July 22, 2007 Sermon
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Proper 11 – C
July 22, 2007 Allan Conkling
The Old Testament and the Gospel readings for today both share a common theme: hospitality. This is a great topic especially during the summer months when lots of people go places, or have the occasion to welcome family or friends visiting from out of town. Around the church, summertime is also when we have more visitors--some just passing through, but others checking us out; so remembering our hospitality is particularly important.
In the first lesson we see the patriarch Abraham get up and run from the entrance of his tent to meet three strangers, and to welcome them in. He washes their feet and orders a special meal prepared for them. He does so not knowing that one of the strangers, as the story goes, will return with a special blessing for him and for Sarah. In the Gospel, as Jesus passed through a town he was welcomed to the home of Mary and Martha. He dined with them and taught them. Note that in context, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem for his final confrontation and death--this wouldn’t have been for a casual visit. His heart would have been burdened. This was an invitation of love.
Hospitality, everyone knows, is the act or quality of receiving people in a friendly or generous way. In Bible times this was not simply a nicety; it was required by Jewish law. In a nomadic and later agrarian society hospitality was a key to survival. Jesus could scarcely have survived as the itinerant preacher had it not been for the openness and support of caring people with whom he came into contact each day. In that culture not to be open and welcoming was a grave offense, an affront to God himself. People were ethically bound to welcome others--for as we could say of the first reading, “God only knows who will show up!” “Hospitality,” wrote the rabbis, “is one form of worship.”
Centuries later St. Benedict carried this to a whole new level in his monastic Rule: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ” (Rule 53). A guest at a Benedictine house is to be received with all courtesy of love. As Joan Chittester says,
“This isn’t just about saying nice things; a telephone operator at a jail can do that… It is total, as well. Both the community and the abbot receive the guest. The message to the stranger is clear: Come right in and disturb our perfect lives. You are Christ for us today.”
Kelly and I experienced this first hand in Egypt a few weeks ago when we were welcomed as guests at two ancient monasteries in the area of the Red Sea. In both places the monks received us as though we were old friends. Lunch was prepared for our group, the monks breaking their fast to “feast” with us. For not even a fast day is counted as important as eating with a guest. Again, as Joan Chittester writes:
“We can give people charity or we can give them attention. We can give them the necessities of life or we can give them its joys. Hospitality is the gift of one human being to another. Hospitality is not simply a bed and a bath; it is home and family.” (Chittester, The Rule of Benedict)
In the end we were thanked. “God has blessed us by sending you here,” said one monk.
Granted this is tricky in our culture these days. Violence and threat of harm has made us wary of strangers. But somehow as Christians we are to never become complacent or lose our innocence when striving for hospitality. To do so can be to miss “entertaining angels” as Paul says.
This week I went with the group of our young people on a mission trip to the Texas border. From the time we arrived to the time we left we were taken in by Fr. Richard Aguilar and his people at Church of the Advent, Brownsville. Meals were prepared and provided for us every day, and people took time out of their busy schedules to serve for us as we were doing our mission work. In doing work for others we were blessed in abundance. On day two of our trip, we went to a soup kitchen in downtown Brownsville where lunch is served to the needy. We swept and mopped floors, cut lemons for lemonade, bagged beans, and cleaned the pantry area, washed dishes--but the best time was on the serving line, for there you see what it means to meet Christ. Some folks were truly down and out. Others were moms with kids home for the summer, and men who were out of work because of the heavy rains--each with a story to tell. To every one we said Welcome or Buenos Dias. Susanna hit it when she said, “Look around, every person here is Jesus.”
The readings for today are a reminder of our call to serve and to welcome all people, and in so doing to find ourselves in the presence of God. That is the ongoing nature of the Incarnation--not just what happened “back then” but what is the life of the Spirit today. Ronald Rolheiser in his book, The Holy Longing writes,
The incarnation began with Jesus and it has never stopped…God’s physical body is still among us. God is still present, as physical and as real today as God was in the historical Jesus. God still has skin, human skin and physically walks on this earth just as Jesus did.”
Seeing it this way, Rolheiser says, every home becomes a church, every child becomes the Christ-child, and all food and drink become a sacrament.
Rather than focusing on our differences and what must be done to keep others out--either with walls, rules, or dogma, hospitality invites us to consider how we can welcome people in. Hospitality is a virtue which is within the reach of us all. It is such a simple thing yet so far reaching. The best thing is that when we do it, we can at the end of the day, look in the mirror and can catch a glimpse of something greater than ourselves looking back.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen
Copyright © 2003 Emmanuel Episcopal Church. All rights reserved.
Revised: 07/30/07