For most of us, the word provoke carries a negative connotation. It is what I used to do, often in very subtle ways, to irritate my brother until he would finally haul off and slug me. Then of course, I would run to my mother: “he hit me!” That was the way the game of little brother was played.
The writer of Hebrews had something very different in mind. Provoke does mean to do something that results in a responsive action from another but it is not the kind of action my brother took. “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” It is definitely a different kind of provocation.
Furthermore, it isn’t just provocation, it is also encouragement. I got news this week that one of my favorite teachers died. He had a long teaching career that was marked by both provocation and encouragement. He had said that the job of a teacher is not to teach people what to think but rather to teach them how to think.
One of the things we had to do in his classes was write a research paper. It was how I learned to navigate through the card file in the library (those of you who do not know that a card file is should ask your parents). He really didn’t care what the topic was; the rumor was that he liked unusual or offbeat topics. What he did expect is that you would defend your thesis and thoroughly document your sources.
I still have my term paper on the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, and a wider conspiracy to take over the government to derail Lincoln’s reconstruction plans in favor of punishing the south for the war. I kept it because my teacher loved it. He had provoked and encouraged.
I sometimes wonder why congregations have mission statements. I can not imagine a better one: “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Here are some provocative and encouraging words from 20th Century Trappist monk, Thomas Merton:
“Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.”