I was thinking about our need as Christians, or any faith for that matter, to stay in community. Our whole life is one of community, family and otherwise. Our God is a triune God, one of not only community but of creation and total love. Even our governments are ones of a community and common good. We are dependent on each other and our lives are committed to loving others as God loves us.
One of the prime acts of community in religion is a religious service, a Mass, common prayer or some such. We need common prayer and worship. It speaks to an acceptance of the good within each one of us and our acceptance that our presence is special, unique and required within the community of faith. We would be missed. We are needed as a member of the faith community. Similarly, we need to support others who come together in strength and weakness to worship and find nourishment from the whole. Worship is not a singular personal act. The fact that so many people are retreating from churches because of scandal and hypocrisy is a horrific stain on the church proper that has driven these people away from community that is actually needed for us to be whole and holy. Yet organized religion often turns people away, figuratively and literally. It is ironic, sad and beyond comprehension how someone who claims to follow Christ could actually judge or exclude anyone. So the Spirit calls us to holiness, everyone sees and feels that while the church proper often negates that invitation and calling of the people. Do you think that God weeps over this? I certainly do.
Just as the Spirit calls us all to holiness and community, the Spirit has been moving and active since before time. In today's passage we see a tectonic shift in faith. The Spirit is putting into words the revelation that God no longer wants sacrifices of animals. God no longer wants the blood of anything or anyone. God has given His own blood for us once and for all. That is a tectonic shift driven by the Spirit. Humanity is being informed to grow up. You are 'old enough' now to understand that God does not want sacrifices, God wants love. That is the message of Jesus. Yet we cling to old ways and old judgments.
So the Spirit is alive and well. One could hardly enumerate the actions of the Spirit in the world and in our lives. The negation of the need for Sacrifices. Paul's arguments that salvation is open to all, not just the Jewish community. The Second Vatican Council showed the Spirit as alive and powerful only to be snuffed out and ignored by subsequent actions and behavior by the church. The point is that the Spirit is alive and well. The Spirit dwells within us as it speaks to our innate need for holiness and spirituality. I am reminded that an integral part of our need for holiness and spirituality is the acceptance and attendance in community. Mass. Church. Temple, Mosque, etc. etc.
For our need a community of faith and our presence in it, we pary.
Hebrews 9:1-14
Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tent was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence; this is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a tent called the Holy of Holies.In it stood the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat. Of these things we cannot speak now in detail.
Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent to carry out their ritual duties; but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent is still standing. This is a symbol of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right.
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come,then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
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