I did little more than make an occasional mention of the readings from the Letter to the Hebrews as we read from it these past weeks. That’s a shame because it is a rich homiletical resource, full of theological and ethical material. In fact, it’s not a letter at all. The epistolary material is tacked on at the end. Instead, it is exhortation, a sermon. It is anonymous, although the tradition attributed to Paul from a very early point, but careful readers throughout history knew Paul didn’t write it. It’s very different in style, language, and viewpoint. And it was probably written in the latter part of the first century; couldn’t have been later than that, because second century Christian texts seem to reflect its ideas.

The Letter to the Hebrews is important to both the theological and liturgical traditions of the Church, with its emphasis on Christ as High Priest, offering himself as sacrifice. One thing that has interested me as I read and listened this fall is the question of the connection between the letter and the destruction of the temple. It’s easy to interpret Hebrews as supersessionist; that is to say, that Christianity replaces (supercedes Judaism). But if the temple sacrifice to which Hebrews refers has ended with the destruction of the temple, then it could be read as an attempt to make sense of the lack of sacrifice in a new historical context. No doubt biblical scholars have lavished hundreds of pages on this question, which I’ve obviously not read, but I do think one can construe the discussion of temple sacrifice as something that has taken place in the past and takes place no longer; thus it requires some sort of symbolic meaning.

Even though I’m an Episcopalian and a priest, I’m not particularly comfortable with the use of language of “sacrifice” in the liturgy, even if it is muted, and often reinterpreted (“we offer you our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving”). I’ve mentioned before that the Latin roots of the word literally “to make holy” which carries a very different sense than our contemporary meaning of sacrifice. Well, perhaps I will have the opportunity to preach on Hebrews in the three years, if not before.