All Saints’, Dorval
October 6, 2024
Sasha the Sheltie puppy
This morning we begin reading from the letter to the Hebrews, and we will continue hear excerpts from this letter for a few weeks to come. Hebrews is a remarkable document; it’s called a letter and included in that section of the New Testament called the “Epistles” (which is simply the Greek word for letter) but “the letter to the Hebrews” is really a sermon. We don’t know who wrote it, or what audience it was addressed to, but it brings a perspective unique in scripture. Hebrews reinterprets the Jewish priestly and sacrificial tradition in light of the coming of Jesus the Messiah.
Ironically, Hebrews was probably written less than a decade before the final destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, which put an end to that priestly and sacrificial tradition and led to the emergence of the rabbinic form of Judaism that has survived until the present day.
These opening passages of Hebrews are frankly kind of confusing. Once again we’re talking about angels, and there are various heavenly hierarchies that the writer seems to assume we take for granted but that, two thousand years later, we have only the vaguest idea of, and Jesus is sort of bouncing up and down along the ladder between earth and heaven based on whether he’s the human Jesus on earth or the eternal Son reigning at the right hand of the Father. (It doesn’t help that the lectionary passage leaves out a full chapter between 1:4 and 2:5.)
“He is the reflection of God’s glory,” writes the author, “and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” … “… ‘You have made them [humans] for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honour, subjecting all things under their feet.’ Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death …”
Who are the humans being referenced? All of us, or just the perfect human Jesus? What does it mean to be “for a little while lower than the angels?” while simultaneously having all things subjected under his (our?) feet? Is this happening in the past, present or future? Maybe the first-century audience of this sermon could follow the argument, but I’m struggling.
I frequently respond to passages of scripture like this by just letting the images and associations wash over me, letting it be, as the kids say these days, all about the vibes. But sometimes I think there’s also something to be learned even from the chaos.
Humans are frequently inclined to try to create hierarchies for ourselves. It’s one of our favourite pastimes. We put God at the top (usually a God created in our own image), the created world at the bottom, and in between are people, one step up from animals, and angels, one step down from God. Usually we can’t resist adding extra levels: we imagine various kinds of demigods and various ranks of angels, and we divide humans into categories and privilege rich over poor, men over women, white over Black, straight over gay, priests over people, and on and on. We invent all sorts of ranks and titles and then devote huge amounts of time, energy, and resources to trying to maintain and enforce these hierarchies.
What this passage from the letter to the Hebrews does is to scramble those hierarchies. Instead of an unchangeable and unchanging God always at the very top, we have Jesus, “the exact imprint of God’s very being,” vaulting up and down at will, lowering himself to the human level and then being exalted again, not by rejecting but precisely by sharing the human experience of suffering. We have the angels and humans apparently repeatedly changing places in a kind of cosmic dance.
This is not a fixed, static hierarchy where everyone is stuck in place and can never change. This view of the cosmos is dynamic. It allows for change. It celebrates interconnection.
And this understanding seems particularly appropriate for the day we celebrate the Blessing of the Animals. In the traditional hierarchy, the plants and animals and the earth that sustains them are at the very bottom, to be used and dominated by humans as they please. Creation is not even really mentioned in the passage from Hebrews, which is focused on divine action and heavenly hierarchies.
But if the hierarchy is flexible, if God and humans and angels are not stuck in place for all eternity but rather can dance together in a dynamic exchange, then Creation, too, is not forever fixed at the bottom of the ladder, but rather is also part of the dance.
One of the questions that pastors are most frequently asked is “can my pet go to heaven?” The fixed-hierarchy view would say no, pets are too low on the ladder to have souls, therefore they don’t go to heaven, end of story. The fluid-hierarchy view that we’ve been exploring here might not make a definitive pronouncement on the subject, but it would say, well, if everything is connected, if God and angels and humans and creation can all change places in an ongoing dance, then who’s to say that our beloved creatures aren’t just as important as we are to the God who made them? Who’s to say that the extraordinarily beautiful and complex creation that sustains us all, isn’t just as essential as the God who created it?
If we scrap the strict hierarchy, what remains to bind the universe together? What remains is love. The love that inspired God to create in the first place, and then to become human and suffer in order to bring wandering humanity back to God. The love that joins each part of the whole – God, angels, humans, creation – to each other. As we children of the ‘90s say, quoting the musical RENT – “Measure in love”. Love is the only yardstick. Any hierarchy that denies or perverts love must be abandoned; the only true pattern is the pattern of love, centred on a God who, instead of sitting aloofly at the top of a pyramid, instead permeates everything with that love.
I don’t want to conclude this morning without acknowledging the very difficult questions raised by our other two texts – the reading from Job, and the gospel passage in which Jesus discusses divorce. If you need an in-depth analysis of those passages, I’m happy to share with you the sermon I preached on these readings three years ago. But I think our conclusion about Hebrews – that the universe is not an unchangeable hierarchy, but rather a dynamic dance permeated by love – is a helpful starting point from which to read about Job’s suffering and Jesus’ strictness. Ultimately, if it isn’t about love, it isn’t about God.
So, snuggle your pets and the people you love, pray to God, be on the lookout for angels, and give thanks that we live in a universe ruled by love, where God is on the move, within us and among us.
Amen.
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