Jay Rowland
A Hebrews Solution
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
August 28, 2022
Here we are on the cusp of summer’s end and autumn’s approach. This time of year my mind is pre-occupied with thoughts about our Sunday morning and weekday programs which run from September through May.
This year the anticipation feels different than the past two covid summers. The danger and the burden of covid appears less volatile these days. Of course, it can always surge again--and if that happens we know what to do. Unless I’m deceiving myself, it seems like things are a bit more stable lately.
And yet I find myself just as perplexed as ever--but also more excited and hopeful about the future. Perplexed because two-plus years of covid disruptions and interruptions have altered levels of participation which complicates planning. Our Sunday morning and weekday programs are still in recovery mode. That’s what two-plus years of a pandemic will do amid ongoing societal and cultural shifts.
In the months ahead we’ll have numerous opportunities to pray and ponder, discuss and discern together how God may be calling us to respond with compassionate wisdom and creativity during this unique time. The congregational survey you all completed will help drive and navigate that process.
I am so energized and excited. Even with the ongoing uncertainty we’ve all been learning to live with. I have to say uncertainty feels especially strange here amid the familiar trappings of church routines and schedules and presumptions. But it’s also exciting because the pandemic allows us more opportunity than usual to experiment with new forms and structures for learning together, gathering, worshiping, and mission-ing together in this time and place.
I’m excited about the opportunities we now have to revitalize our mission, to rediscover our purpose and to renew our faith community together. I trust that God is doing something new and will faithfully guide us as we ask the hard questions and do the hard work necessary to discern what God is calling us to do and to be in this time and place.
All of this is on my mind as I engage with the Hebrews passage before us today. I asked the Lord the Holy Spirit to reveal something in this passage to help us engage the perplexity and the opportunity before us as a congregation.
I leaned on Rev. Tom Long, Presbyterian minister and scholar, and his Interpetation commentary on Hebrews.* I will borrow liberally from his skilled insights to help us in this task (page references will be noted in parentheses)
Long identifies several characteristics which distinguish Hebrews from all other books of the New Testament and the bible. Among those characteristics, Long shows how Hebrews is actually a sermon rather than a letter; a sermon preached to a particular faith community. And while the identity of the preacher preaching this sermon is uncertain, the congregational problem being addressed in Hebrews is very clear to Long.
Any guesses what that “congregational problem” could be?
Good guesses would be “conflict” or “theological differences” or “personality clashes” etc. But the congregational problem being addressed by the Preacher of Hebrews is identified by Long to be
EXHAUSTION
The congregation is exhausted.
I nearly fell out of my chair when I read that.
I don’t recall ever encountering that word in any commentary before and would never expect to.
And yet as we may have noticed, “exhaustion” is one of the terms often used to assess life after two-plus years of the covid pandemic—life in general and congregational life in particular. Listen to Long’s description of the situation in Hebrews:
“They are tired—tired of serving …, tired of worship, tired of Christian Education, tired of being peculiar and whispered about in society, tired of the spiritual struggle, tired of trying to keep their prayer life going, tired even of JESUS. Their hands droop and their knees are weak (12:12), attendance is down (10:25), and they are losing confidence … (congregational morale is dangerously low).” (Long, p.3)
I’ve had this commentary on my shelf since the late 90’s but this quote sounds like something that would be written today. All the more astounding is that Long is describing one of the earliest Christian “congregations”.
Having said that I find it fascinating that the Hebrews Preacher does not explore the “why” question… nor what it means or how to change it. What the Hebrews preacher concentrates on first and foremost is the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ (aka “Christology”).
Long comments that this approach is so counter-intuitive that “it probably should be seen as refreshing and maybe even revolutionary”.
As we tread the waters of congregational discernment using the best contemporary resources and tools available, how might we use our imaginations and prayers to let the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ be our foundation … our guiding principle?
As we begin to discern and untangle where we are now in order to discern where God might be calling us to be it would seem that the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ is an excellent starting gate in which to gather. But that’s such a vague phrase—so let’s see what other insights we can glean from Long’s scholarship.
In chapter 13, the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ is fleshed out in some of the common areas of church life--specifically hospitality, visitation and stewardship. Interestingly Long calls this section a “minute for mission” (ancient style). Here’s a quick “tour” (Long, p.142-146) :
Hospitality. The Hebrews preacher shows concern lest the mission of hospitality be tainted by expectations or aspirations about increased church membership or church attendance. Hospitality is in service to offering people an experience of “mutual love” (v.1) For example: Long clarifies what we’ve long known: church suppers are about more than food and eating. Church suppers and the other simple ways of gathering/fellowship and building community is a reflection of the ongoing “gathering and worshiping in the heavenly city where there are innumerable angels ready for the feast (12:22).”
At any particular time the faces in our church building or YouTube screens may be familiar or unfamiliar but, Long notes, “when they enter our community of faith, they bring the presence of God with them.”
Think about that for one second. Hospitality creates opportunities for the presence of God enter our community through all who come—known or unknown to you or me.
Long comments: Mutual love must not be so ingrown that it does not set a place at the table for the stranger, “for by doing so some have entertained angels without anyone knowing it.” The preacher’s wording here alludes to several OT stories but especially the story of Abraham, Sarah and the three strangers at Mamre (see Gen. 18:1-15) and ultimately to Mount Zion, that symbolic place known to all Hebrew people where all find welcome in God’s house.
The next so-called common area of congregational life in this minute for mission is visitation or prison ministry or as Long defines it visitation with the wounded, which includes all of us, Long comments:
“The church is not to engage in condescending charity but to provide a ministry of empathy as though you yourselves are in prison too … as though you yourselves are experiencing torture too. We do not do this because we are naturally compassionate, but as an imitation of Jesus who entered … fully into the human situation.”
Long thus links the curious phrase about remembering your leaders to Jesus, noting, “Jesus, after all, is the first and quintessential leader who spoke the word to us.” And so as the Hebrews preacher says, to consider the outcome of (Jesus’) way of life and to imitate his faith means potentially facing the same abuse Jesus faced and making our own unique sacrifices.
“We do not, of course, make the same sacrifice that Jesus offered,” Long writes. “His was ‘once for all’ (10:10). Our sacrifices are to be about praising God, confessing God’s name in public, doing works of mercy, and sharing what we have with others.”
The term sacrifice is carefully and intentionally chosen by the Hebrews preacher. And so in this context let us be bold to proclaim that we are called to sacrifice exhaustion and discouragement upon the altar of the past, following Jesus Christ into the current perplexities of the unknown. For this is the nature and meaning of Jesus Christ among us… this is the way we can become the church the Lord longs to create with us and for us.
And “while there is plenty for us to fear,” Barbara Brown Taylor adds, “there is also plenty for us to hope. Our God who does not break promises can be trusted to go on creating the world out of darkness and chaos, putting breath into our dust and dry bones, turning our lives and deaths inside out in order to set us free.”
Let us imagine this church--First Presbyterian Church of Rochester MN--becoming a place where people learn they can be set free from all that leaves them depleted and exhausted. For such is the saving work of Jesus Christ in every time and place. Particularly this time and this place.
* Long, Thomas G. Hebrews Interpretation Commentary. John Knox Press. 1997
Hebrews 1-8, 15-16 NRSV
Let mutual affection continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them, those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. 4 Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he himself has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” 6 So we can say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?”
7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
15 Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
