Hebrews 10:19–25
Lauren J. McFeaters
November 15, 2015
As news this week of the slaughter in Baghdad, Beirut, and Paris reaches our ears we are once again dazed and shaken by the violence of the world and our own country. We experience once again the unfolding violence north, south, east, and west. And in the midst of an ordinary day, while at work, or at play, more have been violently assaulted, their lives cut off without mercy.[1]
Some of us rage, and that’s fine. Some fall down weeping, and that’s good. Some are numb and can’t take anymore and that’s OK. Another day goes by and we begin to believe we have no more emotional resources to follow the news, no more spiritual resources to pray.
And just when we hover on the edge of wanting to turn away, God leads us to a small band of believers in the first centuries who are shaken as we are about the world around them. We meet the Church of the Hebrews and hear words reaching out through the centuries: “Since we have confidence and since we have a great priest over the House of God, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope and consider how to provoke one another to love all the more.”
The Letter to the Hebrews is a really baffling and mysterious text. It’s complex, lyrical, multifaceted, and unlike any other writing in the Bible. We don’t know who wrote it, where it was written, when it was written, for whom it was written.
And as we study it we begin to notice it’s not really a letter at all. It’s called a letter; it looks and smells like a letter, but it’s a sermon in disguise, a pastoral sermon directed to a beloved church in need of courage. Many linger on the outskirts of belonging, and float around the fringes of fellowship. They are weary, tired, and fatigued. How can they possibly work for justice when they can hardly take care of themselves? They are drained, sapped, bored. How can they possibly provoke and encourage one another?
One preacher puts it this way. The threat to the Hebrews church is not that they are charging off and away from faith, but that they don’t have the energy to charge off anywhere. The threat here is that, worn out and worn down, they are dropping off and drifting away.[2]
The problem is familiar. We too feel exhausted, drained, overworked, and overstretched. How do we work up empathy for others when Sunday mornings become some of the only unstructured time in our entire week? Why show up at church? Why not stay in bed or drop the kids off at church school and catch a quiet cup of coffee:
- Hold on. There’s the distinct aroma from Small World. Grumpy Monkey is summoning us.
- Whoa there! Could it be a western wind bringing in the fragrance of Peet’s Coffee? Yes, all the way from Berkeley, it’s Major Dickason’s Blend.
- And wait a minute! I’m getting a whiff of Starbuck’s Pike Place, and yes it’s being poured into those evil red cups.[3]
However, our Hebrews pastor refuses to get caught up in a social media frenzy. When faced with a world of brutality, uncertainty, and cruelty this Pastor of the Hebrews is bold, brave, and brash enough to believe it is only by the power of Jesus that we can be converted. It doesn’t matter how tired or bored or numb we are. The One who has scrubbed clean our hearts is the only One who can grab us by the scruff of the neck, pick us up, dust us off, and open our ears. Because…here it is – because:
He who has promised, is faithful.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,
For he who has promised is faithful.
All the more.
For he who has promised is faithful.
Some years ago, B.J. Katen-Narvell invited me to attend a conference led by Wayne Muller, a Christian writer who focuses his work on God’s promises and what holds us back from the Christian life, especially when we’re hanging on by a thread. He is a wise and articulate, and, much like the Preacher of Hebrews, he is concerned with people of faith who are discouraged.
Muller says our discouragement finds its roots in the relentless busyness of the lives we choose to live. We’ve lost the rhythms between work and worship and rest. Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than resting in God, that doing something — anything — is better than doing nothing.
And because of our desire to succeed, to meet these ever-growing expectations, we are gutted by discouragement. Discouragement. If you take apart the word you get Dis- Couragement; Anti-Courage; Detach-From-Your-Courage. We turn from the One who gifts us with courage. We forget to rest in the Living Word of God. We lose our way, become easily overwhelmed, and we miss the quiet that helps us listen for God’s direction. We miss life’s joy born out of sweet simple things. We say to one another, with no small degree of pride, how busy we are, as if our exhaustion were a trophy, our ability to withstand stress a mark of real character.
But then, there comes a Word.
And it’s the very Word of God.
The Word that is faithful and true.
And that Word wakes us up;
Sweeps away the sleep from our hearts.[4]
The Word binds us in love and pierces us, not as violent assault,
- but as a skillful surgeon mending of the ties that bind,
- stitching up our emotional lacerations,
- resetting our dislocated souls,
- standing us upright and helping us to begin again.
All because the essential, indispensable thing that keeps us alive is the Word of God. It gets us to the core of what matters: loving one another in the face of terror.[5] Loving one another: north, south, east, west. And we are not afraid. Not afraid. Not afraid.
And that’s a foretaste of heaven.
Thanks be to God.
[1] Thanks to Laurie Ann Kraus, Coordinator, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, for these images from, “A Prayer for Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad.” Presbyterian News Service, pres-outlook.org/2015/11/a-prayer-for-paris-beirut-and-baghdad, November 13, 2015.
[2] Thomas G. Long. Hebrews. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997, 3.
[3] Reference to the anti-Starbucks social media frenzy over their plain red 2015 seasonal coffee cups with no Christmas symbols.
[4] Wayne Muller. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. New York: Bantam Books, 1999, 1-3.
[5] Thomas G. Long. Beyond the Worship Wars: Building Vital and Faithful Worship. The Alban Institute Inc., 2001, 17.
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