Minding Our Manners

Rev Dr Mark Porizky

9/2/07

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ So we can say with confidence,

‘The Lord is my helper;
   I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?’ 

Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. 

Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

DEAR ABBY: I became engaged last Christmas. I have been planning my wedding with the help of my mother and my fiancé’s mother. I love them both, and they are helping to pay for my big day.

My problem is that every time I disagree with them, they call me "Bridezilla." I don't think I'm too demanding or hard to please. I just have ideas, tastes and expectations that may be different from my two mothers'.

This horrible stereotype is ruining the planning. I become devastated when they refer to me in that way, and end up giving in so I don't seem to be unreasonable.

Please help me. I am ending up with a wedding that isn't what I want. What should I do? - NOT BRIDEZILLA IN L.A.

DEAR NOT BRIDEZILLA: It is wrong of your mother and your fiancés mother to call you names. However, since they are helping to fund the wedding, you can't blame them for wanting a meaningful voice in the planning. If you feel your dream wedding has been hijacked, then you should politely draw the line and finance it yourself

For as many years as I can remember, Abby has been giving out personal advice in her daily newspaper column. Much of her advice has to do with manners - how to act in certain prescribed situations. It's manners that hold relationships together. If "Not Bridezilla" wants to get through her wedding, she'll need to be mannerly with her Mother and future Mother-in-law. Especially if they are going to help foot the wedding bill.

Manners do matter in our culture, even though we have become more informal in relationships over the last 30 years. Without these little rules to follow in social encounters, we would become confused and perplexed. We depend on manners to navigate us through life.

So did Christians in the early years of the Christian religion.  Even as Christianity was developing its doctrinal identity, they never lost their concern for minding their manners.

            Hebrews is a deeply theological work. William Johnson has suggested that it is a series of "betters." Jesus is the better revelation of God, the better name, the better leader, the better priest, the better sacrifice leading us to a better country and a better city. It builds, rising higher and higher as it goes.

            But then we come to Chapter 13, and all of a sudden the style changes. The soaring rhetoric of the previous chapters cease and a “shopping list" begins:

            Let mutual love continue.

            Welcome the stranger.

            Visit the imprisoned and tortured.

            Honor marriage.

            Be content with what you have.

            So different is the style that some scholars have argued--unsuccessfully--that this chapter wasn’t even written by the same hand.

            Yet I don’t think we need to view this chapter as somehow odd or different or of a lesser quality that the rest. What we need to see is that in this chapter the writer answers the question every good preacher has to answer. That is "So what?"

            "Yes, Jesus is the better revelation, name, leader, priest, sacrifice and so on, but ‘so what?’ What difference does it make?"

            Here in this chapter the author moves out of abstract theology and into application. He tells us what difference believing in Jesus makes in the way we live. He does so by running down five quick traits which mark the Christian life.

            So what are they?

            The first is love. "Let mutual love continue," the author says.

            There is a church in California -- San Francisco , I believe. It is a relatively new congregation--meeting in an old bar. Yet this congregation has developed a reputation for ministry to Baby Buster or Survivors, the 20-something generation.

            The pastor was asked what had been the key to the church’s effectiveness. He said one was a personal transformation. He said that for many years he had been consumed by the issue of truth. He wanted to make sure that everyone "believed rightly." Then he noticed what Jesus commanded was not truth but love. "Jesus said, ‘Love one another.’ Jesus said, ‘Love your neighbor.’ Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies.’ Once we started focusing on loving one another rather than correcting one another, we became a community that people wanted to join."

             If mutual love is what we offer to one another, then the second characteristic is what we offer others. That is hospitality. The author of Hebrews says that the people of God are people of open arms, welcoming others as we have been welcomed.

      When I was in Chautauqua earlier this summer, I met a man named Kent Groff, a Presbyterian minister from Harrisburg , whose spirituality encompasses the needs of persons often left out of the church. In his book Active Spirituality he talks about the importance of hospitality.

Groff remembers going to a church growth seminar. His heart was awakened to a piece of research that changed his attitude about evangelism. He learned, "Most visitors or inactive members who show up in your congregation (except on high holy days!) have been going through a crisis 

      Thus, whenever Rev. Groff spent time with people - visiting in the home, reading notes, talking on the phone, greeting people at the church door-he listened a little differently. He wrote, "I would become aware of a recent move, a career change, a family member in a nursing home, an infertile couple, a miscarriage, a lover's or a parent's crisis. After I learned it I knew it: the world breaks everyone." How true that is. Then Groff realized that "even a handshake at the door would become a prayer."

      A handshake becoming prayer!  This is hospitality.

            There is a third characteristic of the Christian that the author of Hebrews identifies. It is empathy.

            "Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them," he writes. "Remember those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured."

            Three years ago, The Oregonian, the newspaper in Portland , ran a five-part series on the persecution of Christians. The stories they told were frightening.

            In Pakistan , a Presbyterian pastor had his church destroyed by a mob. Later, masked men broke into his home and stabbed him to death.

            In Egypt a man who had converted from Islam to Christianity was arrested without charge. The police then used an electric probe--a cattle prod--to torture him and gain the names of other new converts.

            In southern Sudan , a Roman Catholic boy was playing with friends. Soldiers came along, captured him, sent him into slavery, where he was given an Islamic name and beaten with sticks until he recanted his faith.

            What was reported three years ago continues today. Some estimates suggest that there are three dozen nations in which Christians are being persecuted for following Jesus Christ. Yet rarely do we even hear of such abuse.

            Even more rarely do we pray for or express our concern for them. Yet the author of Hebrews reminds us that we cannot ignore the pain of others Christians. If any part of the body of Christ is hurting, we are to feel that pain. Such is the call to empathy.

            Or consider the fourth characteristic of the Christian life in the Hebrew writer’s list--marital fidelity.

            The author of Hebrews urges the hearers of his letter to honor marriage and to keep the marriage bed undefiled.  At the time Hebrews was written, marital fidelity was not a prime virtue. In fact, the Judeo-Christian notion of faithfulness in marriage was an extreme minority view. The pagan culture took its identity from a pantheon of lustful, impetuous gods. Worship of them frequently meant visits to cultic prostitutes. Even the idea of marital faithfulness was derided.

            And while temple prostitution has long since vanished, the challenge to fidelity remains. Marriage has been devalued in much of our culture. Sex without commitment is sold in ads, on TV and in movies. Even social science researchers have gotten into the act. A few years ago, Time magazine ran an article from researchers who argued that marital fidelity was unnatural, that evolutionary biology suggested fidelity was counterproductive for the human animal.

            For Christian marital faithfulness remains an important virtue--not because it is noble in-and-of-itself but because it is consistent with what Christ has done. Earlier in Hebrews, the author used the language of purification. He said that Christ the great high priest had purified our hearts and bodies. That language returns here. To defile the marriage bed, to dishonor one’s vows, is to defile what Christ has purified. It is to mar that which Christ has made holy. It is inconsistent with the saving work of Christ.

            Finally, the author of Hebrews says that Christian’s life is to be marked by contentment.

            Much has been made of the rampant consumerism of our age. The passion for bigger homes, better cars, more toys has been well-documented. Greed has been the subject of more than a few sermons and even a handful of films. Yet the author of Hebrews recognizes that greed is not the disease but the symptom. It points to a deeper problem--the fear of being abandoned.

            The author of Hebrews suggests that the people of God need not have such fears. We can be content with life because God will not abandon us. "I will not leave you or forsake you," God has promised.

            Because of our confidence in God’s care, we can be content with what we have and reject the assumption that our worth or our future consists of what we possess.

            David Wayne Sharpton, 54, has won major prizes in the Georgia lottery not once, not twice, but three times. In 2004 he won $350,000; in 2005 he won $1 million; and in February 2007 he won $2.5 million.

            Sharpton continues to work at his job as a restaurant-oven repairman, though his accrued winnings have given him more than enough to retire. He has a different take on what it means to be wealthy.

            "Am I the luckiest man alive?" he asks. "I suppose so. I got [sic] a pretty good circle of friends, a wonderful job, an amazing church and a beautiful wife."

            Love. Hospitality. Empathy. Fidelity. Contentment.

            Certainly those are not the only characteristics of the Christian life. Any one of us could probably identify others we would want to add. But all in all, the list the author of Hebrews gives us isn’t a bad list by which to measure our lives. Nor is it a bad standard for which to strive in response to the grace of God.

            Will you pray with me now?

St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton , CT

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