He Brews, She Pours

PPLP – Langenburg / Churchbridge SK

12th Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary 22 – Year C

Jeremiah 2:4-13

Psalm 112

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Inviting God,

laying open your table to those without status or power,

and setting a place for the foreign and the unwanted:

overturn our tables of power

and teach us to receive bread from strange and wounded hands;

through Jesus Christ the one given for all. Amen.

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When we look at today’s readings, we are able to see that the passage from Hebrews looks to the practical side of our interactions with each other.

It touches on the categories of hospitality, social interactions, marriage, and respect of the roles of money and those in leadership positions. Naturally, it places Jesus above all of these, and brings us back to Jesus as the place where our focus needs to be in the midst of everything else on this list.

Admittedly it’s a varied list, but it’s not exhaustive, and I’m sure more could be added.

But having said that, it gives us a frame of reference that we are able to return to time and again. After all, how many of us have given hospitality to angels? Or perhaps we have and just aren’t aware of it.

The example we are able to look back at, on this, goes all the way back to Abraham and Sarah, but the examples are there in Genesis 18 that tells us:

“2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

3 He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”” (Gen 18:2-5a)

But it doesn’t stop there, although we are reminded to treat everyone as if they were angels in our midst.

We then turn to the words the letter to the Hebrews about visiting those in prison, or who are being tortured as if we ourselves are being tortured is as significant today as it was when the letter was written.

There are so many different ways to live life, in this world. Ways that change over time, yet are also shaped by cultural contributions, as well. So, if we are able to look beyond the surface to see the similarities between cultures, then it enhances our ability to follow the advice we see in Hebrews, today.

I remember a great-aunt in Toronto whose cultural background was firmly rooted in the European Caucasian culture to the point that when a different culture began to predominate in her neighbourhood, she became uncomfortable for a while until it became normal.

Having said that, the author of Hebrews invites us to look at the culture, or the lifestyle of the people we meet. We’re invited to learn about the causes for peoples to emigrate or why a culture is nomadic and another not so migratory in its lifestyle.

An old expression is that the only way to know about another’s lifestyle is to walk a mile in their shoes. The joke response is that then you’re a mile away, and you’ve got their shoes. But the intent is to look at life through each other’s perspective.

Hebrews tells us: “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.” (Heb 13:3)

Life in the days of the early church mean that if one were in prison, then its not for a misdemeanour. It was a serious situation, and friends and family were a necessary support to bring food, items of comfort, etc., to the prisoners.

One of the major reasons to be arrested would be not demonstrating faith to a religion recognized by the Roman Empire, whether it’s the Hebrew faith, or one that encompassed the pantheon of roman gods and religions. Then torture would often be imposed in order to convince prisoners to abandon the fledgling Christian faith

So, then we are able to remember when John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod, when John’s prophetic voice became too loud to be ignored.

But throughout his life, John continued to fulfill his goal of pointing us to Jesus. In the early days of the church, John was a compass pointing to the one who fully entered into our way of life, our circumstances to bring us to new life in Christ, before God.

So, the letter to the Hebrews reminds us 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”, and this approach to visiting, then, gives us a completely different way to be with those with whom we visit.

What is it like to imagine ourselves, today, lying next to the person we’re vising in hospital? What would be elements of the conversation we would engage in with them with that empathy behind us?

When we imagine the loss of those who mourn, how will that change our conversations with friends and family who have suffered loss?

And since covid has entered our lives, our losses have grown, haven’t they?

So, are we able to empathize with those who live alone? Whose mobility has become limited because of the covid lockdown conditions? Or those whose anxiety and fear of the unknown has grown because of covid and because we, in general, fear the unknown?

Trying to walk a mile in their shoes gives us a different perspective. It’s a perspective that is able to give us insight and wisdom into the lives of those around us.

At the same time, it’s able to overwhelm us and rob us of those conversation starters that don’t feel the depth of what people are experiencing in their own prisons or situations of torture.

And knowing this, then, how do we open the prison door? How do we provide a salve for those who continue to feel tortured or persecuted in life because of their fears, their anxieties, or their beliefs?

How do we grow through our act of empathy in knowledge, in depth of feeling?

There had been an account, a few years ago, during the first wave of Syrian refugee resettlement in Canada.

A Syrian refugee family had been learning to navigate the public transit system of a large city. The mother and the children were on the bus with their guide and interpreter when a passing car backfired. Without thinking, the mother threw herself over her children, protecting them from what, to her, sounded like gunfire.

How are we able to emphasize with her trauma? Can we help her to reconcile her traumatic history, as she strives to learn what life in Canada is able to look like for her and for her children?

Would we be able to understand her perspective as if we had lived it? Would we be able to bring insight to her challenges of a life lived among those who have never experienced being amongst active combat as a civilian?

In this case, we are able to return to the letter to the Hebrews and we are able to find a way to focus on what she needs from us, which is understanding and a new perspective, without judgement and without rancor.

And in such a way, we are able to look at absolutely everyone around us and to walk their journey with them because we can see them, and we can identify, even casually, with their struggles to live life to the fullest.

Where do we see prejudice that we can help to address and reverse?

Where do we see issues of needed reconciliation, not just in our own lives or community, but in our region, our province, and in Canada?

How does the words of the Letter to the Hebrews, today, help us to experience another culture and see how that experience broadens our perspective?

How, as an example, to live into the Truth and Reconciliation commissions 94 Calls to Action to bring about a step toward healing the intergenerational problems caused by another’s interpretation of colonization?

Examples abound, because everyone’s way of living, even if they look as we do, comes with it’s own history, it’s own way of doing that isn’t necessarily sitting in our own seat.

The guidance in the letter to the Hebrews helps us to look at the world around us through eyes that may not be ours to see what we are able to take for granted because of our history in an area, our background.

But it also invites us to reach out to the world around us and invite people to see things through our eyes as well.

And by doing that, maybe along the way we will be able to invite people into our lives, our circumstances, in return.

Maybe we’ll be able to invite them to come to church, to be welcomed into the body of Christ, or to at least understand why, at the moment the body of Christ might not be felt to be welcoming to their experiences.

The words found, today, in the letter to the Hebrews is such a gateway to new experiences, new views, new ways of being and doing that all we can do is grow.

We grow in empathy, we grow in knowledge, and we grow in friendships because we look at others and through faith, see them through the eyes of God’s love, always.

Amen.