Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
August 25, 2013
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina Berry
We've been
talking about faith for the last couple of weeks as we looked at what the book
of Hebrews has to say to us about it. We started with a definition of faith:
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Then we moved closer
to see what faith looks like, and it turns out it looks like a lot of ordinary,
flawed people listening for God and moving along the road, keeping their eyes
fixed on Jesus.
Now, we’re in
the third and final week of our series, and we’re getting some direction
on how to DO
faith – where faith goes, and how.
Let’s look for
direction now from Hebrews 13, verses 1-8 and 15-16.
Let mutual love
continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that
some have entertained angels without knowing it. 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. Let marriage be held in honor by
all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators
and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content
with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake
you." So we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will
not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" Remember your leaders, those who
spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and
imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Through
him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the
fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share
what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Have you ever
gotten lost in the woods?
I don’t mean
lagging behind on a marked trail, but really, truly lost? with no idea how to
get home? Maybe it wasn’t the woods. Maybe it was the desert, or prairie, or a
cornfield in August. Wherever it was, obviously, since you are here, you found
your way home.
It is kind of
surprising to think about the number of people who go out for a hike, usually
in the mountains or forest, and get lost and never come home, are never found. In
the United States, between one and two THOUSAND hikers go missing every year. Over
a thousand of them get lost JUST in our National Parks. Most of them are found.
But some are not.
Serious hikers
exhort people to pay attention to some basic guidelines: carry a pack with some
survival basics; let someone know where you are going and when you expect to be
back; and don’t go alone.
Most hikers who
get lost are solo, young men, who set out alone. When they get lost, instead of
turning back, they forge on, without knowing where they are going.[1]
That’s when they get into trouble. This scripture in Hebrews, like those
exhortations from hiking experts, is filled with instructions about our own
journey, as we run that race along a very long track, through wilderness and
desert, in the woods and the prairies of our lives.
Scholars call
this “hortatory” scripture, because it exhorts us – instructs and encourages us
– no -- urges us, to go in a certain
direction, to act in a certain way. I think of this text as being like a set of
trail markers. You’ve seen trail markers before – maybe you learned about them
in Scouting, or with a hiker, or in a book. They date back to ancient times.
In Scripture,
trail markers were generally rock cairns, like the one pictured on the front of
your bulletin. They were stones, piled atop one another, and they served two
purposes:
Cairns were a mark of God’s
covenant faithfulness, and cairns marked the path to get back home. When the
people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt, they headed out into the
wilderness. God guided them for many years in that journey, until they finally
crossed the Jordan into the promised land, carrying the ark of the covenant. At
that spot, they piled up stones, building a cairn in observance of God’s
deliverance, marking their path to freedom, to their new home. And when the
people went into exile, driven away from their homes, they built cairns to mark
the way back, trusting that one day they would return to their homeland.
The practice of
marking a trail hasn’t changed much, even though the medium has changed. In what is now
West Texas, the early Spanish explorers marked the plains with wooden stakes,
direction markers, so they could find their way back and forth. The high plains
were called the “llano estacado,” the staked plains. Some trails in Europe are
marked with painted symbols, stenciled onto trees or rocks, giving guidance to
hikers.
No matter what
form trail markings take, their ultimate goal is to communicate two basic
pieces of information: where a hiker is
currently, and where he or she needs to go next. That’s pretty much what these
trail markers do. They remind us of God’s covenant faithfulness. They show us
where we are and where we need to go next. There are times when Christian faith calls us to strike out
and blaze new trails; there are times when it calls us to stay on the well-worn
path.[2] These are trail markers for our faith. Given that,
let’s take a quick look at these markers in Hebrews 13.
Marker
1. The love of fellow believers in community and love to the stranger.
Let mutual love
continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that
some have entertained angels without knowing it. The Beloved Community, the church, is a home for love. Our
welcome and hospitality are not limited to ourselves, but are offered to others
in Christ’s name. By our loving welcome,
we demonstrate God’s love in Christ.
Marker
2: To show care in times of distress.
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. Our Christian journey
is marked by our care for those who suffer – not just each other, not just
people we know, but all who suffer.
Marker
3: Honor the marriages of others, and stay faithful to our own marriage
covenants.
Defending
marriage isn’t the point here, but holding all marriage in honor. Even if we
should suffer the pain of the breakdown of our own marriages, we can still
honor the covenant of marriage. If you are not married, uphold the covenants
that others have made. And if you are
married, keep your promises.
Marker
4: Contentment with what we have.
It has
been said that true happiness consists not in having what you want, but in
wanting what you have. What we have, beyond any material possessions, is the
abiding, constant, grace-filled promise of Christ: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to
me?" That is true contentment.
Marker 5: Loyalty and constancy
Remember your
leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their
way of life, and imitate their faith. This is not just blind loyalty to a
pastor or a public religious figure. Those who spoke the word of God to you –
you know who they are. They may be the voices of scripture, the cloud of
witnesses. They may be Sunday School teachers, ministers, children, a neighbor or a friend. Remember them and stay
faithful because of their examples. People change – they fail, they fall away,
they come and go, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Marker 6: Proper worship and
proper sacrifice.[3]
Here’s what
Hebrews 13 says: Through him, then, -- him referring to Jesus Christ, the one
who is constant and faithful, on whom our eyes are fixed, who is the author and
perfecter of our faith, through him, let us continually offer a sacrifice of
praise to God. That sacrifice is not a burnt offering on an altar. That
sacrifice is the fruit of lips that confess his name. That sacrifice is to do
good and to share what you have. To do good and to share what you have. Those
are sacrifices that are pleasing to God. That’s why here at the front of the church, you don’t see an
altar, even though many folks refer to it as such – there is no altar in this
church. There is a table, the symbol of our gathering, and a reminder that
Christ’s sacrifice was once and for all. So we do not gather in front of an
altar, but around a table. Here, gathered around this
table, literally and figuratively, as we live in community, as we worship
together, we come and bring our gifts to God.
We travel from many places, through
weeks that feel like a wilderness, through days that look like deserts, seasons
that seem like we are at sea, or lost on a featureless prairie. The trail is
well marked, and it brings us here, leads us to this table where we bring our
gifts, gifts
of praise and lips that confess God’s name, gifts of works that bring glory to
God and Christ our risen Savior.
When we set out on the journey of Christian
faith, we need to know where we are. We need to know where we are going.
We need to know how to get there. We need to
know how to get home. This is a
trail that is well marked. The trail leads us through every circumstance, through gloomy fog and dark
woods, when we may not be able to see the markers and must trust in Christ our
guide; through sunlit meadows and vast open plains, when everything looks the
same in every direction, and we simply fix our eyes on Jesus; the road may take
us up to mountain tops and down into valleys and across rivers, through places
both hospitable and treacherous.
But always, always, the path
leads us back to Christ,
who calls us and guides us,
who gathers us and cares for us,
who meets us at this table,
who is always with us,
always ready with arms
outstretched,
always ready to welcome us and
lead us home.
Amen.
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