A sermon by a guest preacher, October 31, 2010
Luke 19:1-9
To welcome the stranger is at the heart of what we are called to do as Christians. Jesus taught his disciples that the first and greatest commandment was to love the Lord God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind, and that the second is like unto it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The neighbor you know and the neighbor you do not know. The neighbor you like and the neighbor you do not like. The scriptures are chock full of admonitions to befriend the sick, the orphan, the widow, the traveler and the stranger. Jesus appears repeatedly in biblical accounts after the resurrection as a stranger: to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, to Peter and his fishing buddies on the beach, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. And then there are these words from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for in so doing some have entertained angels unawares.” Abraham and Sarah entertained angels unawares in the book of Genesis offering more than the standard hospitality of their day to three unexpected visitors, providing them with water for washing their feet, freshly baked fine cake, a tender calf, milk and curds. They did none of this knowing that they were in fact serving God or God’s messengers. I suppose you could say their customs protected them. They served each new person as if he or she were an angel, just in case. Imagine what that could mean for us in our busy, crowded world and lives.
One could say that Zacchaeus had it easy in this regard. He knew full well who it was that was coming for dinner albeit he had never been formally introduced to his guest. Zacchaeus was already really, really curious about the man Jesus, curious enough to climb a tree to catch a glimpse. And he was not the man one would expect to find climbing a tree. We are told he was rich. We are told he was a chief tax collector. He was probably wearing his good work clothes. Can you imagine a top executive in the IRS climbing a tree in his suit to catch a glimpse of a man rumored to be the son of David, the son of the Messiah come again?
The word hospitality has its roots in the word guest and in the word for shelter for the stranger or wayfarer (as in the word hospital or hospice), but surprisingly its root is also related to the word “hostility.” True hospitality risks a hostile response, of rejection or even attack. Jesus’ most radical gesture of hospitality was the gesture of open arms, the posture he bore on the cross. We take risks in giving. And we take risks in receiving. The implications are enormous – in our own neighborhoods, as we move into new neighborhoods, as we reach out to persons different from us, as we engage in diplomacy throughout the world.
I have met hundreds, probably thousands of people in my thirty years as a hospital chaplain. I have sat at the bedside of all sorts of people in trouble. As one of my teachers said, it is the job of the chaplain to look for trouble. Each new person has been in many ways “strange” to me. And beyond the care at the bedside, a department of spiritual care or pastoral services at a hospital is where the rubber hits the road for ecumenism and interfaith dialogue. I have learned not to take it personally that an orthodox Rabbi will not shake my hand, or that taking communion from a Catholic priest in our interfaith chapel will likely create a stir. I have learned that my relationship with a former boss only deepened as we addressed our differences about gay marriage head on rather than skirting the issue. The most difficult part of the work of confronting difference is always, always in me: facing my own bias, my own assumptions.
To risk harm in offering hospitality is another way of talking about loving my enemy, isn’t it? To love my neighbor as myself…to love my enemy as myself. The difficult work of loving myself begins with knowing myself. There is a story about the shortest commencement speech ever given, in which Dr. Harold Clyde walked up to the podium and said, “Know thyself (Socrates), Control thyself (Cicero), Give thyself (Jesus of Nazareth),” and sat down. God needs us to be the hands and feet of hospitality, to take the risk. God needs for us to give ourselves. It is not enough to believe in the importance of hospitality or to pray for it. We need to do the work in partnership with God or with Jesus. There is a story about a preacher who goes to visit a farmer who is a member of his parish, stopping to admire the carefully plowed fields before entering the farmer’s house. He greets the farmer saying, “You and the Lord sure have done a fine job tendin’ this farm.” And the farmer answers, “Yeh, you should’a seen it when just the Lord was workin’ on it.” God needs us to show hospitality to strangers, to reach beyond our comfort level, to risk being misunderstood or dismissed, starting here in this church, in our community, our jobs, and in our travels.
I would like to suggest that the bigger risk in offering hospitality than the risk of being harmed, is the risk of being changed for the better, uncomfortable as that process may be. I would like to share a personal story of just such an uncomfortable process. As you may know, part of my ministry at Maine Medical Center is to supervise clergy, seminarians and lay people as they develop their skills in pastoral care ministry. In my previous ministry I supervised a man named Desmond, who was the pastor of Bethel Tabernacle Church, a Pentecostal church of the Apostolic tradition. Desmond and most of his congregation are of Jamaican heritage. He and I and his congregation are racially, culturally and theologically worlds apart. Of course Desmond is accustomed to transcending these differences regularly in order to adapt to mainstream culture, not that it was exactly easy for him to be ministering to white, liberal Protestants and Roman Catholics of Irish and Italian heritage and Jews in the hospital setting. As the course was ending, Desmond invited his classmates and me to a special Sunday celebration at his church. Once a month they serve breakfast before their service, encouraging church members to bring along the folks they usually leave at home or a neighbor or friend. “Please come and join us for breakfast.” And he invited me to preach. (Gulp).
First, I have to tell you, the breakfast was incredible – all home cooked Jamaican foods, including fish dishes and homemade sausages, plenty of fresh tropical fruit, freshly baked breads, and good, good coffee. We were welcomed at a table and the church members circulated throughout the breakfast. And then we went upstairs to worship. Desmond had asked me to dress according to the custom of his congregation: no slacks, to wear a dress and no jewelry. I felt positively naked without my earrings. And, I thought to myself, I suppose this means no sermon manuscript. To say I was nervous was an understatement. I definitely felt like a stranger. I began by telling them (somewhat tongue in cheek) that I had looked up Pentecostal on Wikipedia and this is what it said:
“Pentecostalism teaches that a person needs to repent and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and then receive the Holy Spirit [to which they shouted, “Yes, Lord!] Receiving the Holy Spirit is necessary for salvation and includes speaking in tongues. One of the defining marks in some Pentecostal groups is emotionalism in worship and prayer [to which they shouted, “Thank you Jesus!”]. They are known for raising their hands while singing and praying. They tend to be very vocal and expressive in their prayers, with cries of “Yes, Lord!,” “Thank you, Jesus!”, “Hallelujah!” and other spontaneous expressions of praise.” And we were off and running. I told them how different it would be if I were preaching in my home church…not only the difference in style and expression, but also having the words in front of me as a security blanket. My nervousness turned to energy and excitement. I guess I was filled with the Holy Spirit and God only knows what I said! Whatever I said, they loved it! They gathered around me after worship and hugged and kissed me. I felt so welcomed. I felt received, relieved and accepted. And honestly, although I still preach with a manuscript, I felt changed by the experience. I believe I trust the moment in worship more than I used to. I experienced hospitality in its truest form. It involved risk – on Desmond’s part for sure. How would his people respond to this white female preacher? On my part – could I really do it? Would they like me? Would they accept me?
In this story I was the guest. In the case of Zaccheaus, he became the host unexpectedly. “Zaccheaus! Come down out of that tree! I am sleeping at your house tonight!” Zaccheaus scrambled down out of the tree bubbling with enthusiasm. The passage reads, “So he hurried down and was happy to welcome Jesus.” I find that pretty amazing. I would have been thinking, “But I left the dishes in the sink, or I have to run to the market!” Later in the passage the scene skips forward presumably to the next morning, and we can only wonder what had transpired over dinner and through the night to bring Zaccheaus to declare, “Look, half of my possessions I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Zaccheaus, the host, had been transformed. “Today salvation has come to this house,” said Jesus, that is, the house of a sinner. Jesus chose to be the guest of sinners, of people on the margins shunned by the religious mainstream, of the rich and the poor.
The risk of hospitality works both ways. We risk being transformed, or as Jesus said of Zaccheaus, saved through either the role of guest or of host. As I have thought about this over the past couple of weeks, it has occurred to me, what if you or I were to play the role Jesus played in this story, and ask to be invited to someone’s home, someone feeling alienated by their wealth, their poverty, the color of their skin, or their annoying personality? That turns things around, doesn’t it, true to the gospels. Jesus doesn’t do the inviting, nor does he wait to be invited. He asks to be on the receiving end. We have learned through the church that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I am quite sure that those words are nowhere in the Bible, but please prove me wrong. Encouraging someone else to offer hospitality may be the bigger gift, thereby communicating to that person that he or she is valued. Both parties may be changed. Zaccheaus, climb down, climb down and be my host. Amen.