Sermon Tone Analysis

We haggle with fragility, Christ offers sufficiency

I have been in ministry for 16 years.

11 as an associate and the last 5 as a lead.

When I first got into my role in Mass I realized something very quickly.

Everything that had gotten me to that point could not take me any further.

Have you ever heard of the peter principle?

That everyone rises to the level of his or incompetence?

I felt that.

But I realized that all the things that God did were blessings that got me to the role could not any longer move me.

I realized that I needed something else entirely.

I realized that all the stuff before me as good as it was was fragile.

So I called a pastor I used to work for in mild desperation and just asked Him questions.

I realized that what I needed in a lot of ways was the admission that things were fragile and there were other things that would work in this new season.

And I sought mentors and the Lord and God Himself in many ways rebuilt me.

And I think we are in a space where as a church we are looking at the same thing.

What got us here won’t get us there.

Now there are the foundational areas of theology that cannot and will not change.

But there are forms in our lives that look different than we have previously experienced.

These are fragile and copies.

What these times of transition do is help move our attention from copies to what is real and eternal.

Life experienced is fragile

the idea of copies and shadows runs through the book of Hebrews.

Because the author wants us to see the problem of trusting in copies.

Even though copies are what is most easily trusted.

this passage tells us that there are things that are copies of things that are real things that do the job better than the copies of the things.

The copies of things remind us of the real things but aren’t as good or true as the real things.

- Plato tells a story about copies and real things.

And the author of Hebrews would known that parable and would have understood the concepts of neoplatonism and gnosticism.

But the story of copies and real things goes like this.

Imagine that there is a group of people living in a cave.

And those people have never seen the real world, They only see shadows of the world projects on one of the caves walls.

They see people come and go and they see life come and go and they believe because they have never known anything else.

One day one of the people in the caves breaks out and escapes and makes it to the real world.

They see people for who they are and they see life for what it is.

It amazes and astounds them.

He goes back to the rest of the people in the cave to tell them what he has found.

What they have been seeing isn’t real!

They are only projections, copies of reality!

Reality is so much better!

But no one believes him.

It is incomprehensible to them.

THey cannot begin to know what is really true.

Plato stated that there is a real life beyond what we see.

There is a real experience outside of what we experience on a daily life.

And the author of Hebrews continually points back to the real over the shadow and copy.

and it is pointed out but because our desire always extends into the shadow.

We often see and believe the shadow over the real.

We are given a real distinction that Hebrews is telling us that there is a life that God has allowed us that is fragile but then there is life we can know that is antifragile.

We are going to define the distinction in life as one that is fragile and antifragile.

Nicolas Tasim Talib created the idea of this distinction in his book aptly named : Antifragile

He discussed the concept of fragility as being one that breaks under volatility.

That cannot stand up under stress.

It breaks under stress.

From his book: “Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness.

The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

You would think the opposite of that is robust.

something that holds up under stress.

But it’s not.

robustness is exemplified by a wall.

A wall is robust .

But no matter how long you press up against it, it stays the same, it does not get better.

Talib created a term because he couldn’t find one that existed for the opposite of fragile.

There are some shadow areas that show up that are antifragile in application

complete secularization and disenchantment of the world

over the last 500 years people have moved into believing there is a God out there to trusting that we are enough for ourselves.

That instead of Christ being the effecient and final cause, we believe we are.

We have tried to make the cosmos internal.

And in so doing have removed the concept of transcendence.

The thought of human flourishing does not happen because of God out there but happens from us in here.

Secular humanism is severely limiting.

There is no invitation beyond ourselves.

fragile because we desire more than we ourselves can offer.

Isolation and moving away from community

because of secularization we are constantly moving further and further away from others.

Technology helps us to do that as well.

Unless we are intentional it is easy to stay distant.

Easier to turn on a sermon than it is to come to church

Fragile because we are called to follow Christ together.

overwhelming number of choices at any given moment.

This is just fatiguing.

Josiah and backing out.

Were you just not thinking?

HE stated back, he was overthinking.

I think we are in a generation of overthinkers

These are shadow areas they are showing up in our lives and are showing up to be fragile.

They are areas that can’t live up to what it has promised.

The point of this passage is that there has been a system where we have redundantly acted in ways to deal with our sin.

We have been desperate with ways to deal with our stuff.

We use ministry to deal with our sin.

And the Scripture tells us that for the millions of times we have tried to heal or carry burden or show ourselves worthy, Christ has gone once as a sacrifice and is sufficient for all our running and is sufficient for all our working.

Watch your time and maybe cut this

There is a podcast called Exvangelical, hosted by a man named Blake Chastain who sets up interviews with people who have left the evangelical faith, who are, as the term goes, deconstructing.

In a recent episode Chastain interviewed comedian Pete Holmes.

Holmes grew up in a typical evangelical home but then in his adulthood tossed aside the labels of Christianity entirely for a pseudo spiritual view.

In their interview while Holmes stated an agnostic viewpoint, he talked nostalgically about his Christian upbringing, and fondly about the people in his church that he attended.

There were forms that he appreciated but there was no depth.

He was talking about a copy that pointed to all the right things but didn’t actually offer the right thing.

The copy pointed to something but it didn’t produce anything.

Copies cannot create, cannot offer anything.