Hospitality

A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on September 2, 2007, based on Hebrews 13:1-3

A preacher from Kansas relates the following story in his blog: “One time… a man came by the church needing some clothes and a meal. We had a clothes ministry and gave him clothes and I went down and got him some KFC and visited for a while. We had a wonderful visit. My wife was church secretary at the time and I was youth minister and were between ministers. He gave me and my wife encouragement that we really needed to hear at the time. After a long visit and done with his warm meal; he said he had to be on his way. I always gave Bibles away to those who came by the church so I went to my office to give him a Bible for his journey. When I returned he was gone. No cars had been in the parking lot to pick him up, a field of wheat was the only thing for a quite a while. He was there and then gone. (Blogger Preacherman @ blogger.com).

Such stories of fairly typical of belivevers who may have ‘entertained angels unawares’. A person appears at your door, seeming not unusual. He does something unusual and then disappears without a trace. Such experiences are fairly common in the Bible. In Genesis 18, we read the story of how Abraham was sitting in his tent in the heat of the day and suddenly he saw three men standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, “O, Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brougth and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on – since you have come to your servant.” So they stay and wait while Abraham prepares a meal for them. They deliver the prophesy about Sarah having a son, Isaac, and then they lead Abraham to a vantage point overlooking Sodom, where Abraham bargains with them over sparing the city.

But there is some curious language in this passage. Verse 1 of chapter 18 says, “ And the Lord appeared to him…” Then in verse two, it says, “three men were standing in front of him.” Throughout the rest of the passage there is an alternation between the phrases, “The Lord said…” and the phrase, “the men”. As Abraham bargains, he says, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord (vv. 27, 31). Finally the story concludes and ‘the Lord went his way’ (v.33).

Here then, is a very interesting illustration of entertaining angels. In it, we learn that ‘the men’ or the angles, are sometimes not just angels, or messengers, but they may be the Lord Himself! In Abraham’s case, it appears he may have been entertaining the Trinity itself!

Beginning in the 1980’s sometime, there began to be a surge of interest in Angel stories. I have several books from Guideposts describing inspiring encounters with angels. Often these encounters have to do with bringing a message of encouragement to the person visited. Sometimes the stories recount amazing rescues from danger, or warnings to avoid danger. In all the instances in these books, the stories deal with what appears to be ‘mere angels’ - not the Lord himself, but a messenger sent to deliver a message or give protection of some sort.

While these stories are wonderful in and of themselves – and we should indeed be mindful of the possibility that an angel may one day come to us, I’d like us to think about an even more profound thought – that we may sometime entertain the Lord Jesus himself – just like Abraham did. More, that we do indeed encounter Jesus Christ every time we meet another human being!

Talk about a disturbing thought! If you really start meditating on this and think about how to apply it, you will be deeply changed as a person yourself. Mother Teresa used to talk about ministering to Jesus ‘in distressing disguise”. This captures the paradox of welcoming Jesus in others. In their book, “Radical Hospitality, Benedict’s Way of Love”, Fr. Daniel Holman, OSB, and Lonnie Pratt delve into this paradox in depth. “The stranger at next door, and at our door, is particularly frightening,” they say (pg. xxii).

After 911, we learned that the apparently innocuous foreigner can be a terrorist bent on mass destruction. “When we speak of the depth of hospitality, we are proposing something scary and radical,” say Homan and Pratt. But they go on to challenge us to take the risk. “Unless we find a way to open ourselves to others, we will grow even more isolated and frightened. If we do not find and practice ways of hospitality we will grow increasingly hostile. Hospitality is the answer to hostility. Jesus said to lover your neighbor; hospitality is how.” (pg. xxii).

The other evening my young friend Eric and I went down to Pullman Sqaure and were sitting outside enjoying a cold bottle of water and talking about our lives together. Suddenly, a cartoonish figure in a wheelchair appears at my right hand and asks me for money for breakfast.

My first response was to shudder and think, “Ugh. Go away leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m trying to live my life here?!” But then my Benedictine (read ‘Christian’) training took over and I remembered to welcome this person AS CHRIST… “for he himself will say: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”(RB 53:1).

I began to talk to “Speedy” about his life and I quickly learned that he had been living down by the river for 11 YEARS! Speedy obviously had an alcohol problem, and he was apparently violent at times. He told me that he had tried to live in various housing situations in the past, but he had gotten into fights and had been kicked out. In the recent clean sweep of the river-front by city officials, Speedy was either overlooked or purposefully slipped under the radar, maintaining his open-air way of life, and even trying to provide some manner of comfort to others who joined him there on the river bank.

I asked him about the condition of his soul, and he grudgingly told me that he had at one time been ‘saved’ but that he wasn’t going to church much these days.

Speedy smelled bad and he looked like a shriveled, balding troll. He had a white beard and was blind in one eye – a sort of film visibly clouding his right eye. And he was known by the security guards. No sooner had Speedy engaged me for a few moments, than the guard came and stood over him, telling him to move on. Speedy was clearly a nuisance to people like myself and Eric who were not looking to be accosted by Jesus in disguise, but merely wanted to enjoy a pleasant evening together.

With the guard standing over us, I quickly gave Speedy the last two bucks in my wallet and watched him speedily roll off back to the river front. I wondered if I had welcomed him ‘as Christ’ or not. I had tried to engage him in conversation – to begin to know him as a person. I had opened my wallet to him,but I wasn’t sure that I had actually opened my heart to him, for this is what we are challenged to do as Christians. Homan and Pratt again: [we are to]‘offer an open heart, a stance of availability, and to look for God lurking in every single person who comes through the door.” To fail to do this is to close ourselves off to the Divine.

But we are faced with an ‘existential dilemma’: We are essentially alone in this life and because of our sin nature, we tend to draw back from others. We fear connecting with others, but we desperately need to do so at the same time. This dilemma becomes particularly acute when we encounter the stranger – the different ‘other’.

Speedy was definitely ‘different’ and ‘other’ than me. He made me as an easy mark for money, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t interested in my life at all. But in a very real way, Speedy is me! For a brief moment, he was my guest. “We are all guests,” say Fr. Daniel and Lonnie, “we are all travelers, we are all a little lost, and we are all looking for a place to rest a while.” In life, “God is the host, but God also becomes the guest we receive in others. (Radical Hospitality, pg. xxxvi).

Benedict tells his monks to “Never give a hollow greeting of peace, or turn away when someone needs your love… Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly, Christ is received… (RB. 53:15)

To receive Christ in every person is to live counter-culturally and to open oneself wide to the transforming power of love. Indeed, if you want to be whole, you have to let others into your heart. We are told in Hebrews 13:2 to ‘show hospitality to strangers”. And while this doesn’t necessarily mean bringing Speedy home to live with, it does mean letting Speedy connect with us, to stir us and to share his humanity with us.

Showing hospitality means acknowledging the Image of God in the other person and accepting that Image however it may be disguised.

A number of years ago, my wife and I read a book entitled, “Open Heart, Open Home: The way to make others feel welcome and wanted” by Karen Burton Mains. I profoundly influenced us to open our home to our neighbors and actively minister to them. We’ve also been deeply influenced by Francis and Edith Shaeffer, who opened their homes to an entire generation of seekers drifting through the Swiss Alps, looking for Truth.

In the process of trying to emulate the Shaeffers and Mains, we have extended ourselves and our home to some rough and very needy characters. It has always been a challenge and an effort to welcome the disguised Jesus. Often, we have grown weary with the extreme needs that have come to the door. But we have also been warmed and enriched by welcoming strangers into our hearts – strangers like Sue Buzbee – who was someone we met while living in Illinois - someone who was unattractive in every possible way, but who managed to work her way into our hearts and our family for many years – someone who was Jesus in Distressing disguise, but who brought more love to us than we gave out to her, someone who taught us what it is to be truly hospitable – even when we didn’t want to!

Friends, the world needs Christians Innkeepers – people who have room for Jesus, in whatever guise he presents himself. I challenge us all to dig down deep and practice hospitality to a world desperately in need of shelter and acceptance. As we practice welcoming each person as Christ, we fulfill both commands to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We may in fact entertain angels unawares and be delighted with their support and help, but we might just also fulfill the Great Commission and change our world! AMEN.