Hebrews 13:1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to
strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without
knowing it. 3 Continue to
remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those
who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. 4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept
pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love
of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never
will I leave you; never will I forsake you." 6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will
not be afraid. What can human beings do to me?" 7 Remember your leaders, 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 Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of
praise--the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with
such sacrifices God is pleased.
This
week concludes our mini study of the book of Hebrews.
Chapter
13 gets around to what nearly all new testament letters get around to--the
ethical portion. As I've blogged here before--most recently with St. Paul's
letters to the Galatians and Colossians--sooner or later the letter which
begins with doctrinal matters ends with ethical matters. The ethical section,
as one commentator puts it, is the "so what" portion of the letter.
It's where the faith in our hearts is encouraged to live differently and make a
difference at ground level.
So, as I
say, this is that part of Hebrews. And at first glance it appears as if the
author is just sort of shot-gunning some stand-alone pithy statements: love one
another; be neighborly; be faithful to your spouse; be content with what you
have, etc. etc. More than one writer has noted the challenge for the preacher
with this passage. Which nugget should the pastor preach on? For the person
sitting in the pew, no doubt the most puzzling aspect is vs 2 Do not
forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown
hospitality to angels without knowing it. Really? The writer is likely
referencing certain Old Testament stories such as those concerning Abraham and
Gideon...but he seems to be saying that such could continue to be the case in
his day, and perhaps even ours?
And
while the angel part may appeal most to the average person in the pew, the
average pastor may feel compelled to focus in on that part about money in verse
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you
have, as after all, this is a very counter-cultural message to the
consumer-driven society in which we live where we're constantly being told we
don't have enough and we need to spend, spend, spend, charge, charge, charge...
in order to be content.
All of
that is wonderful, but it seems to me that there is a tie that binds all of
these pithy statements together, and that tie is found in vss 6 & 8: So
we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. 8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. In other words,
the tie that binds is about change; our innate penchant for change. Why
do we need to be told to have brotherly love (v1) toward our sisters/brothers
in the faith? Because something may change about them or us that would
make us not want to love them anymore. Why do we need to be told to be risky
with our hospitality? Because times change and now more often than not we fear
strangers. Why do we need to be told to have great empathy toward those
imprisoned or those who are suffering? Because times change, and that may be us
in prison tomorrow. Why do we need to be told to be faithful to our spouse?
This is perhaps the easiest one to acknowledge in our culture of casual sex,
and "friends with benefits." Because people change; couples who were
madly in love with each other yesterday are just mad at each other today. The constant
in these verses is human change.
And so
the question becomes, how do we deal with this? Where do we get our 'power' to
confront all of this change? Is there some pill that we can take? Are there
certain exercises we can do? Can we buy an insurance policy against human
change? Can we find the universal pause button and press it? Of course the
answer to all of those questions is NO. And the writer knows this. So, he
points us to the only solution. While there's nothing we can do to prevent
human change from occurring, we can prevent ourselves from being swept away by
it... by faith in the CHANGE-LESS ONE. Jesus Christ, the **SAME** yesterday,
and today, and forever. And, he is our helper...so we need not be
afraid.
Lack of
fear doesn't mean change won't come; it doesn't mean change won't happen. But it
does mean that in faith we can confront those changes with that CHANGELESS ONE
at our side.
Cheers,
TM
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