May 8, 2016
Hoosier Neighbor? | Hospitality
- Genesis 18:1-15
- Rev. Dr. Jerry Deck
Over the last several weeks we’ve been talking about what it means to love our neighbor. If Jesus gives us two main commands: love God and love neighbor, then we as followers of Jesus should probably make sure we’re actually doing those two things. The first week we talked about what it means to love our neighbor not just in a general, fuzzy way but in a literal way. The vast majority of us live in neighborhoods and so the question is, “Are we loving our literal neighbor,” the people who live next to us? Sometimes we like to just keep the phrase “love your neighbor” in a general way because it’s much safer and doesn’t push us to do something that is out of our comfort zone.
Which is why in the 2nd week we talked about how fear is something that oftentimes keeps us from loving our neighbor. That we’re afraid of looking stupid or of being rejected and so we play it safe and wait for one of our neighbors to come to us and then we’ll love them, rather than actively loving our neighbor. And as I said then, the reality is that yes there will be times when we are rejected or when we look dumb, but that actually what we should be much more afraid of is missing out on being a part of the exciting things that God is doing in our neighborhoods. That while we can play it safe on our couch watching television that that’s really no way to live a life when God has great opportunities to do something new all around us.
The next week we discussed how the greatest enemy to loving our neighbors is probably a lack of time. As I’ve told folks if there is one sermon I’d love for you to hear in this series it’s probably that one, not because of what I have to say, but because of the conversation I had with Dave Gall in that sermon. A conversation that I think serves as a remarkable reminder that we have to be intentional about how we are spending our time. That it’s easy for us to get caught up on the treadmill of life, going from one thing to the next, doing things that may be good, but aren’t actually the things that are most important. That we have to be willing to make some sacrifices to make space for God, for family, for neighbor. We can either come to that awareness now or when it may be too late. As followers of Jesus the way in which we spend our time should stand out as being a bit odd or different in our “doing a thousand things a minute” culture.
Then last Sunday Jon talked about making sure we had the right motives when we love our neighbor. That we don’t get to know our neighbors in order to convert them, but that we love our neighbors because we have been converted. In other words, we’re not trying to sell Jesus, we are trying to embody him and that means loving our neighbors whether they end up loving God or loving us back. Our call is to reflect Jesus and, in so doing, help others to experience that love.
Which feeds well into our topic for today which is hospitality. I’m not sure I planned it like this, but in many ways it does seem to fit well into this being Mother’s Day. Now, while “non-Mother’s” can certainly be hospitable, the folks from whom I have often received the greatest of hospitality are moms, whether my own or my friend’s. Moms oftentimes seem to have this innate way of knowing how to make you feel welcome. Whether it’s providing you a meal or listening ear I have learned much about what it means to be hospitable from moms.
And as I thought about what text to preach on when it comes to hospitality I had, of course, many different options. I could have brought up Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and goats where Jesus talks about how the difference of who will be welcomed into God’s kingdom is the difference between those who welcome the lost and least and those who do not. Or I could have talked about Hebrews 13:2 that tells us to not neglect showing hospitality to strangers because in so doing some have entertained angels without even knowing it. Or 3rd John that tells us to show hospitality or 1st Peter 4:9 that says we must offer hospitality to others without grumbling. Or the fact that when the characteristics of church leaders are described in both 1st Timothy and Titus hospitality is one of those things described (which is why I asked the session just last Tuesday how they have been hospitable in the past month).
My point is there are lots of options, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that this text in Genesis is the one that perhaps best fit for us today. One of the reasons for this is because of the fact that this is Mother’s Day and, of course, this passage speaks to the coming birth of a child. That seems to lend itself towards a Mother’s Day sermon. However, it speaks not just to the joy of a child, but also for those who know the history of Abraham and Sarah, to the pain of not having a child when one wants one. Sarah had long longed for a child that had not come and her desire for a child had caused pain to her, to Abraham and quite honestly to their relationship. And one of the things I am deeply appreciative of when it comes to the church is that it is one of the few places on this particular day that speaks not just about the joys of motherhood, but also to the reality that there are many for whom this is a difficult day. Sarah’s laughter, for those who have ears to hear, is clearly a mask to cover the pain she had born for so long. It’s a pain that I know some in these walls have born as well and whose smiles, like Sarah’s laughter, oftentimes mask over their own deep pain. And while this may not be the main subject of today, it is an opportunity to acknowledge that pain as a community. That those who struggle with this are invited into this space in order to be loved, to be embraced, to be allowed to give voice to the pain.
Which in many ways is exactly what hospitality is about. Hospitality is about creating space so that we can listen, love and care for one another. One of the reasons why time is such an essential part of loving our neighbor is because it takes time to create space for relationship and love to develop. Loving can’t be put on a “to do” list, it must be cultivated and given space to grow. It takes a remarkable amount of intentionality that, quite frankly, we struggle with giving. Hospitality means that we are stopping our frenzied life in order to create space for something new and deeper to happen. And in many ways, that’s what we see happen in this story.
Abraham sees the three strangers and what does he do? He runs to them which is this poignant image of not just being welcomed, but being prized or cherished. As I’ve said before it is like coming home and having one of your children not just say, “Hi dad,” but running up to you as if you are the most important thing in the world. He offers them bread and water, but of course he ends up doing much more for them, right? He’s getting them a prized calf and curds and milk and fine bread. Again, there is obligatory welcome and then there is hospitality.
And most of us know the difference between obligatory welcome and hospitality, don’t we? During the year I spent working with refugees, they would often invite me into their homes. Quite honestly I was usually in a hurry and needing to go someplace else, but you could see in their eyes how much they really wanted you to come in and stay a bit. And I was almost always glad I did because, though they didn’t have much material wealth, the excitement with which they would make coffee for me and provide snacks made it abundantly clear that I was the guest of honor. Whichever chair was the nicest one was the one you would be asked to sit in. You couldn’t help but feel treasured, loved, even if we didn’t always understand the words one other was saying. It was a feeling that quite honestly I can still remember deeply because it had such an impact. It isn’t about spending a lot of money or even spending hours in preparation, but it is about helping your guest to know that space has been created for them.
Abraham, not only creates that physical space, but he also then makes sure to create the emotional space which is vital in hospitality. After going above and beyond to make sure they are radically welcomed, we are told that he stays there near to them, in a position of listening. Perhaps not falling into the trap that Martha did in the story we talked about a couple of weeks ago, Abraham makes sure that his guests know that he is fully present with them.
And it’s actually out of that that something new is born, quite literally, right? Out of that conversation with these three strangers that Abraham experiences God and experiences the promise of a child. Now, that doesn’t, of course, mean that if you’re hospitable you will get a new child, but I think it does give us this remarkable glimpse into the fact that oftentimes when we create space to be hospitable, to be open to others, that something new does spring up. Almost every time that I am either receiving the hospitality of others or am able to offer hospitality to others, I walk away changed in some way by the conversation and by the time.
When I pastored in Chicago there was an Iraqi family that was a part of our church. They invited Megan and I over for dinner and it was the first time we experienced the hospitality of someone, like Abraham, from the Middle East. And again, like most refugees, they did not have much wealth at all and yet it seems they invested most of their monthly check in this meal. The table was full, and I mean full, of just about every food you could think of. And you should have seen the excitement in their faces as they described each bit of food and as they watched you as you ate it. You’d put one fork of food in your mouth and when you looked back down at your plate Val had already replaced that food you’d just eaten. And in that space as we ate this amazing food, as we were cared for and as we got to hear their story we left a different people then we had been when we arrived. I remember Megan and I returning to the car at the end of the night just in absolute awe of what had just happened. And while I don’t expect that to happen every time you extend or receive hospitality, I do think that each time there is a distinct chance for something new to happen for you to be changed. It’s what happens when we create space and allow the Spirit the room to come into our presence. It’s why hospitality is so critical and is spoken of so frequently in scripture. In fact, I might suggest it is not just one other thing to do, as much as it is supposed to be at the very core of who we are.
The introduction of this passage is interesting because it says that the LORD visited Abraham and Sarah, but then it tells us it was three strangers who were there. That reality has led many to suggest that this is the first glimpse we have of the Trinity. As we talked about a while back one of the important characteristics of the trinity is that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in relationship with one another. That God by his very nature is relational which is why, of course, God desires to be in relationship with us and why God desires us to be in relationship with others. Remember, love God and love neighbor. It is who we were created to be.
And so it is God who, first and foremost, welcomes us. Our speaker from last year’s All Church Retreat, Tod Bolsinger, loves to talk about an icon by Andrei Rublev, called The Holy Trinity or The Hospitality of Abraham [show slide]. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are sitting around the table which represents hospitality and the cup which represents salvation or the wholeness of relationship. But what’s been pointed out is that as you look at the icon it is as if you are there at the table with them, you are on the 4th side of the table. You have been welcomed to sit as a participant for the meal, you’ve been drawn into the community of God. That God welcomes us in whatever state we may be in, because he loves us and desires for us to be in relationship with him.
And so when we are hospitable we are not just trying to be nice, we are an active reflection of what God has done for us which is why I think so often there is something new and beautiful that comes out of hospitality. We create space at the table because God has created space for us. We love our neighbors because God has loved us. We welcome others because God has welcomed us. This is to be at the core of who we are because it is at the core of who God is.
Before I end there is one more thing I want to point out which is my favorite line in this passage and one of my favorites in all of scripture. At the very end, after Sarah laughs she tries to tell the strangers that she didn’t laugh, but they don’t let her get away with it. One of them retorts, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” There’s just something really funny about that to me. But what it reminded me of is the importance of truthfulness and it brings up an important part of hospitality which quite frankly may be a major reason we struggle with offering it more often.
I have a feeling that one of the greatest reasons we struggle with hospitality, if we’re honest, is the fear that people will see how we actually live. I read a story this week about a 9-year-old girl and her mom who were frantically cleaning before guests came over and finally the daughter said, “Mommy, you’re trying to make it look like children don’t live here!”
And it is true that having people in your home is remarkably vulnerable. We had folks over for our inquirer’s group and before they got there I was quickly mowing the lawn and wheeling a wagon full of dead plants from our front yard to the back where it wouldn’t be seen and, of course, as we oftentimes do, throwing stuff into the bedroom and slamming it shut. All so that when people came over they would think, “Wow, it looks like the Decks don’t have any kids and have nothing else to do all week, but keep their house spotless.” It’s really hard work to look like you have it all together!
And what is interesting, and perhaps ironic, is that it’s actually because it is so hard to look like we have it all together that we should freely invite people into our home, so that others can see that it is okay to not try and act like they have it all together. Christine Pohl calls hospitality “an invitation to mutual truthfulness.” That when we invite people into our homes we are inviting them into the reality of who we are, not into the image of who we hope they think we are. Now look, don’t get me wrong, you should still clean your toilets! But, think about what an incredible gift it would be, especially in an area like ours where so much energy is spent trying to fool people into thinking that we have the perfect life, with the perfect spouse, perfect children, perfect everything. What a gift it would be to give permission to our neighbors to let down their guard, to open up to the freedom of allowing others into their lives-with all of its’ beauty and its’ mess.
Sisters and brothers in Christ, how might we be a light in this community if we decided that rather than taking so much energy trying to convince people that we have it all together, we took that energy welcoming others as God has welcomed us. What if we were intentional about creating space, around a table or an outside deck or wherever, where we could invite our neighbors or others to experience a place where they would be listened to, cared for and given freedom to be honest? What new thing might happen and in what way might they, might we, be changed, when we start living more and more into who God is and who he has invited us to be. Hospitality: not just something we are doing, but something we are becoming. May it be so. Amen.