Sermon: Hebrews 13:1-16, August 30, 2025

Scripture: Hebrews 13:1-16

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Today is our second week in our little dip into the way back of the New Testament with the Epistle to the Hebrews. Last week we learned that Hebrews is most likely a sermon written to a group of Christians (likely Jewish Christians) who are under a lot of pressure from the culture around them through stigmatization and persecution. As a result they have become exhausted and discouraged, weak in their faith. So the writer–or better yet preacher–has sent this letter to encourage the community, and to re-awaken them to the beauty of faith.

Last week in chapter 12 we were given this beautiful image of Mount Zion, the heavenly city, with trumpets of angels, sanctified saints, with Jesus Christ standing in the middle. A beautiful image of God’s future. With the purpose of stoking hope in a congregation that has given in to hopelessness. Take heart, proclaimed the preacher. Don’t be shaken, because you’ve been given an unshakeable hope. Thanks to Jesus Christ.

Which makes today’s reading, the following chapter rather jarring, don’t you think? Because here we turn from eschatology, meaning the end of all things. We turn from the end of all things to ethics. To how we’re supposed to live.

“Let mutual affection continue,” says the preacher. “Keep on loving each other, caring for each other.”

“Don’t just care for each other, either. Remember the story of Abraham and Sarah who set a feast before some weary guests, not knowing they were angels in disguise.” Be as welcoming as you can to strangers as you can, because when you do, you welcome the Lord himself.

“And don’t forget folks in jail, the ones being tortured. In fact, treat them like it’s you behind bars and on the rack.”

“And believe I have to bring this one up, too. Like “married” means monogamy. Stop sleeping around, already. God hates that stuff.”

And finally, “don’t be so driven by acquisition, don’t be so lured by the promise of money at the expense of all else. Get less greedy, ok. Stop grasping and be content with what you’ve got.”

Okay so it’s clear from this little laundry list of depravities that the Hebrews are doing all the above! They are a bunch of inhospitable, uncaring, greedy swingers. And you thought St. George’s was quirky.

It makes sense. The Hebrews are doing all sorts of bad things, the preacher wants them to stop. But there’s one important question: Why should they stop? Why?

Now, if you’ve been around St. George’s at all, you’ll know we talk a lot about this thing called grace. Grace being the unmerited, unconditional one-way love of God. We’re high on grace, and low on law. Big on love, little on judgment. When you come here you can expect not a lecture or to be blasted with firehose of moral scolding, but a refreshing overflow of mercy, and forgiveness, and acceptance. God’s arms open wide. No matter who you are or what you’ve done.

And you know–it’s not just that we’re trying to be inclusive, or progressive, or water down the faith for modern people. But on account of our Protestant faith tradition. That we believe that–in the language of the Protestant Reformation–that we are justified, made right with God, not by our works, but purely by grace in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That there’s nothing we could ever do to win God’s favour, but that God’s favour, salvation is freely given. Received through simple faith in the one who gave it. And it’s all right here in today’s passage, too.

First, “remember your leaders,” he says. “Not just that they did good things, but that they led beautiful lives on account of their faith.”

Then there’s that awesome phrase “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Not just that God is eternal, unchangeable, but that Jesus reveals that God never changes God’s gracious disposition towards us. Nothing we can do to change it.

Then there’s the thing about food regulations not mattering, grace strengthening the heart. Then there’s all the stuff about the altar of sacrifice. Whereas the sacrifice of animals once mediated the forgiveness of sin, it’s been replaced by the blood of Jesus. That on the cross all our sins were dealt with once and for all. By the Lord himself.

Nothing we could ever do to earn it, nothing we could ever do to throw it away. It’s not just the teaching of this church or preacher. But we believe that it’s the core teaching of the scriptures itself. It’s all grace, grace, grace, grace. Beginning to end.

At this point you may realize that this begs the question I asked earlier. If there’s nothing we could ever do to win over God, what about the bad stuff? It’s the question of ethics. And you know, it’s a fair question. It’s an accusation that atheists make, one that Muslims make, Mormons make, one that even some fellow Christians make–both the more liberal ones and the more conservatives ones. Liberals because there are so many we should do. Conservatives because there are so many things we should not do. If we don’t do good to avoid punishment or to win favour, if it’s all forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, nothing but grace, grace, grace, what reason do the Hebrews have to quit their no-good, unwelcoming, greedy, sexual debauchery? Why should any of us? Why should anybody do or not do anything at all? To risk sounding like an annoying toddler, the question is why?

Our preacher’s answer to the Hebrews comes in the last couple lines:

 “Through him,” he says (meaning Jesus). “Through him let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of the lips that confess his name.” There’s that word sacrifice again. Our preacher continues: “Do not neglect to do good,” he says. “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” There it is again–sacrifice. We’re to offer sacrifices. Not the same sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross–in chapter 10 our preacher said that sacrifice was “once and for all” (Heb. 10:10). But sacrifices of praise, going good and sharing what we have in response to God’s sacrifice for us.[i] Which is to say, showing our gratitude. Giving thanks.

You see, this is the difference between the Way of Jesus and all the other ways out there. Whereas all the other ways say “do this” and be rewarded. Or do enough and you’ll be enough, Jesus turns it all on its head. John chapter 3:16 puts it like this: “we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us,” and chapter four: “we love, because he first loved us.” The great Reformer, John Calvin, said that God’s work is grace, ours is gratitude. Or the great anti-Apartheid activist and Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who put it this way: “we don’t love because we are good. We are good because we are loved.” We do good because good has been done for us. It’s gratitude.

Right now I’m in the middle of reading Nothing’s Bad Luck by C.M. Cushins, a biography of the late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon. If you don’t know who he is, maybe you know his most famous song “Werewolves of London.” Like many artist and musicians, Zevon for a long time struggled with deep dependencies on drugs and alcohol. Consumed by a relentless drive for musical perfection, fortune, and fame, this guy not only blew up his life multiple times, he treated his wife and friends like garbage. He desecrated the marital bed, blew countless thousands of dollars in pursuit of drugs. He probably would have fit right in with Hebrews congregation addressed by our preacher.

A moment that really stuck out to me in the book is when Zevon himself is reflecting on an intervention held by his wife of the time, and some of his closest friends and family members. An intervention is where the person whose substance abuse problem is out of control is confronted, each person takes time to share instances where that person’s behaviour hurt them in full honesty. That’s what Zevon’s friends and family did for him.

Now, the thing is, that intervention did help him stop drinking and using. But it only stuck for a while. Soon enough he was off the wagon again, sharing a hotel room with Mick Jagger’s wife Bianca. But reflecting on this intervention several decades later, Zevon saw it as a turning point in his life. “When an alcoholic discovers that people care for him,” said Zevon. “When an alcoholic discovers that people care for him his whole way of thinking is threatened. Either you try to return that love by taking care of yourself, or you keep drinking and spend your life being insulated from the rest of the world.”[1][ii] Interestingly, what changed him wasn’t just the fact that these people shared their hurts, or how he had to change. It was that they demonstrated just how much they actually loved him, that they cared so much that they wanted to save him, in spite of everything he’d done to them. He chose not to believe in, or receive that love at first. It was too threatening to his way of thinking and his way of being in the world. But when he eventually did, that’s what changed him. All he wanted to do was return it.

And really, that’s how the Christian gospel works, and the Christian life works, too. In Jesus Christ God has held an intervention in our lives. Not withholding the truth for us, but by demonstrating his love for us on the cross. Based on no deserving of our own. One of the reasons why we don’t believe it is because, like Zevon says, it threatens our way of thinking. We actually prefer the way of self-destruction that leads straight to Hades. But when we do believe it, when we have faith. Then we find ourselves changed. We find ourselves grateful, wanting to love in the same way we’ve been loved. “Grace follows gratitude, in the words of the great Karl Barth. “Grace follows gratitude like thunder follows lightning.”[iii]

Why should we do good if it doesn’t win us divine brownie points? Why should we refrain from doing evil, if what we do can be forgiven?

The answer is gratitude. The answer is thanksgiving.

Why be hospitable to strangers? Why greet everybody who walks through our door with unneccesary esteem? Everybody we meet. Why? To thank God for God’s hospitality. God welcomes us, welcomes you as one of God’s own, even though you nor I did anything to deserve it.

Why treat the least, the last, and the lost royally? Even criminals and prisoners? Loving with an empathy so deep that their hurts hurt you? Why? To thank the one who died a criminals death, One who was without sin who became sin for our sake, for yours and mine.

Why get married or choose monogamy? Why love one person faithfully, when there are far easier, way more titillating temptations out there? To thank God for God’s faithfulness. The church is the bride of Christ, the one who was faithful to you and I, unto death, even death on a cross.

Name your commandment above!

Why do good? The answer is to thank the LORD for how good he is. The answer is to bless the Lord for what he’s done for us! If we believe that God has not only created us and called us, but has borne our sins, overthrown all evil, stamped out the fires of hell, redeeming us forever at great cost to himself based–not on our goodness but out of nothing but his love–then the only proper response, can be “thank you.” And we thank God for what God has done for us through sacrifices of praise, doing good, and sharing what we’ve got.

So through him, dear friends, through him, may you then continually offer up that sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of the lips that acknowledge his name. May you not neglect to do good, and share what you have. After all, such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] C.M. Kushins, Nothing’s Bad Luck: the Lives of Warren Zevon (New York: Da Capo, 2019), 111.

[i] Thomas G. Long, Hebrews: a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997), 145.

[ii] C.M. Kushins, Everything’s Bad Luck: The Lives of Warren Zevon (New York: Da Capo, 2019), 111.

[iii] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/1, §4, p. 41.