What We Can Learn From Coffee About Hebrews Chapter 12

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When I was kid, every couple of months my mother would take us on a special shopping expedition. Instead of the normal Sainsbury’s we would go to Waitrose (1). Then after we came out we would go to a coffee shop. Not like Starbucks or Cafe Nero where you buy cups of coffee. No - a coffee shop where you buy actual coffee. They would have 20-30 meter tall brass dispensers full of different kinds of coffee bean. My mum selected her beans and they would grind them for her before bagging them up. And - ohhh- The smell! Coffee tastes nice - but oh, the smell of freshly ground coffee, it is so much better. I used to imagine that heaven is where coffee tastes as good as it smells. That heaven is somewhere where you get the full reality while on earth you get a partial shadow of it.

What has the odor and taste of coffee got to do with Hebrews chapter 12?

To understand that, you need a bible covered in coffee stains!

The Christian view of the bible have a very different view of our Holy Book to other religions. If I was to talk about a Quran covered in coffee stains, my Muslim friends would think I was being blasphemous. Muslims will not place a Quran or a bible or a Torah on the floor because they believe it is disrespectful. It always sits on a special stand in the home. Sikhs treat their Holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib as a living person, waking it in the morning and putting it to rest at night. But I ask how many coffee stains are on your bible… Because Christians are encouraged to have battered bibles.

St Jerome tells us “Ignorance of the bible is ignorance of Christ” . Collosians 3:16 commands us “let the word of God dwell in you richly”.

Well if your bible is on a ceremonial stand or gathering dust on your top shelf, are you going to know it? Is God’s word going to dwell inside your heart if it’s pages remain unopened.

If you have coffee stains on your bible, that’s a sign you have been reading it.

And so we come to a passage like today’s reading from Hebrews.

Hebrews is really easy to understand … so long you know you bible backwards.

There is a slight problem here - the bible you have in your house might not have all the books in it that the writer to the Hebrews had in her or his bible. Roman Catholic bibles have books in the Old Testament that have got lost from the Protestant bible. Eastern Orthodox Christians have books in their Old Testament that have got lost from the Roman Catholic bible. Ethiopian Christians have books in their Old Testament that have got lost from the Eastern Orthodox bibles. And the bibles the earliest Christians used - like Paul and Jude and James and the writer of Hebrews contain all these books

So you might have trouble getting hold of a copy of the book of Enoch to get coffee stained yet it’s referenced in Hebrews and Jude and other books. But we have no excuse for not knowing the books we have easy access to. They should be covered in coffee stains.

How for example can you understand today’s passage if you don’t know Exodus chapter 19 where the people of Israel come in to a towering volcano billowing smoke and fire. There is an earthquake shaking the floor underneath them and a noise like that of a trumpet, so loud, that people are clasping their hands to their ears. All signs of the presence of God in that place. So holy a place that if an “animal touches the mountain it shall be stoned to death”. A place where even Moses when he comes into that place trembles with fear at the presence of God.

For those of you old enough to have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you can imagine what it was like. That, says Exodus, is what it was like to come into the presence of God.

And how can you understand today’s reading if you don’t know Genesis 4:10 . Adam and Eve have two sons Cain and Abel. They both make sacrifices to God, but Abel’s is deemed more acceptable because it comes from a right heart. In jealousy Cain murders Abel and tries to hide it. But God says to him “Listen your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.

Or how can you understand this passage if you don’t know the prophecy of Haggai 2:6 where God promises that “yet once more I will shake both the earth and the heaven”

Or how can you understand this passage if you don’t know where the Israelites are warned about the importance of right worship for “the Lord your God is a consuming fire a jealous God”