Text used – Hebrews 2:5-12

• The sermon title this morning is one of my favorite phrases: “Jesus loves you … and I’m tryin’!” It’s such a favorite phrase that I have a t-shirt with this phrase on it … this t-shirt, in fact!
  • Admittedly, it’s a phrase that’s often said a little tongue-in-cheek – a phrase akin to the Southern expression “bless your heart” … which actually means “you’re driving me crazy but I can’t express that in this particular moment without being rude” → Jesus loves you … and I’m tryin’.
  • As far as I can tell, it’s actually a phrase that originated from a song by contemporary Christian singer (and fellow Minnesotan!) Jason Gray – a song, oddly enough, called “Jesus Loves You (And I’m Trying).”[1] I want to read you the lyrics to that song because I want to be sure you catch them. They’re actually pretty poignant. [read lyrics]
• And it’s that sentiment – that acknowledgment of the inherent worth of even the people we find it the hardest to get along with … the hardest to tolerate … the hardest to love … that resonates with our Scripture reading this morning.
  • Right off the bat: feels like a difficult passage because of one simple/not-so-simple word: angels – text: God didn’t put the world that is coming (the world we are talking about) under the angels’ [2] → When you pair that with the sentence it’s found in – a sentence about “the world that is coming” – and we find ourselves in one of those really difficult texts particular to the New Testament: eschatological texts.
    • “Eschatological” = simply big, fancy word for the end-times
    • Texts that scholars, pastors, Bible-thumpers and regular confused folx have been arguing over for centuries
    • My take (and the take of some of the scholars that I’ve read): the framing of this text within this idea of “the world that is coming” = not a literal prediction about the end of the world but a literary device meant to give the reader a sense of the absolute, endless nature of God – of God’s power, of God’s love, of God’s presence, of God’s grace
      • Scholar: The author of Hebrews reminds us quite early that the beginning and ending of all Christian thinking and living is God. God is the subject of the New Testament as well as of the Old.[3] → In other words, from the moment time began to the moment time ends, all of it – the everything of the world we know and the everything beyond this world – belong to God.
        • Unknown writer of Heb underscores this point with the text that s/he quotes in the next few vv: Instead, someone declared somewhere, What is humanity that you think about them? Or what are the human beings that you care about them? For a while you made them lower than angels.You crowned the human beings with glory and honor. You put everything under their control.[4] → passage from Ps 8 – a psalm of praise to the awesome power of God [read Ps 8]
          • Awesome power of God
          • Fleeting nature of humanity in the face of that awesomeness
  • Heb writer then bring it full circle to the “Jesus loves you” part of our phrase by explaining the grace poured out for us through the love and life, the death and resurrection of Jesus – text: However, we do see the one who was made lower in order than the angels for a little while—it’s Jesus! He’s the one who is now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of his death. He suffered death so that he could taste death for everyone through God’s grace.[5] → Hear that again, friends: “He suffered death so that he could taste death for everyone through God’s grace.” It doesn’t say Jesus tasted death so only the people I like could experience God’s grace. It doesn’t say Jesus tasted death so only the people who look like me … think like me … pray like me … love like me … speak like me … vote like me could experience God’s grace. We do such a thorough job nowadays of dividing ourselves – of walling ourselves off from one another while vilifying “the other.” The rhetoric about “the other side” has gotten so vicious, so vitriolic that we can’t even come to the same table anymore. And yet the life and love that Jesus lived – the ministry that he both preached and embodied – was a ministry of coming together.
    • Including those who had been excluded
    • But also extending the invitation to those who had done the excluding
    • Jesus gave every single person the choice: “Learn from me. Live like me. Love with me. Or don’t.” He didn’t mandate it. He didn’t force it. Because, in the end, forced love isn’t really love, is it?
• “Yes, Jesus loves you … and I’m tryin’.” → The second half of that phrase is just as necessary as the first for two important reasons.
  • FIRST, it’s a recognition of our own faults – our own tendencies to draw those lines between “us” and “them” instead of trying to cross those lines [re-read last verse of Jason Gray’s song] → Basically, these three little words – “and I’m tryin’” – are a confession. “I’m trying, God, but sometimes … lots of times … maybe even all the time, I’m failing. I’m trying, God, but today, I’m just too angry, too scared, too hurt, too overwhelmed, too worried, too stressed. I’m trying, God. I’m trying, God. I know I’m not getting it right all the time … but I’m tryin’.”
    • Purpose of the confession portion of the prayer that we pray at the beginning of worship every Sunday morning (from the Book of Common Worship): Having praised the holiness of God, we must also face the sinful state of the world and of our lives, confessing our unworthiness to enter into God’s presence. Nevertheless, we approach God with confidence, trusting in the mercy of Jesus Christ. This turn from communal praise to corporate confession, established on the promise of God’s grace, is one of the hallmarks of the Reformed tradition. … As members of Christ’s body, we confess the reality of sin, captivity, and brokenness in personal and common life and ask God’s saving grace.[6] → Yes, Jesus loves you … and I’m tryin’.
  • SECOND reason this part of the phrase is important = it’s a pledge → It’s simultaneously a promise and a prayer to do better – to try to live and love out loud and in the most difficult circumstances the way Jesus did.
    • Heb passage speaks to this at the very end of today’s reading: This salvation belongs to many sons and daughters whom he’s leading to glory. This is because the one who makes people holy and the people who are being made holy all come from one source. That is why Jesus isn’t ashamed to call them brothers and sisters when he says, I will publicly announce your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise you in the middle of the assembly.[7] → If Jesus himself – even with the knowledge of our imperfections and struggles – isn’t ashamed to call us siblings … If Jesus himself – even with the weight of our mistakes and our prejudices stacked upon his own shoulders – could publicly announce our name to all the world as God’s own beloved child, then we have to try to do the same.
      • Through our words
      • Through our actions
      • Even through our thoughts (which I know is such a hard part because, hey – who hears my snarky thoughts but me, right?)
      • The whole sentiment behind “Jesus loves you … and I’m tryin’” is an acknowledgment that even in the most difficult circumstances, we will try to live out our faith – to ensure that our actions and our words out there match the devotion and the grace that we crave … that we seek … that we come to find in here every Sunday morning. “Jesus loves you … and I’m tryin’” is about bridging the gap between this hour on Sunday morning and the rest of the week.
• Conclude with story of Mister Rogers from Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints by Daneen Akers[8] → “Yes, Jesus loves you … and I’m trying.” Amen.

[1] Jason Gray. “Jesus Loves You (And I’m Trying)” from Land of the Living album, released by Centricity Music, November 17, 2023.

[2] Heb 2:5 (emphasis added).

[3] Fred B. Craddock. “The Letter to the Hebrews: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary series, vol. 12. )Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), 42.

[4] Heb 2:6-8a.

[5] Heb 2:9.

[6] From “The Lord’s Day – Confession and Pardon” in the Book of Common Worship. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 5.

[7] Heb 2:10b-12.

[8] Daneen Akers. “(Mister) Fred Rogers” in Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints. (Oceanside: Watchfire Media, 2019). 68-73.