July 30, 2006

Reflections on St. Andrews
 

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

Hebrews 10:19-25

Thanks to the congregation for supporting me in going on this trip. Purpose of trip to prepare for dissertation.

Actual learning was much greater. My remarks in three sections: Observations about Scotland; People I met; New Insights about Hebrews.

Observations about Scotland: Beautiful land – well preserved. Rolling hills, beautiful beaches.

Historical architecture maintained. New houses built in old stone style.

Pictures: Edinburgh Castle and city; St. Andrews cathedral and castle; Golf course and university. (slides)

Great public transportation – can function without car. (slide) Small cars – Gas at $6 a gallon and more. Concern for environment. No debate about global warming there.

People I met:

    Scholars -
            Harold Attridge (Slide)
            My professor Andrei Orlov – his insights on attending one of these meetings. (Slide)
            Colin – Welsh Ph.D. student – missionary in Argentina.
            Japanese Tourists from Sapporo

More negative Perception of U.S. We need to mend fences and take more cooperative attitude. U.S. travelers less safe.

Very positive portrayal of U.S. evacuation of Lebanon.

Brits having scandal problems with own government. Some things are universal.

New Insights about Hebrews

Scholarship – reinforced my commitment to helping the church. For me there’s no other reason to study scripture.

My presentation – went well. I received helpful feedback about how to revise my article so I can publish it.

Hebrews is not meant to keep people from reverting to Judaism – it says Christianity is a new era in Judaism – a further and eternal development of Judaism.

Reinforcement of our strong connection with Jewish roots.

This past week was a time I will never forget. As I said before, I went with the hopes of gaining a better understanding of Hebrews so that I could do a better job on my dissertation. In fact, I learned more not only about Hebrews, but about the world, and about myself.

I learned that the knowledge you gain at a conference like this is half as important as the relationships you develop. Knowing more about Hebrews than anyone else is all fine and good, but if in the process you cannot be the kind of friend or spouse or parent you know God wants you to be, then you really haven’t learned the lessons of Hebrews in the first place.

I’ve learned that one of the things we need now in order to be the church is to reaffirm our unity and roots with the Jewish people. Our faith, if you believe the author of Hebrews, is a development of Judaism. We cannot be who we are without them and their scriptures.

It is only by affirming our oneness with them that we can ever have the kind of relationship with them which will allow us to be involved in a meaningful way in any peace process. I’m not saying that we Christians should agree with their actions in trying to protect themselves because our Bible also says the land of Israel belongs to them.

What I am saying is that if we can affirm our deep connection and roots with them, then we may have the kind of trusting relationship which will allow us to raise questions about the choices they have and are making in attempting to defend themselves.

Hebrews describes the church as a group of people who live in expectation of the coming of Jesus. It is perfectly legitimate 2000 years later to raise questions about how we continue to understand that expectation for our own lives.

But it is clear that the church described in Hebrews never had any grandiose visions of itself, never aligned itself with a superpower, and never attempted to impose its own views on a large swath of the population through force or otherwise.

Part of keeping our continuity with the church described in Hebrews involves a keen sense of the temporary nature of this world, and of our lives. Life is too short and too precious to spend fighting and bombing our way into a false sense of security.

Hebrews tells us to strive for peace with everyone. We have to abandon the idea that peace in the world means the good guys need to keep bombing the bad guys until enough bad guys are dead that the world is safe. We’ve tried that approach and so has Israel ever since 1948 and all we’ve got to show for it is lots of hatred and lots of dead people.

As we keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and pioneer of our faith, we have to be just as willing to condemn the hate based aggression of Hezbollah as we are to condemn the needless killing of innocent civilians by Israel in Lebanon.

Hebrews says Jesus learned and was perfected through his sufferings. The longer I watch people kill each other in the Middle east, and the more I watch our country and businesses pumping deadly weapons into that part of the world, the more worried I am that we are not learning from our sufferings, or from theirs.

In closing, I want to remind us of some words of encouragement the author of Hebrews gives us. In times of great suffering and conflict, he told his readers to spur on one another to good works.

I hope that whatever we do in response to this horrible tragedy will spur them and the rest of us on to good works. We must make choices in our lives that will help other people make good choices and do good things.

Hebrews tells us to be in solidarity with people who are suffering as though we were suffering with them. We must do that because Jesus did the same things for us. He suffered to the point of death in order to save us. Keep that simple truth in mind the next time you’re considering how much to donate to disaster relief.

Let me end with the blessing the author of Hebrews gives his readers, and us: “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, {even} Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom {be} the glory forever and ever. Amen.”