The Industry of Hebrews

I realize now that a thesis was working itself out in the course of my previous post:

“The two kingdoms to which I referred in the previous posts—the kingdoms of this world and of heaven described by Jesus—are ethical entities.  In practice, they are the playings-out of value choices, with the option in the first instance—the kingdom of this world—being devotion to the causes with which we define our belonging, such causes being particular and parochial.  In the second instance the focus is devotion to a greater singular cause attributed to the mediation of Jesus—to whom we belong and through whom we belong to all.”

Bearing in mind Jesus’ unsparing ethical demands, I wrote:

“The notion of a kingdom short of that of God is ridiculous in Jesus’ ethical framework, and he treats it as something ridiculous . . . . What is most important to our analysis . . . is the extent to which any of the history of the Establishment of the Biblical Nation of Israel can be thought to comport with the demands of Jesus.”

Moving toward a conclusion, I wrote:

“. . . . what I am getting at is attempting to show how Jesus’ ethical system is not merely a challenge to aspects of the religion of his birth, but is also a refutation of any theory of Jesus’ ministry as being ‘religious’ in terms of that heritage . . . . What Jesus calls us to do is fulfill the highest aspirations of religion, and in this regard Jesus obviously finds the highest aspirations of the religion of his birth to point in that direction.  The necessary dynamic, however, is for us to view all such things through the lens of his demands, not to view his demands through the lens of any belief system.”

In the course of considering the question of Jesus’ demands viewed “through the lens of any belief system”—an unfortunate aspect of so much commentary upon his ministry—I thought of the Book of The Letter to the Hebrews.  I think the book will be very instructive to the point at hand, in that its author dealt with just such considerations—without, I am afraid, much success.

The author of Hebrews comes very close to describing the kingdom of heaven as I did above: “devotion to a greater singular cause attributed to the mediation of Jesus—to whom we belong and through whom we belong to all.”  Hebrews, however, is centered on the notion that Jesus replaced the functions of the High Priest—a perfectly legitimate concept, though any substantive treatment of it must bear the weight of scrutiny such as in Jesus’ observation that the priests themselves, in a sense, violate the Sabbath every Sabbath.  Unfortunately, the author of Hebrews does not display Jesus’ propensity for hanging questions and pregnant silences.  The author of Hebrews tries to substitute industry for inspiration.