Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost: Epistle, Hebrews 13:1-17            

Hebrews 13:1-17

A few years ago a pop group called “The Pointer Sisters” brought a fun and funky tune to the pop music world called, “We are family.” It spouted all those wonderful ideas about standing together through good times and bad, having one another’s backs, and never running out of the love that holds families together. In a much more somber, but no less joyful expression, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament begins the final chapter of the letter with, “Let brotherly love continue” (Heb. 13:1, NKJV).

Christian life is supernatural in its source and sustenance. But it is not easy. God saves us into a family. We are not redeemed to stand alone and we should never think of our salvation as some reduction ending in “me and Jesus.” Tragically, much of the church in my country (America) has adopted our independence-minded model from our nation’s founding and made that the operating principle of the church. Individualism kills the church. In fact the very notion of individualism in the church is antithetical.

Here the writer of this beautiful letter begins the final stanza with a reminder that we indeed are a family and that family is sustained by love going back and forth between its members. Without ceasing. So two takeaways today. First, remember we are a family. The church is a family. And second, we are called to lovingly live our lives for one another. Till Jesus comes and beyond.