Hospitality: Welcoming Strangers
Hospitality: Welcoming Strangers
September 18, 2022
Matthew 25: 31 - 46
Why do many churches like ours languish as we have done over the last ten years, and other churches like ours thrive?
Many lecturers and writers have studied what is wrong with our languishing churches. For sixty years we have heard reports along with programs to make us work better. But we still are not working much better; we are still languishing.
Two and a quarter years ago I came back to be your pastor. We set some goals and procedures around rebuilding this, our Traditional Congregation. But I wasn’t the answer; I obviously have no magic wand. We are still languishing.
Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic has kept a few people away. That is only an excuse.
Neil and Susan and Elaine have made sure that the weekly luncheons following our worship services have been continued – at considerable personal effort and cost. We love those meals, sitting and enjoying each other, but they have not helped us reach out to our community. They are nice and helpful, but they are only part of the way forward when we do them right – making sure that each and every person present has a wonderful part in our fellowship. But, when we enjoy ourselves – each other – too much, we can fail to include visitors and strangers in our joyful time together.
Christian hospitality is the focus this morning. But I didn’t learn about hospitality in seminary, and we have probably had very few sermons on hospitality. Yet, in the 100 spiritually thriving churches that our author, Dr. Diana Butler Bass, studied, hospitality – radical hospitality – was a primary component of each of those churches.
Hospitality is not new to our faith. It has been an inherent part of our religious responsibility and opportunity for thousands of years. One of the laws listed in Leviticus (19: 33-34) says, 33“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (This is just one of a series of laws in this chapter.)
Our society, some of our churches, and even some of our pastors rail and rage against “illegal” immigrants; some governors are just shipping them to places unknown to the aliens. I guess that they don’t read this part of the Bible.
There is a more general and over-arching Old Testament set of two commandments that Jesus called the first, most important and primary commandment and the second that is essentially of the same significance as the first; they read, Mark 12:29-31 (SV)“The first is, ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord, 30and you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul [and all your mind] and with all your energy.’ 31The second is this: ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” That is, we are to want for our neighbors everything that we want for ourselves. (The first commandment is Deuteronomy 6:4-5; the second is Leviticus 19:18.) Hospitality in this general form has been central and critical to our faith from the earliest days of our Jewish ancestors, and boldly reaffirmed by Jesus. This is critical to our Christian way of life – to our Mt. Salem Church’s way of life.
This is not the only time that Jesus is reported to have spoken about hospitality. In a lesson we read a few weeks ago Jesus is reported to have said Luke 14:12-14 to someone who had invited him to a dinner, 12“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
This is hospitality – very expensive hospitality – because it is good and right; it is so good that “you will be blessed” and even “repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Hospitality is indeed important to our Christian way of life.
Luke reports that a lawyer asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. He got the love God and love neighbor answer, and Jesus told him (and us), Luke 10:28“Do this, and you will live.” The lawyer then questioned Jesus, Luke 10:29b“And who is my neighbor?” You remember the answer: the neighbor to the man who had been attacked on the road was the Good Samaritan, a hated foreigner who bandaged the hurt man, put him on his donkey – so he had to walk, took him to an inn to care for him, and paid for his continuing care. That is hospitality; that is loving you neighbor. That is so much more than we are likely to do in providing hospitality to strangers who come into our Church on Sunday morning for worship or for our luncheon or during the week for one or more of the groups that gather in our beautiful building. But that is the way of Christianity, that is the way of Jesus.
Let’s look quickly at one more lesson that speaks to hospitality. At the final judgement in Matthew, chapter 25, we hear King Jesus saying to the “righteous” people that it was when we saw the most inconspicuous people hungry and gave them food or thirsty and gave them something to drink, or saw them as strangers and welcomed them or naked and gave them clothing or sick and took care of them or in prison and visited them, that is when we did it to Jesus – to God. That is how you have loved God. That is, when your loving hospitality is richly bestowed on even the least of your neighbors, it is done to and/or for God.
The Bible and Christianity at central points of definition and instruction are clearly proclaiming the centrality of hospitality to the life of faith, to the life of a righteous person. Hospitality is the Christian way of life.
So, what might faithful hospitality look like for Mt. Salem Church?
Let me share some comments from some of the Churches in Dr. Bass’ study: it could be like this here.
“Hospitality (at Cornerstone UMC in Naples, Florida) is as extravagant as that offered by the resorts, but it is not illusory or ephemeral. It is genuine.” [Page 78]
While the people at the Church come from various social backgrounds, “Everywhere, people welcome each other. Warm greetings and hugs abound.” [Page 78]
“The sign out front says Methodist, but I was raised Methodist, and this does not look like any Methodist church I remember. It appears to be a congregation in which wayfarers and strangers have become friends”. [Page 79]
In our ‘world of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture, and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God,’ “Hospitality is the ‘creation of free space’ where strangers become friends. ‘Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place’” {Henri Nouwen} [Page 79]
“True Christian hospitality is not a recruitment strategy designed to manipulate strangers into church membership. Rather, it is a central practice of the Christian faith – something Christians are called to do for the sake of that thing itself.” [Page 81]
“Hospitality is not a program, not a single hour or ministry in the life of a congregation. It stands at the heart of a Christian way of life, a living icon of wholeness in God.” [Page 82]
“’We don’t care who you are,’ explained one Cornerstone member, ‘where you came from, what color you are, what your background is, with whom you share your life. You are here, now, at Cornerstone and you are a brother or sister in Christ.’” [Page 82]
“’Somehow, the way we do church equalizes. We are all the same,’ said one woman trying to explain the congregation. ‘Sameness, however, does not mean conformity. ‘You walk in and you don’t feel pressure to conform.’” [Page 82]
“Although hospitality at Cornerstone is free, it is not without cost. Indeed, Christians who enter into the practice of welcoming the stranger know that it is risky – and sometimes dangerous. Hospitality is not a tame practice, an option to offer only to those who are likeable. As the ancient Christian theologian Gregory of Nyssa reminded his flock, ‘The stranger, those who are naked, without food, infirm and imprisoned are the ones the Gospel intends for you.’ Hospitality can be frightening at times.” {page 82-3]
“’There’s a lack of judgment here,’ one woman related. ‘You know, at some churches you go and you feel like people are looking at you and sizing you up. That doesn’t happen here. Everybody is just glad to see you.’” [Page 84]
“’There’s a lot of talk among churches about reaching out to the community and it never happens.’ Said Sandra, a member of the church, ‘but our church hosted Tent City (for the homeless). It really makes you think about what churches are supposed to be doing. I mean, what would Jesus have done? He would have hosted Tent City!’”
“’When hostility is converted into hospitality then fearful strangers can become guests . . . . Then, in fact, the distinction between host and guest proves to be artificial and evaporates in the recognition of newfound unity.’{Henri Nouwen} In a time of hate-filled extremism, some Christians still long for a world of nonviolent love, of reconciling peace. Of human wholeness, of true brother and sisterhood in God’s compassion. For them, hospitality opens the way to practicing peace, doing a tangible thing that can change the world.” [Page 86]
“Although hospitality takes many forms, from the kiss of peace bestowed by a Goth teenager on an elderly woman, to offering bread to a stranger, and thanking a homeless person for coming to breakfast, the core practice remains the same: Christian people, themselves wayfarers, welcome strangers into the heart of God’s transformative love.” [Page 87]
The future of Mt. Salem Church rests on our learning to offer and always practice radical hospitality to all who come into our Church and lives. As we have been able to find God through Jesus’ love, let us help all we meet to find their way to God through our loving, serving, giving, and sharing hospitality. Let us love all of our neighbors at least as much as we love ourselves. Let us share God’s love and grace and peace with each other and with the strangers that God sends our way.
Sermons\Mt25_31-46.9c22