So those of you who we here last week, will remember we began a series on Hebrews. We’ve spent the last few months studying Kings and so I thought we would delve into a New Testament epistle before returning to the gospels in Advent.
The Book of Hebrews is not an easy book. It’s a bit strange and mysterious and sometimes hard to understand. If you were a bit confused about what we read before that’s pretty normal. Don’t worry we are going to get into.
This book has also been experienced as anti-Old Testament and anti-Jewish. And as we make our way through this series we will have to wrestle with that.
However, as we talked about last week, while the author clearly believes that Jesus is a superior revelation of God than all that has gone before, this does not mean they believe that everything that has gone before is invalid.
The author of Hebrews draws on the stories of her faith, her people, her tradition to encourage and inform her community. It is her conviction that the God who speaks in Jesus is the very same “God who spoke to our ancestors in many various ways,” the same God who spoke to Abraham and Sarah, to Moses and Miriam, to Deborah and Jeremiah.
Those of you not here last week might be surprised I am referring to the author as she. So a little recap. We do not actually know who wrote the text, to whom and exactly when. A number of Paul’s companions such as Barnabas and Apollos have been proposed but I have been somewhat persuaded by the arguments for Priscilla.
Priscilla, along with her husband Aquila, met Paul in Corinth. They had come from Italy, around 50CE after Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome.
Like Paul they were tent makers and so he lived and worked with them. They then travelled with Paul to Syria. Paul left them in Ephesus. There Priscilla and Aquila met Apollos who they instructed.
Paul must have met up with them again when he returned to Ephesus and wrote the letter to the Corinthians because he sends greetings from them.
They returned to Rome after the edict expelling Jews was lifted and they lead a church in their home. When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans he sends greetings to them.
Paul also sends greetings to them in his letter to Timothy.
While Pricilla’s authorship is not conclusive, the fact the author is not named is certainly very unusual. If the author was indeed a woman this would explain this. It would also explain the uniqueness of the style and content. And so in this series I am referring to the author as she.
This sermon is sent to this community as a letter to address a pastoral problem. The congregation is tired. Long describes them as exhausted, tired of serving the world, of being peculiar and whispered about in society, of the spiritual struggle, of trying to keep their prayer life going etc. etc.
Perhaps you can relate.
Many of them are leaving the community and falling away from faith.
But the preacher of Hebrews, believes that holding fast to Jesus is in fact the best way. That the promises of God can be trusted. That in God they will find the rest that their tired souls long for.
In this section the word rest comes up 8 times.
The passage that the author is preaching on in this sermon within the sermon, is psalm 95 which she has quoted in the previous chapter. She believes the Holy Spirit is speaking through this psalm into the present. She hooks her message in particular on God’s rest.
Long, describes the use of rest in Hebrews as complex, integrating three themes.
First, (and I have a slide please Martin) “rest” speaks of the beginning of time; it refers to the finished character of creation and draws upon the imagery of Genesis 2, where God is said to have “rested on the seventh day. . . from all the work that He had done in creation.”
Second, (again a slide) “rest” points to the end of time, to the finished work of redemption, when Christ is revealed as Lord; pain and toil are ended, death is defeated and all that would destroy the will of God for human beings and for all creation has itself been destroyed.
Third, (again a slide) “rest” describes a possibility for the faithful in the middle of time, of those Sabbath Days in the life of God’s people when the finished work of God is both remembered with thanksgiving and anticipated with hope.
Therefore, says the author (and I’ll get the last slide) “sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; 10 for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.”
Here at the Alice Springs Uniting Church we talk about Sabbath a lot but here it is again in Hebrews so we are going to talk about it again.
While it is the fourth commandment, it is what Miller has described as “the crucial bridge” that connects the ten. It looks back to the first three commandments and the God who rests. At the same time it looks forward to the last six that concern the neighbour. God, self, all members of the household including the animals, all the members of the community, including the aliens and the earth, share in common rest on the seventh day.
But before the ten commandments Sabbath is weaved into the very being of creation.
It is also weaved into the way that the people of God are to live after they are liberated from slavery. As soon as they cross the Red Sea into freedom they are immediately taught this. Daily God sends them manna from heaven which they are to collect, except on the seventh day. On the sixth day he sends double so that on the seventh day they can rest. According to Brueggemann “this unexpected provision is surely a sign that bread for life is not under the demanding governance of Pharoah; it is under the sustaining rule of the creator God.”
A lot of people tell me that cannot practise Sabbath. With work, study, children and all the extra curricular’s it is just impossible. I admit I no longer parenting very young children. I am also not studying. I admit I did not practise Sabbath as consistently or as well when I was. So I get it and if you cannot, you cannot. God is merciful. But I do have this feeling that God knew about young children and that people have practised it with them.
And if we look at Hebrews we realise that Sabbath is not simply about doing nothing. Rather, it is “a day in the life of God’s people when the finished work of God is both remembered with thanksgiving and anticipated with hope.”
In the Exodus tradition it has a neighbourly dimension. It is the day the people of God remember that they too were slaves but God brought them out of it. They know what it is like to long for rest therefore they must deny no one that rest.
I have also come to see Sabbath as Brueggemann does, as an act of resistance to consumer society, as an alternative to the endless demands of our economic reality that depends on the endless generation of greater needs and desires that leaves us feeling restless, inadequate, unfulfilled and anxious.
Now I think of course some kind of outward rest helps but the aim is not the rest itself. The aim is the remembrance, the anticipation, the resistance. The aim is inward peace and there are different routes to that.
Some kind of rest from work matters I think but I recognise that what work is and isn’t, is different for people. I would think if it is something you get paid for then it is probably not rest but I do not think all kinds of volunteer work are necessarily excluded.
I quite like to spend time in the garden on Sabbath. For me it is different and restful. For others it is not. It does not give them a break from the desire to be always bettering their home and themselves. A break from this demand matters.
Some choose to rest from extracurricular activities because getting themselves and their children there has actually become a burden not a joy. Others choose to engage in one because it is something that brings joy and a sense of rest.
Some choose not to go on social media, or their phone at all.
Some choose not to shop, to look at their bank account or even think about money.
For those of you who are parenting you might find that when you are resting from these other things that parenting is just a little bit easier. Sabbath might be rest from multi-tasking. A day to get really present to your young people. Do something with them that you all really enjoy.
For Some it is a day alone, a day to spend with God. For others a day with others.
A lot of people practise Sabbath on Sunday. There is a lot about doing it on that day that it is good. It is the day you come to church, the day you gather with the community of faith. Even with young children here there is the possibility of a moment of quiet, of worship and reflecting on the Scriptures.
However, for some of us Sunday is never going work and which day it is, is ultimately not the most important thing.
Again, what we are aiming for is remembrance, anticipation, resistance and peace.
Despite all this some of you still might feel it is just too hard. Again God is merciful but remember this is a gift friends, not a burden. It turns out that YHWH is not a workaholic and that the wellbeing of creation, let alone yours and your family’s, does not depend on endless work. What good news for our anxious hearts.
Hear again the call of Jesus, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
