Today’s reading is actually a podcast. Listen here!
If you’re unable to listen, the transcript is below.
Sometimes when you read some of the epistles or letters in the New Testament, it can feel like reading other people’s mail.
You can study about their context, but we’re so far removed from the original audience, it gets tricky.
We don’t know a lot about this book. It’s not a letter or an epistle. Paul didn’t write it. We have no idea who did. In the words of Origen, an early Church father: Only God knows.
Hebrews is, more than anything else, an exhortation. It’s a sermon. And it was written during an anxious time.
It’s an anxious text.
Are we anxious now?
We might not have the same anxieties today, but clearly, we have them.
One of the things people seek in alleviating anxieties is how to get rid of them, but that never has to mean giving up your faith.
One of the telltale signs of the book of Hebrews is repetition. The author repeats themselves a million times, which begs the question: In anxious times, what are you repeating to yourself?
In anxious times, our attention spans are so caught up in that dis-ease that we may need to hear things again and again and again.
Hebrews continually paints a picture of priests doing the same thing over and over again without accomplishing anything. Christ did it once, and it was accomplished for all times and all places. Today, we also have religious leaders who are going through similar motions while nothing substantial is happening—no actual communal liberation or forgiveness of sins takes place within the community. It’s just a shell.
One of the central questions of this part of Hebrews is: what are you doing by God?
What are we doing by God?
And in our doing, are we following Jesus or are we following the talking heads?
There are other questions to ask.
Where do the stories we tell ourselves come from?
Where does our authority come from? What do we do in anxious times? What do we say to ourselves in anxious times?
Where is our attention drawn in anxious times? What is captivating us? (At that same time: what is grounding us?)
The church can be a good laboratory for these questions—if we are honest enough to ask them, to name the deep anxiety present all around us.
Pastors Tim Brown, Tuhina Rasche, and Jason Chesnut are pastors of Anam Cara (“soul friend” in Gaelic) is a digital-first mission start in the North Carolina Synod of the ELCA. TIM BROWN is a pastor in the ELCA. He's deeply steeped in his Celtic roots and finds beautiful symmetry between ancient spiritual practices across the world that focus on peace, grace, and love (you know, the things Jesus practiced). He blogs regularly at Reluctantxtian.com, has a weird obsession for learning about the saints of the church (both official and unofficial), and is a writer at heart (and, hopefully, by profession). TUHINA VERMA RASCHE is an ordained pastor in the ELCA. She is in a constant search for the holy in the Word, written words, and words turned to art. When asked if she can reconcile her Hindu faith with her Jesus-following present, she wonders why is there an automatic reflex to reconcile? She dreams of the divine in donuts. JASON CHESNUT is (somehow still) ordained in the ELCA, and divides his time between preaching, filming, reading, and writing. He also watches a lot of movies. His company, ANKOSfilms, is committed to (a) (n)ew (k)ind (o)f (s)torytelling, and films through a lens of liberation, equity, and justice. He lives as close as possible to mountains, and in an alternate timeline would be a wildlife photographer.
To Consider
How does the church practice truth-telling?
How does it embody being a beloved community?
Prayer
Holy God, guide us through the anxieties of this world with a strong and soft hand. Give to us your peace, a peace beyond human comprehension. May we be attentive to the ways in which you are still speaking to us, and alert to the ways you still operate in our world. May we do all these things in the name of your Son, our Savior, Jesus.