Matthew
10:40-42
August 19, 2018
William G. Carter
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever
welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever
welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward;
and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will
receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever
gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a
disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
Some
years ago, my wife and I landed on the mystical island of Iona. Located off the
western coast of Scotland, the small island has an abbey that traces its roots
back to the sixth century. The abbey has been rebuilt over the last eighty
years, and it now serves as a center for spiritual retreats.
We
arrived on an August afternoon in time for the evening worship service. Taking
our seats in the ancient stone sanctuary, we discovered we were in the midst of
a Christian youth conference. There were people in their teens and early twenties
who gathered there from across Europe, and they had planned the vespers.
“We
welcome you in the name of Jesus the Christ,” said the youthful leader, announcing
the theme of the worship service was hospitality. “But rather than make this a
theoretical concept,” she said, “we would like you to stand up, find somebody
that you do not know, and go sit with that person through the rest of the
service.” To my astonishment, everybody did.
On
a sparsely populated winter Sunday in my own congregation, I can’t people to
move three rows forward, much less sit with people they do not know. I’ve invited,
begged, cajoled, even bargained to shorten the sermon, but with no result.
Folks settle back, fasten the seatbelts in their favorite pews, and fold their
arms, as if to say, “You’re never going to get us to move.”
But
here was the miracle on a mystical Scottish island: people got up, introduced themselves
to strangers they had never met, and then moved somewhere else to sit together
for the rest of a worship service. Can you possibly imagine something like
that? It was a miracle, a miracle of Christian hospitality.
I
wonder why this has to be a miracle, and not a regular practice. Perhaps if we
go to a church on a regular basis, we begin to stake out a place we can call
our own. Maybe we like the freedom of sitting near an aisle, or the comfort of
dwelling within the pack. If we perceive ourselves to be outsiders or even
observers, we might sit near the back. If we aren’t concerned with what anybody
thinks of us, maybe we march down front where we sing as loud as we want.
Just
last Thursday, I met with the leaders of a congregation where the pastor has
announced his retirement. As we were getting acquainted, one of the elderly
women reminded everybody that she had a favorite pew. “Not only that,” she
said, “it’s my pew, because it was my mother’s pew. Even though she’s been long
gone, it feels like she is still here somehow as long as I can sit in my own
family pew.” Curiously enough, or perhaps not so curiously, her congregation has
only about a dozen people sitting in any of the pews these days. There is no
credible threat that anybody will ever steal her seat, but there is the real
possibility that, unchecked, her congregation could implode and disappear.
This
is a sermon about hospitality. Hospitality is the opposite of guarding your own
turf. Hospitality is making room for others. As the spiritual teacher Henri
Nouwen said so well, hospitality is “the creation of a free space where the
stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.”[1] To
be hospitable is to create that space, to make room for strangers. It is an intentional
act of welcome, not merely a concept we think about but an act that we do.
Pause
for a minute and remember the last time when somebody was hospitable to you.
What happened? How did it feel?
A
good friend noted many years ago, “Churches can learn a lot about hospitality if
they pay attention to good restaurants.” A thriving restaurant is always
expecting new people. Strangers are warmly greeted, even directed toward a good
seat. Fresh drink and warm bread are offered before the newcomers even ask.
Questions are answered, no matter how apparently small or trivial. There was nothing
that intentionally excludes, no insider jargon, no assigned seats, no dress
code nor inappropriate demand. It’s as if they are expecting you to come, and glad
when you do. That’s how a restaurant does it. And if the food is tasty and
nutritious, there is a good chance the visitors will return.
This
is more than friendliness. Most congregations regard themselves as friendly. They
say, “We are a friendly church.” To translate: some of us have been here
forever, and we greet the others who have been here forever, and some of us
have even gotten to be friends. That’s a very different thing than creating
space for somebody you do not know.
Hospitality
originates in an open heart. That is why it is difficult – if we do not know
the stranger, we might grow fearful of the stranger. But to have an open heart,
to welcome someone with an open heart, is to take a significant risk: that
stranger might change me! The stranger may have different view on matters that
seemed settled, and that pushes me to enlarge my understanding. They could have
significant needs, and that challenges me to care more deeply. They may come
from a set of different life experiences, which presses me beyond my
assumptions and privileges.
As
Henri Nouwen writes, “If we expect any salvation, redemption, healing and new
life, the first thing we need is an open receptive place where something can
happen to us.”[2] Not
merely to the stranger, but to us, for all of us, in some sense, are strangers
too. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus, who is also a stranger, comes
to us. He comes with a challenging voice, a fierce clarity, and a grace that sounds
unbelievable. His love comes with a surgical precision that can heal the hurts that
we have quickly dismissed and covered over.
So,
I take Father Nouwen to say if there will be salvation, redemption, healing and
new life, they will come by welcoming Christ the Stranger, the unexpected one,
who brings us the power of God. And one of the specific ways we welcome Christ
and God is by welcoming the stranger that he sends to us.
This
is a challenge. Some of us remember the voices of our parents: don’t talk to
strangers, don’t make eye contact with people you don’t know, don’t allow
yourself to be vulnerable in any way, for “stranger” rhymes with “danger.” To
make room for a stranger can feel like a threat, and many prefer to build walls,
wire up security systems, and put more police on their block. They would rather
live in fear than freedom. They prefer isolation to authentic human community.
Yet
sometimes, like Jesus, the Stranger comes anyway. My mother, for instance,
often warned us not to talk to outsiders. But my mother also liked having a
full house. Four children weren’t enough, so we found ourselves opening our
home to exchange students. Over the years, there were seventeen different exchange
students, living with us from two weeks to a full year. When I would go home
during college breaks, there would be somebody different sleeping in my
bedroom. I was exiled to a cot in the basement to make room for the mayor’s
daughter from Ecuador, the shy scientist from Tokyo, the perky blonde from Stockholm,
or the industrialist’s son from Berlin. When they were in our home, they were
treated like sons and daughters. It was an important lesson for me to ponder on
my basement cot, and in time I came to embrace it.
As
I grew up and began to study the New Testament, I came to understand the profound
truth at the heart of all Christian faith: that all of us are guests at God’s
table. None of us own the church; it is God’s church. None of us can stake a
claim on any of these pews; they are God’s pews. Since all us are guests, we are
called to make room for all the other guests, to welcome them as they are, not
as we prefer them to be. In the incredible hospitality of God, we are not only
welcomed ourselves – we are cracked open, released from our self-defined
isolation, and brought into the presence of others who could benefit from the
same truth and grace that God has offered to us.
As
I said, this lies at the very heart of the Gospel. The apostle Paul said as
much to a congregation of people in Rome that he had never met: “Welcome one
another, just as Christ as welcomed you, for the glory of God.” It’s not merely
good advice for a friendly bunch of Christians. This is the clear reminder that
God’s glory is revealed among a group of people who make room for one another.
We are more than names on a stick-on nametag. Each of us is a living story, a
breathing soul, hungry for the kind of love that takes us seriously.
It
can happen, and among those who are spiritually alert, it does happen. At a
recent gathering of folks who are interested in joining our congregation, one
of the people had the courage to confess she didn’t know very many people in
our church or our town. It took a lot of courage to say that out loud, in a
room of strangers. Next thing we knew, the newcomer sitting next to her invited
her to her home that afternoon, and I’m sure there were some fresh-baked
cookies when she arrived!
This
is how God is glorified: people make room for one another. It’s called
hospitality. We may think we are offering it to somebody else, but we are the
ones who will be changed. The truth is all of us are guests at God’s table.
Hospitality is one guest making room for another guest.
I
remember the miracle of that evening on the mystical island of Iona. There we
were, my wife and I, strangers in a room of strangers. We were each invited to sit
with other strangers around us. She struck up a short conversation with an
engineering student from Manchester, I met a young architect from Belgium, and
all of us worshiped together. We sang to a God who gathers us in, prayed to a
Savior who loves us all, and gave our offerings to the Spirit who nudges us beyond
our tendencies to stick to ourselves.
There
is Gospel in such a moment. Jesus says to all his strangers, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and
whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Lest we think that life and
faith and church are primarily about what we do, what we believe,
and whom we reach out to welcome, Jesus turns it inside out. Life,
faith, and church are also about who reaches us, who welcomes us, whose lives
are affected because of us.
This, too, is the work of
Christ extended beyond us, ever enlarging the circle, whether it’s offering a
cold cup of water to those who thirst, learning the name and life story of the
person in the next pew, or finding a home for an immigrant family from another
country. “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,” he says. He means it.
In
fact, near the end of his time among us, Jesus told a true story about the
future. He said the day will come when all truth will be revealed, and all
people will be sorted. The single question at the heart of God’s judgment is whether
we have opened our hearts to the people around us. Or as Jesus will say, “I was
a stranger and you welcomed me.” (25:35). Everybody will be astonished, he
says, and every single person will ask, “Lord, when was it that we saw you a
stranger and welcomed you?”
Remember
what he says? “Truly I tell you, just as you welcome one of the least of these,
members of my family, you did it to me.
This
is important stuff. It is so important that, very early in Christian history, a
group of monks agreed that whenever a guest came to their monastery, they would
open the door and say, “Welcome, Christ!” They did not want to miss the
opportunity. As St. Benedict wrote in his rule of faith, “All guests who
present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.” (Rule of St. Benedict,
chapter 53)
One
time, I checked into a monastery for a few days of prayer and study. As I
signed the guest register, the guest master actually said it out loud, “Welcome,
Christ!” I looked from signing my name and said, “Better safe than sorry?”
He
smiled and replied, “Better to be open-hearted than shriveled up.”
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] Henri J. M Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the
Spiritual Life (New York: Image Books, 1975) p. 71.
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