Grace has much to say about these things, but Grace encompasses more than sin and forgiveness and post-death destinies. Grace is the beginning, middle, and end of the biblical story. In John 1:16, Jesus said, “out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.” Now I don't really know what that means. It's kind of confusing, but it seems to imply Grace is the start of the story, the point of the story, the theme of the story, and the end of the story.
Throughout his letters Paul describes the power of Grace actively at work in the details and particulars of life and hardship and difficulties and relationships. Grace is a dynamic force in other words in the real-life stuff we deal with. So, Paul had some sort of weakness in his body. Literally some kind of weakness, brokenness, something or other in his actual body. Some think it was bad eyesight. Others think he had a bad leg, and he walked a certain way. Maybe he had a proclivity toward depression or discouragement, so it was emotional or psychological. Or some other kind of persistent Frailty plagued his mind or his body or his circumstances and the point is he was burdened by this pain. So, we read in our reading, he earnestly prayed that God would heal him by removing this, “thorn in his flesh”, as he calls it in our passage, but God didn't heal him. God didn't heal the Apostle Paul of this thorn in his flesh. I think it's good to pause here. If all this Grace talk feels nice and churchy, but its tad bit removed from reality. We are now standing at a door that leads into the real lives we actually live in this broken and fallen world. Paul experienced pain and he prayed fervently for it to be healed, but it wasn't. Now who of us sitting here can't relate to that?
Now my prayer of asking God to search me turned to one of repentance. I saw how easily I felt superior as the wronged one and saw the other as one dimensional in terms of their offense. I remembered how I appeared to offer mercy but sometimes knew it was self-righteous mercy. How perhaps I'd made a little comment or remark here or there in the guise of warning people or me seeking Sympathy by sharing my hurt. And I saw how sometimes these little hurts were as much about my insecurity and wounded pride as they were about the actual perceived wrong.
I drew a big cross over the list the names and I asked for God's help to truly forgive. In Luke 17 when the disciples were told they were to forgive 70 times 7, meaning indefinitely, they cried, increase our faith. I needed to pray that over and again. See we can't just start with prayer we must live in prayer. That is part of becoming the kind of people who readily forgive. Only as I live in continual communication with God can the words of Matthew 5 earlier in Christ's Sermon on the Mount, become not just a dream but a reality. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. That's not easy, there is a price. And on my own forgiveness will usually only result in empty words while I replay the recordings of the wrong. I need the cross. I need Jesus.
Our wealth isn't just the money that we have, right? Our influence, our connections, our voice, our position in society, yes even our vote, all these contribute to the worldly wealth that we have. And it's interesting to me that Jesus refers to this concept in terms of the mammon of unrighteousness, unrighteous Mammon. It makes me think of this phrase, that we have dirty money. You guys heard of that phrase? Like money or wealth that is acquired in unjust or unrighteous ways. Some of you, other people I've talked to over the years, maybe because the industry that you're in or the cutthroat win-lose nature of the business that you're in, like when you're working for the man, right? Sometimes it feels like what we earn is dirty money, unrighteous mammon. Or even when we take an honest look at our nation's history. An honest look at what we've done over the centuries to become the wealthiest nation in the world. How we've subdued the competition, unjust nature of a society, white privilege, you know stuff like that. It can feel sometimes like the wealth that we have, unrighteous mammon. What do I do with that knowledge? Well, it would appear that Jesus has an idea. Jesus says, make friends with your unrighteous mammons so that when it is gone, when it fails, when it burns out, when it ceases to exist, they, meaning the friends that you made with your unrighteous mammon may welcome you into heavenly dwellings.
Now, in the midst of Hebrews describing Jesus as the ultimate high priest. The author pauses, and says this, we're going to start from Hebrews chapter 5:11. The author says this, We have much to say about this, regarding Jesus as our high priest. But it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk being still an infant. Is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from Evil. Therefore, let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God instruction about cleansing rights, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the Eternal judgment. And God permitting we will do so.”
Now I don't know if you caught it, but there's a tone of frustration in the author's voice here in this letter to the Hebrews. Like, he would really like to dive deeper into the significance of Jesus as our high priest, which is a very significant image for folks, that coming out of the Jewish tradition. And it would really, really help them in their life with God to understand how Jesus fills this role as the high priest. And how the role of the high priest had always been to pointing towards Jesus and the author was really, really excited to talk about this. But he feels like he can’t because he's stuck. He's stuck going over what he calls basic things. He feels like his readers are still hung up on stuff that the author feels like they had explained over and over and over and over again. Again you teachers in the room might be able to relate with some of this frustration. And one of the basic things that he is trying to get past is talking about repentance from acts that lead to death. Now this little phrase is actually key to help us understand what he's referring to later in verses 4-6, so here comes the tactical part.