Hebrews 13:1-3
During the worst of the COVID pandemic, when there were so many desperately ill people in the hospitals and so very many deaths, I found myself thinking a lot about those patients who were not able to have any visitors, who faced the fight of their lives and sometimes even their own deaths alone. No family members could be there to hold their hands or offer any words of comfort or encouragement. What must it have been like to be there? To see only the faces – the eyes, really – of your team of doctors and nurses? To see your family members only with the help of Facetime or Zoom on small cell phone screens? What would it feel like to have to breathe with the aid of a respirator? How scary would it have been to be intubated? What thoughts would have gone through your mind if you realized that you were dying? Where would your strength have come from in fighting the disease? It made me sad and angry and frustrated to think about how many people had to experience this. I was practicing the kind of love that the writer of Hebrews spoke about in these verses.
In the first verse of our passage, believers are encouraged to love each other, to “let mutual affection continue.” This kind of love might be a feeling; but more than that, it is a love that wills the good of others. In other words, you want what is best for each other. Having a congregation that loves each other is crucial to the Christian witness in the world. I have heard it said that there is no worse witness to the gospel than a church that is fighting or full of dissention. I have pastored churches where there were divisions among the members over all sorts of issues. And I have seen visitors come to the church once or twice, picking up on the negative feelings, and deciding not to come back. On the other hand, I have also pastored churches where there was a strong feeling of affection between the members, and they have extended this warm feeling to visitors, leading to many of them choosing to join our congregation.
Next, the writer advises the Christians to show hospitality to strangers. This is one way that Christian love becomes concrete, according to David Adams, a priest at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in New York City. He points out that travel was dangerous and difficult in the ancient world, and travelers needed to find safe places to stay along their journeys. William Barclay reminds us that showing hospitality was an important virtue in the ancient world. It was especially valued by Jews and Greeks. And since inns were filthy, expensive, and “of low repute,” as he says, it was important for travelers to find suitable lodgings with reputable hosts. David Adams points out that some of these travelers who needed lodging were on business for the church, either as itinerant preachers or letter carriers, and they helped the local churches be connected to other communities around the world.
While showing hospitality, even to strangers, was seen as a virtue in the ancient world, modern Christians may be a little leery of this practice. Lanny Peters, pastor of Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, GA, says that “most of us are hesitant or outright resistant to living this out. We … usually fear the stranger…” It used to be that people felt safe picking up hitchhikers, but not anymore. It would never occur to me to let a stranger get into my car with me. I did know a pastor in Kentucky who made a practice of carrying several gallon jugs of water in the trunk of his car, along with roadside emergency supplies such as jumper cables and flares. If he saw someone with a car pulled over to the side of the road, he would stop and offer help. But I’m not at all sure that I would even feel safe doing that. Has the world changed so much since ancient times? Weren’t there dangerous people out and about then, just as much as today? We have to somehow find ways to work around our fears so that we can practice hospitality in safe ways that demonstrate our care and concern for people in trouble.
The writer of this passage gives a good reason why it is important to show hospitality to strangers: it is because when we do so, we could be entertaining angels without realizing it. Now, that isn’t just some sweet thing to say, implying that strangers might really be very good people when we get to know them. No, the writer literally means that we could be sharing our supper with angels! It happened several times in the Old Testament times. Abraham and Sarah invited some strangers to share a meal, and they happened to be angels who had come with an important message from God: before a year had passed, Sarah would give birth to a son. In another story, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, invited strangers to stay with him. Some of the townspeople came to his house and demanded to have the strangers come out so that they could kill them. Lot protected them, and they turned out to be angels who warned Lot that this city was going to be destroyed, and they told him how to save his family. So, yes, when we show hospitality to strangers, we should not be surprised to find ourselves in the presence of divine beings.
Finally, the writer of Hebrews gives one additional practice that Christians should take up in order to demonstrate their love. They were to remember those in prison as if they were in prison with them, and to remember those who were being tortured as if they themselves were also being tortured. This is more than just casually thinking about prisoners and victims of torture; this is imagining yourself in the place of someone who is in a bad way, such as a COVID patient. It’s important to remember that, at the time this letter was written, it wasn’t unusual that Christians found themselves in prison or being tortured because of their faith in Christ. This isn’t an unrealistic scenario that the writer is presenting, but a fairly common occurrence. And the members of the early churches did a good job of practicing love towards prisoners and those being tortured; they didn’t just offer their thoughts and prayers, they took action.
The Greek thinker Aristides said of Christians, “If they hear that any of their number is imprisoned or in distress for the sake of their Christ’s name, they all render aid in his necessity and, if he can be redeemed, they set him free.” And it was said of the early Church Father Origen, in the 2nd century, “Not only was he at the side of the holy martyrs in their imprisonment and until their final condemnation but, when they were led to death, he boldly accompanied them into danger.” William Barclay writes, “The Christians became so notorious for their help to those in jail that at the beginning of the fourth century the Emperor Licinius passed new legislation that ‘no one was to show kindness to sufferers in prison by supplying them with food and that no one was to show mercy to those starving in prison.’ It was added that those who were discovered so doing would be compelled to suffer the same fate as those they tried to help.”
So how could we practice showing love and concern for those in prison? There are those who are involved in the prison ministry known as Kairos, which is a branch of the Walk to Emmaus retreat and community, which a number of New England Methodists have participated in. The Claremont church collects blank, unused Christmas cards and gives them to those in the local jail to send out to their families and friends. It doesn’t have to be something huge; even a small act of kindness goes a long way for those in prison.
I’d like to close by reading Leslie Brandt’s paraphrase of these verses found in her book, Epistles/Now:
We must guard carefully our relationships with
one another and regard even those who are unknown
to us as possible emissaries from God.
Every interpersonal relationship is a sacred trust –
especially those within the family of faith.
We need to remember our comrades who are facing problems
and conflicts that are even more severe than our own.
We are all God’s emissaries to one another – and the
means by which He shares his grace with the
members of Christ’s body.
Together we can march through a hostile world as the
men and women of God – reaching out to the wanderers
and stragglers by the way to draw them
into God’s family.
There will be a price to pay and pains to bear, but we
will be able to handle them because we have a great
God whose love for us never changes and who
promises that eternal joy which we even now have
found in some measure and shall experience fully
and eternally when our march has been completed.
