residents - black and white - who had been living in that area would now also be included in the town, and would become part of the municipality, and if they were members of the municipality, they could not be moved without their agreement. The buried dead bodies had been a source of salvation all those people who would have otherwise been relocated. What happened was that the boundaries and the wall had been moved, and this had kept everyone together. Brilliant!
As I look back at those days, I think of how important boundaries and walls of cities and towns are and how they decide who is in and who is out of a municipality, of a ball park. It all speaks to the importance of boundaries. Nowhere is that more clearly seen than in today's passage from the Book of Hebrews. It says very clearly that when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and buried, it was done so outside the city wall of Jerusalem. All the gospel stories make the point that Jesus was buried outside the city wall. Why is that important? Why is it on the minds of these writers?
I can think of a number of reasons, the first of which is that Jesus was symbolically buried outside the city wall to show that he was an anathema, that he was not a true citizen of Jerusalem, that he was a convict and he was buried outside the wall with the unrighteous, not inside the city wall where he would receive the status of everybody else.
All the criminals, all the outcasts were buried outside the city wall, and Jesus was one of them. By the time the end of the first century had come along, and the writer of Hebrews (probably in a sermon) was discussing the issue, this location had taken on greater meaning. It became a symbol of the relationship that existed between the people of the old covenant or Old Testament and the people of the new covenant or New Testament - the Christians. How were they to relate to one another? Jesus, their Lord and Saviour, had been buried outside the walls, as if to suggest that the covenant was not applicable to him or to his followers.
Many of the Christians who were Jews were confused about how the two groups should relate to each other. What should they do? However, there was more than that. There was also a degree of a falling away; some of the Christians wanted to go back to the Temple to Worship, but the writer of Hebrews is making the point that there was no need to do that, since Jesus had died for all.
Jesus had expanded the covenant by being buried outside the wall of Jerusalem, and there is something profound about what God was doing there. What was he doing? What meaning does all of this have for you and me? Clearly, it is a sad story, just like the story about those bodies buried in that town in South Africa. What do you do with this dead Jesus, who is buried outside the city walls? What is evident from all of this is that God the Father's heart was broken.
The story of Good Friday is a story of the heartbreak of God. It is a story of God's sadness that his son was buried outside the city wall of Zion, of Jerusalem, the city he loved so much. It was a source of pathos and sadness. Some people will say that God is immutable; that God is not affected by what happens on earth; that God is above it all. That is a lie! God is not above it all - God is actively involved in it all. Through his Son, he came into the world for the very sake of bringing the lost humanity to himself, and so, when his Son was crucified and cried out to him “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was the father's heart not broken? Of course it was!
It was broken in the most profound way. On a hill, Golgotha, God's heart was rent asunder. God was outside the wall. In a sermon preached from this very pulpit many years ago, David McLennan described this in terms of a very notable battle in 1951 during the Korean war, known as Heartbreak Ridge. In the Mundung valley, there was this terrible conflict between the Communists and the forces of the United Nations. This battle went on for months, but in just one month alone, 20,000 people died at Heartbreak Ridge.
McLennan suggested that there is a similarity between that human conflict and Golgotha, the crucifixion of Jesus. There was so much heartbreak in that Korean battle, as described by a corporal who fought there, that Edith Lovejoy Pearce wrote a poem to describe it. In many ways, it sums up how God the Father must have felt on Good Friday. This is what she wrote:
Men die to an accompaniment of aimless chatter
Drag themselves slowly up a hill
While an imaginary line is drawn on a map
Talks are being resumed, but pain has never ceased.
No one will give an inch, when a world is being saved or lost.
The human heart is always bleeding to death on a hill
While somebody trumps an ace or dices for outer-garments.
Heartbreak Ridge was Golgotha. The one whose heart was broken was God. His Son died outside the city wall, and it was one of the darkest days in human history.
In this powerful story not only is there the pathos that God experiences, but also the sense that those who are broken-hearted find some solace. The writer of Hebrews says, “Let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace that he bore, for here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for that city in heaven that is to come.” The writer is calling on Christians to bear the indignity of being outside the camp.
What does that really mean? Historically, we have understood that to mean martyrdom. You can even see it today, although the Afghani courts have spared his life, Abdul Rahman, who had converted to Christianity, could yet be put to death. There are martyrs throughout the history of the world. In fact, some say the church has been built on the blood of the martyrs. Among those who have given their lives, there is a sense of sacrifice and a sense of laying down one's life for the sake of what one believes to be true.
Sometimes, I think there is a misunderstanding about suffering and a distinction needs to be made. If we are to live “outside the camp” and to take on the burdens of Christ, that does not mean we have what is called the paseo active. Paseo active is when we suffer for the sake of pleasing God, or that we carry around on ourselves the stripes of suffering in order that we may feel more righteous. You know, those Christians who look at self-denial as if it is a badge of honour, and say, “Look at me, I am miserable and I am suffering, so I am more righteous than everybody else.” There will always be those! Those who believe self-abasement is the heart of the Christian faith. That is not what the Bible is talking about. It is talking about “paseo passiva” - not active, but passive - that which simply comes, that which simply happens because you are faithful, because you seek to follow Christ, because you seek to do righteousness and justice, and live according to his precepts.
Doug Hall, the United Church theologian, makes an interesting observation about this passage. He says, “The suffering of Christians should never be an exceptional thing, as if it is only there for the martyrs. It is the ordinary thing. It is simply following Christ and the bearing of that suffering.” It is not that we go out of our way exceptionally, it is that sometimes you have to give up the dearest things you believe to be true in order to be faithful to the word, in order to be faithful to God, in order to be faithful to Christ.
The writer of Hebrews is concerned about that. He is concerned about it in the context of morality; he is concerned about it in the context of justice; he is concerned about people sliding back into their old ways; he is concerned about faithfulness to Christ and the gospels. So, he makes the case that Christ is the same today and forever. Therefore, if you are going to be with Christ, it means sitting outside the wall of what has always been deemed respectable. Sitting with those and being with those for whom Christ ultimately died. Some people say, “But that is frightening!” It is a terrifying thought that to be a Christian means to give up and to suffer and to be outside the wall with Christ. Are we always going to be looking over our shoulders, worried?
It is like a story I heard of some 10-year-old boys who were asked by their teacher to list three things in hygiene class that would keep their teeth strong. They all went away and scribbled things down. One boy came back with his answer: “See your dentist on a regular basis.”
Number Two was, “Always brush your teeth after meals and at bed-time.”
Number Three was, “Watch out for shoves when you are at the water fountain.”
Always looking over your shoulder, never quite sure who is going to give you that final push! Oh, sometimes we Christians live like that, looking over our shoulders. That is not what this is about either. No. Essentially, this is about people who, if they have a broken heart, if they have a burden for the world, if they have a sorrow, find great joy and great peace.
I know there is a lot of debate right now about the Christian Peacemaker Teams and what they have done, and I absolutely predicted to a friend that once the hostages were released, they would become the object of derision. Sometimes, we are too quick to judge. I must admit that there are moments when I think how unwise it is to put oneself in harm's way, how unwise it is to cause such suffering and grief for others. There is no question about it! Yet, I always believe that what God looks at is the heart; what God looks at is motive; what God looks at is the faithfulness to his word.
If you take the Scriptures even remotely seriously, and you take the Sermon on the Mount as gospel, then “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Are they as unwise and foolish in God's eyes as the world may think? After all, they are not taking up guns and killing, they are not fomenting insurrection, they are not taking human life. They are trying to save it by bringing humanity together, and they paid a price - one of them, the ultimate price! They were outside the wall of all that is deemed respectable. Where is Christ in such a world? No, I do not think that they are quite as foolish as some may think.
Christ died outside the wall, but here is the good news. While God's heart was broken because of it and while we as followers of Christ might feel the heartbreak ourselves because of it, that heartbreak is always ultimately for the mending of the world, for the mending of the broken hearts that he died outside the wall. There is a famous passage in the Te Deum Laudamus of praise and glory: “Thou hast taken upon thee to deliver man. Didst not abhor the virgin's womb. Thou having overcome the sting of death did open to believers the Kingdom of Heaven. Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.”
Here's the irony: The one who is buried outside the city wall of Jerusalem sits at the right hand of God the Father. The one who was outside the wall died out there in order to move the boundaries out and to bring the world back in. George Santayana put it so eloquently when he wrote: “The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.” There is a time for weeping - it was a city wall, and he was buried outside it. There is also a time for laughing and for joy - because he was buried outside the wall, we live within the boundaries of the Kingdom.
What we particularly, as Gentiles, could not do for ourselves, Christ has done for us. So, this morning, if you are someone with a broken heart, if you are someone who feels the ravages of life, if you are someone who feels incapable of pleasing God spiritually, if you are someone who carries around with you the burden of your existence, if you are someone who mourns and grieves, and you feel like someone outside the wall, remember it is the Son of God who died precisely where you are in order to bring you back in from heartbreak to heart mended, through the grace of Christ, who moved the city wall. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.