Service That Is Pleasing To God, Hebrews 13: 1-18

The last chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews provides us with some insights into the kinds of service that are pleasing to God. As we know, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). If this is so, it is a matter of both faith and logic that we must not only pay attention to it but also be faithful to the wisdom of Scripture. How do we remain faithful to it? By practicing it openly and joyfully in our daily lives with courage and commitment. We are not alone in this, for we know and believe that God is with us and that he will never abandon those who trust in him.

This final chapter concludes the Letter of Hebrews with several specific moral admonitions and returns to the central theme of the sacrifice of Jesus and the kind of courage and commitment that is necessary to truly associate oneself with Jesus’ sacrifice. It begins with the simple statement, “Let mutual love continue.” Then enters the first of the moral commandments: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (v. 2). Hospitality is a central virtue to a life of faith in God. We see this virtue modeled throughout the scriptures. For example, when Abraham sits at the entrance of his tent at Mamre and sees three men standing nearby, he immediately runs to them, greets them, and offers them food, water, and rest. He is unaware that he is “entertaining angels,” but in doing so, he and his wife, Sarah, are rewarded in their old age with the promise of a child (Gen. 18: 1-10).

The next commandment referred to is the following: “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being torture, as though you yourselves were being tortured” (v. 3). The author of the Letter to the Hebrews is writing here to Jewish converts to Christ who are in danger of falling away under the pressures of persecution and need encouragement, for the real suffering of Christ is all around them. But is this not true today? Many are in danger of apostasy, either because they are caught up in false interpretations, or manipulations of scripture, or are afraid of being ridiculed for openly practicing the faith in a faithless age. These words are as much alive and charged with the power of commandment as they were when this Letter to the Hebrews was written.

We are admonished here by the Holy Spirit to, “Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers” (v. 4). What is more sacred than the commitment of love that spouses make to each other in both the words of their mouths, and in the giving of themselves bodily to one another in the intimate and sacred and co-creative act of love. In this “it’s-all-about-me” age, where the sexual act has been trivialized, commercialized, and minimized to just another form of private entertainment, this commitment to marriage and the sanctity of the marriage bed is ridiculed, precisely because it defies the self-indulgence of the self-absorbed god of pleasure.

We are admonished as well with this commandment in: “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’ (v. 5). What could be of more value than our relationship with God? What could be richer and more empowering than his ever-generous grace? He is the source of every gift, of everything that we have and are. Why forsake his faithful, constant, and infinite love and grace for something as finite and fickle as money, here today and gone tomorrow? As we are told, “No one can serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon (money)” (Mt. 6:24).

The key to the infinite meaning and purpose of these words is found in verse 8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” What was written in this letter almost 2,000 years ago bears the same weight of eternal and universal truth today as it did then, and will remain so forever. These things, these ways of serving one another faithfully, are in line with the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus, and they are meant to be lived by each of us as Christians in the world today. “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” (vs. 15-16).

Let us then pray for the graces we need to turn away from our fears and for the courage to practice humble service toward our neighbor. Let us practice the virtue of hospitality toward the stranger among us. Let us practice seeing the face of Jesus in those who suffer. Let us practice generosity of heart, of spirit, as well as of our goods with those in need. Let us not “get carried away by all kinds of strange teachings” (v 9). Let us take to heart the truth of the Gospel in Matthew 25: 34-46, “Whatever you did (or did not do) for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did (or did not do) for me.” His words are not suggestions; he means what he says. The world needs Christians willing to live the Christ-life openly and cheerfully as much now as it did at any other time.