In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
If
you go to the Middle East today, you’ll find that one of their core values is
hospitality. Receiving the stranger and offering them food and water is not
only the nice thing to do, but it is the only acceptable thing to do.
Hospitality is a part of that culture, and that was just as true during Jesus’
time in the Middle East. And here in the West, we talk about hospitality as
well. We often use the word “welcome” as a rough synonym for hospitality. But
hospitality means more than that. In the Greek of the New Testament, the word
literally means “love strangers.” What if we not only welcomed strangers, but
loved them? That would get us closer to Biblical hospitality. This morning I’d like
to examine three aspects of this Biblical hospitality, as seen in this passage
from Luke. The three parts are offering, being vulnerable, and interdependence.
First,
we’ll begin with offering something in hospitality, as this is the most common
form of hospitality that we know. Jesus suggest that there are two things that
the disciples are to offer those they meet, peace and the Kingdom of God. As
they enter a house, their first word is to be “peace.” “Peace” was an ancient
greeting that conveyed tranquility, wholeness, harmony, and health, being based
on the Hebrew word shalom. And I can’t
help but wonder what our world would be like if “peace” was the first word that
we offered to one another instead of “hey, how are ya?” And not just what if we
said “peace” instead of “hello,” but what if we meant it? What if we were
setting the tone for our interactions by offering peace? By saying “peace,”
what if we were committing ourselves to trusting that we won’t be taken
advantage of, to promising to offer only harmony and health to the other
person? It might not change the world overnight, but I’d be willing to bet that
you might start to see small changes in your relationships.
But
I’d also like to point out that peace does not mean an absence of conflict.
Conflict is a good and healthy thing when handled properly. Conflict is
natural, but what you do with conflict will determine whether or not it will
lead to peace and healing or to war and strife. Too often we say that we can’t
be at peace because we can’t agree with each other, and that’s a fallacy; and
the sad truth is that it leads to negative conflicts. I don’t expect everyone
to agree on everything. In fact, part of what makes the Episcopal tradition so
rich is the fact that we live what we call the via media, the “middle way” between the poles of Protestant and
Roman, between Conservative and Liberal. And Jesus knows that he disciples will
encounter some conflict as they go out and tells them how to deal with it.
If
you’ll remember the reading from last Sunday, James and John asked Jesus if
they should call down fire to consume the Samaritans. But here, that isn’t how
Jesus suggests that we handle conflict. Instead, Jesus suggests not staying in
an unhealthy relationship. If the person will not receive your peace or offer
it back to you, you leave. It doesn’t mean that you won’t come back another time,
but don’t stay in a place where peace is not possible. But as you leave, your
parting words are not to be threats or insults, but rather a reminder that “the
Kingdom of God has come near.”
And
this is the second offering of hospitality that Jesus offers us- the Kingdom of
God. What is the Kingdom of God? Well, it’s like a mustard seed, and it’s sort
of like a lost coin, and it reminds you of a father welcoming back his lost
son. Jesus never defines the Kingdom of God, he simply says that has come near,
or “is among you,” in other translations. And this is a point that should not
be overlooked. Far too many Christians have fallen for the trap of thinking
that the Kingdom is the same as the afterlife. Why would Jesus say “the
afterlife has come near?” He wouldn’t; it makes no sense. And our preoccupation
of who goes where when they die is nonsense as well. If you’ve paid attention
to my preaching here over the last three years, you’ve probably realized that
the present Kingdom of God is the core of all my theology. In fact, I don’t
think I’ve ever preached a sermon without at least once mentioning the Kingdom of
God.
What
the disciples are to offer is the proclamation that the Kingdom of God has come
near. And as Jesus presents it, this Kingdom comes with peace, with healing,
with community. We pray it all the time- “thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in
heaven.” What does that look like to you? What would it mean if the Kingdom
drew closer today? How can you help to realize that prayer?
The
first move of hospitality outlined by Jesus is in the offering of peace and the
pronouncement of the Kingdom of God. When we offer hospitality, how might we be
sure to include those elements?
Next,
hospitality involves vulnerability. Notice that Jesus makes his disciples reliant
on others from the start. He tells them to take no purse, bag, or sandals. For
one, they will get these things from others; but secondly, they aren’t going to
make a career or build up their net worth. They won’t be collecting souvenirs
or donations that they’ll need to carry. He sends them out, telling them not to
be weighed down by the burdens of possessions or money. And there is great
vulnerability in this action. What if they don’t find anyone to feed them? Or
give them a place to sleep? Or what if they’re a vegetarian and their host sets
out a pot roast for dinner? It takes a lot of vulnerability.
Jesus
wants them to go out and truly be with the people whom they visit. And I hope
that we notice that this is a reversal of how we often think hospitality works.
Normally, hospitality is seen as welcoming. And we’ve really gotten this wrong
in America. We think that hospitality is saying “come on in, we’ll show you how
we do it around here, and we’ll even teach you how to be like us.” But as
colonialism in Africa showed us, that doesn’t really work. When the first
missionaries arrived in Africa, they didn’t find much success. Christianity
grew very slowly when the Africans were told how to be Christian. Once the
missionaries left, Christianity exploded. When they were allowed to know God in
Christ through their culture, it clicked.
So
hospitality isn’t as much about “welcome, let me teach you,” as much as it is “can
I stay with you and learn from you?” Martin Luther King famously said that
Sunday morning is the most segregated
hour in America; and nearly 50 years later, he’s still right. And part of the
reason why he is still right is that we’ve forgotten how to be vulnerable in
our hospitality.
We
don’t risk being changed, or doing what is uncomfortable, and therefore we don’t
really know each other. Jesus warns the disciples that they will be like lambs
being sent into the midst of wolves. How often do we feel like lambs surrounded
by wolves? When does our faith or hospitality endanger us or make us targets? When
was the last time we risked something in being hospitable?
You can see this all
around, churches are trying to welcome and attract young people by trying to be
hip and cool. And all the research shows, that despite praise bands and
guitars, despite letting people wear blue jeans instead of suits to church,
despite preachers that look like a CEO giving a keynote address, young people
haven’t been impressed with the efforts. They aren’t coming because churches
aren’t doing what Jesus suggested that we do.
We’re not going to others on their terms. We aren’t
learning their customs, we aren’t eating their foods, so to speak. It takes a
lot of courage and trust to go out on that limb, to leave behind the known, to
be utterly dependent on the other. But that is exactly the sort of hospitality that
Jesus is suggesting to us.
And this vulnerability of
doing things differently is seen in our reading from 1 Kings as well. Naaman, the
commander of the Syrian army, has leprosy, and finds his way to the Israelite
prophet Elisha, who tells him to bathe in the Jordan River seven times. Naaman’s
initial reaction isn’t “good, this is easier than I thought,” instead, he
resents the fact that he travelled all this way to not even get a face-to-face
meeting with Elisha and then be told to bathe in a river that is dirtier than
the rivers back home. There was a sociological experiment done a few years back
where a group of people were given free movie tickets, while another group had
to pay $10 for their tickets. They were shown the exact same movie, but people who
paid for the tickets were both more likely to have actually showed up to the
show, but also gave the movie considerably higher reviews than the people who
got free tickets.
We expect that good
things are expensive and difficult. We expect that anything worthwhile will
take a lot of time and energy. And we tend to overlook the easy stuff, the
things that are right in front of us. The median cost for a wedding in the US
is $18,000. After a wedding, I’ve never heard anyone say “that was worth
$18,000.” But instead, the couple will often say that the best moment was
something simple. The same is true of my seven month old daughter; she gets
more use out of the bag that the toy came in than the toy itself. We tend to
take more ownership of things when we have to invest a lot in them. It does
take a bit of vulnerability to trust that what we need will be given to us, and
it isn’t something that we need to earn ourselves.
If you look at
mega-churches, you’ll see this phenomenon playing out. Mega-churches tend to
espouse a rather difficult faith. They will tell you what you can and cannot
drink, what shows you can and cannot watch, what beliefs you can and cannot
hold. But that simply isn’t how God works. God isn’t present as much in rules
and prohibitions as much as God is present in some simple bread and wine, or in
the face of the person next to you. We like clear definitions and boundaries,
but in the simple answers, we don’t get as much clarity as we’d like, and that
takes some vulnerability. The grace, mercy, peace, and love of God isn’t something
we earn, it is a free gift. Let’s not make that any more complicated than it
needs to be. Let’s be more vulnerable in our hospitality, let’s really be with
each other, learning from each other, and accept the love of God that is all
around us instead of trying to define how it works.
Finally, hospitality
takes interdependence. And given that we just celebrated Independence Day on
July 4, that word choice is intentional. Independence is seen as a virtue;
being able to take care of yourself is a noble thing. But in this passage,
Jesus seems to be elevating the status of being interdependent.
I’ll be honest with you,
I have some real uneasiness about the relation of patriotism to discipleship.
There is a tension between being a citizen of the United States, or any other
nation, and a citizen of the Kingdom of God. There is friction between being a
citizen of an empire, a citizen of the last true superpower, and being a
disciple of the Prince of Peace. And I struggle with it. Now pride is a natural
thing for us to feel. There is nothing innately wrong with feeling a deep
connection to the place where you were born and live. There is nothing wrong with
celebrating the triumphs of your community. But we must realize that the flag
and the cross are competing symbols. They both compete for our deepest loyalty
and devotions. Which lapel pin do we wear, the cross or the flag? Do we give priority
to the flag in the pledge of allegiance, or to the cross in the Creed?
Jesus gathers 70
disciples and sends them out. In Genesis 10, there is a list of nations, and
there are 70 nations on it. It is no coincidence that these numbers match.
Nationalism and patriotism was very much alive in Jesus’ time in Israel. People
expected a messiah to come and be of the Jews, for the Jews, and by the Jews.
But Jesus seems to be saying that God is bigger than Israel, and I think Jesus
would also remind us that God is bigger than the United States.
Let us remember that
since our founding, the United States has been called a “great experiment.” The
United States is not the end of the road, but, at its best, it is a step
towards the Kingdom of God, where we will experience true liberty and justice
for all. But like all experiments, it’s not perfect, and it will fail, but we
hope and pray that our failing will lead to a better design the next go-around.
I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s great words- “sir, my concern is not whether
God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God’s side.”
And the only way to live
into that prayer is to be interdependent, not independent. Being independent,
disconnected from others, seeing ourselves as superior to others, does not lead
to anything good, and it does not lead to the Kingdom of God. American
exceptionalism is an idol that has taken us away from the giving, vulnerable,
and interdependent hospitality that is so characteristic of the Kingdom of God.
So let us remember, that as Jesus commissions us and sends us out, it is to be
interdependent on others.
Just as Jesus sent those seventy
out to proclaim the Kingdom of God, so too does God send us out to do the same.
May we go, setting the tone with our first word of peace. May we vulnerable
enough to learn from others, to see the new ways that God is working. May we be
interdependent, growing with each other into a fuller realization of the
Kingdom.
When the disciples come
back to Jesus from their missions, they are excited about their mighty acts and
successes, but Jesus says “Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this… but rejoice
that your names are written in heaven.” Now that’s worth shooting fireworks off
over. Let us remember that that our glory is not found in our hospitality or
our success, but instead in the glory that God has been hospitable to us, in
giving us God’s peace, in being vulnerable enough to come to us in the person
of Jesus, and in being interdependent with us through the Holy Spirit. And for
that, in the words of the Battle Hymn of
the Republic, I say, “glory, glory, hallelujah.”
