Calvary United Methodist Church January 21, 2018 YOU CAN T FAKE IT Rev. Dr. S. Ronald Parks Children s Sermon: 1 John 3:18-24 It is a joy to greet one another in the love of Christ. We welcome the children to the front of this worship space to give thanks to God for all that He has given to us. And while they are coming up, how are we doing with the greeter sheets? Put up your hand if it s in your lap. Ok. A little progress, alright. You only have the next 45 minutes or so, we are not going to run over for the greeter sheets. Good morning. Are you not feeling well? (No.) (Cough.) Oh, you re not either? Well, that just happens to be what I wanted to talk about this morning. There is something going around called the flu. Have you heard of the flu? Well, it s a disease that makes you feel miserable and it s pretty widespread. The only place where there s not flu in a widespread area of the country is Hawaii. We are all going there immediately following worship this morning. Flu is one of those things that just kind of beats you up, like this picture. It gives you all kinds of symptoms and it drives you to a place that you only go when you are sick. If you are sick, you want to go see who? (The doctor.) The doctor. You want to go see your family doctor.
And he or she will do a series of things called a Checkup even though they may know obviously by looking at you you ve obviously go the flu, they are still going to do the checkup. And you tell me how many of these things you remember the last time you went to the doctor: They check your height with a ruler of some sort. Do they do that? You know what s really cool about getting old? You get shorter. It s fascinating. Then they check your weight with a scale. You know what s really cool about getting old? All the height that you lose somehow adds to your bulk. It s amazing. They check your ears with something called an otoscope. You remember that, when they stick that thing in your ear and they look in there and they go Hello...hello hello (echo) They check your tongue with a stick. They call it a tongue depressor but stick sounds funnier. They check your blood pressure with something called a sphygmomanometer. Can you say that? Sphygmomanometer. No, I can t either. They also then check your temperature with a thermometer. The really cool thing about modern thermometers: they have so many places; they can rub it across your forehead. For babies they put it in their armpit. You can stick it in your mouth. There are all sorts of ways to check your temperature.
They stick a big light in your eyes to see how your eyes are doing. And then they check your reflexes with a tiny little rubber hammer. Pretty cool, right? They go bonk on your knee and your elbow. You know Mrs. Parks when she goes to the doctor now because of the problem that she had the doctor hits her right on the forehead with a hammer. I ve been asking to borrow that thing for months. And then they also do something with this. Do you know where? (Check the heart.) They check the heart, that s exactly right. The doctor puts this in the doctor s ears and then they take this piece and they put it where? (On your heart.) On your heart, which is right about here. Now, what does your heart sound like? Do you know? (Jesus.) It sounds like Jesus? You got a better sermon than I do, young lady. I m pretty much done after that. Your heart actually does make a sound and typically we call it Lub dub. Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub, lub dub, lub dub, lub dub It s a kind of a cool sound, but imagine what would happen if you took that stethoscope out of here or out of a doctor s office and stuck it on all sorts of things. Here s what that might look like: (VIDEO)
Pretty cool, huh? Yeah. (It s weird.) It s weird, yeah, it is weird! The purpose of the video is to kind of ask us so what s at the heart of each one of us. And while you and I might have to think about that for a little bit, in fact, everyone probably around us wonders, wow, what s going on inside that person, here s the thing. God always knows what s on our hearts. God know and you ve already said it because God sees into our hearts. God know us better than we know ourselves. From 1 John 3 these words are shared: Talk is cheap. Appearances are skin deep. Love requires action! God sees what s in our hearts. He listens for the voice of grace in our souls. And God knows what we are thinking. If love is at the heart of who we are as people, We never have to worry about a thing. We re doing all that s asked of us. We re fulfilling our life s purpose. Love is why we re here. Love is what we do. So if God knows our heart And so does everyone else, only because they see our heart. We wear it on the outside, through the things that we do. So, if love is at the heart of who I am Then you should hear it in everything I say; everything I say even when I may be upset or when I may have to tell someone that I think they are wrong and we need to talk about it together; even in the worst of things you should be able to hear love in what I say. And sometimes that s not an easy thing to do. I had kids once that were your age and sometimes it wasn t easy to express love when I also had to express judgement.
But the thing is, even in the worst of circumstances, you should be able to hear love in what each of us says. If love is at the heart of who we are, of who I am and who you are, You should see it in everything that I do. Everything that I do I should do with a sense of love: my work, my play, my studies, the relationships that I have, the gifts that I ve been granted, you should see an act of love in everything that I do as well as in the stuff that I say. And if love is at the heart of who I am, You should know it in all that I think; in everything that I think there should always be the component, the center, the jewel of love that s in my heart. Because if love is at the heart of who I am then who lives inside me? You already said it. (Jesus.) That s right, Jesus lives in me. Thanks for sharing in our time this morning.
Message Luke 14:7-11 (VIDEO) That was the longest sustained laugh ever in a live television taping. They actually had to stop the tape of All in the Family both times that they did it. They tape the show twice and of course edit it together. It took over two minutes for the studio audience to calm down after the kiss and the kiss was a kiss heard round the world. It was first aired on February 19 of 1972. It is the story of Sammy Davis, Jr. who rides in Archie s cab and neglects to take his briefcase with him. It just so happens that Archie s house is on the way to the airport, so the cab company sends over the briefcase so Sammy Davis, Jr. can pick it up at Archie s house. And in the course of Sammy Davis, Jr. s stay at Archie s house he is shown glorious hospitality. They have coffee together in which Archie unfortunately asks the question: would you like cream or sugar in your eye? Sammy Davis has a false eye.
To some of the uncomfortable stuff that All in the Family lifted up, this is the face of hospitality. This is the face of Archie and Sammy Davis, Jr. having a nice time together. They really don t know each other terribly well; they are strangers to one another but Sammy Davis that Archie is able to look over what would normally be insurmountable distance between the two of them and he is able to extend hospitality. We probably have a couple of different misunderstandings about hospitality as it is described in the scripture. Hospitality goes all the way back, all the way through every ancient culture there are protocols and etiquettes that in effect govern the relationship that we have with people who come into our presence and ultimately whom we invite into our homes. Hospitality defined is simply the welcoming and assisting of strangers as though they were friends or guests. Now the word stranger here is a little deceiving. Stranger is not necessarily someone you have never met. For example, there are lots of people in this room that you would not regard as friends. It is not that you don t know them, because you have seen them a bunch of times, but you really don t have any deep or profound connection to them. They really are strangers. You don t know if they have any kids; you don t know what their birthday is; you don t know what their favorite ice cream is; and there is no reason that you would because you have had no history with them. So even though we wear nametags around here and we like to think of ourselves as a family of faith, brothers and sisters, we really are for all accounts, we really are strangers to one another. There have been several studies in the last several years that talk about how many people you consider to be close friends. Twenty years ago the average American said that they had three to five close friends, people who really knew them. Last year when the same study was done, it s now two. We are connected in all sorts of ways, but the connection is so shallow that we really don t share much about ourselves.
The hose in a situation of hospitality is committed in the ancient world to providing the guest or the stranger with provision and protection. In other words, I am going to provide for you and you can share the shelter of my abode. And the thing is that when you do that it often formed long term relationships in which you gave one another the same gift back and forth. There was reciprocity in the relationship. So, for example, if I had a friend in Baltimore and I was travelling to Baltimore, I could expect hospitality from them. And then if they had to come to Harrisburg, they should be able to expect the same hospitality from me. It s a reciprocal relationship of welcoming. And the reason that it s so important to get it right is because of the way this word comes about. The Greek word for stranger is xenos. And the Greek word for hospitality is xenia. You see those two words are just separated by a couple of letters. But their meaning is almost unconnected in our hearts and minds. Stranger hospitality, right? Hospitality therefore is nothing more than stranger-friendship; treating strangers, treating people that you don t know so well as friends. It is not to suggest that you don t treat friends as friends. It s to do what Archie did and that is to welcome someone into his house who he did not know. And so what we have is the face of hospitality. Archie is genuinely glad to have a star in his house. But what Archie isn t prepared for is Sammy Davis, Jr. s desire to challenge Archie s hospitality.
This is the face of Hostile-tality. What in the world are you doing? You ve now invaded my space. Hostile-tality. You see, those words, stranger and hospitality, they aren t the only words that come from that root. The Greek word for stranger is, as we ve said, xenos. The Greek word for fear is phobia. Hostile-tality is called xenophobia: fear and mistrust of the stranger. And that may all be well and good in the culture in which we live that we need the fear and the mistrust of people we don t know, but here s the thing. If you don t know everybody except two people then everyone is a stranger. Hostile-tality is simply the denial of the love of Christ to the people you don t know. Brothers and sisters, for a lot of us, that s almost everybody and you can t fake that either. You can t fake the genuine article of hospitality and you can t fake hostile-tality. You can t fake the denial of the value and worth. You can t fake the welcome of the stranger. Here s the God s honest truth and it s sometimes surprises us: Jesus doesn t come to start ministries. He doesn t come to influence governments. He doesn t come to found organizations including the church. He doesn t come to put on events that build a brand, like Christian.
He does one thing: He practices God s Kingdom hospitality. And he never fakes it, including at the point where he has to make a decision as to whether or not the open arms of the kingdom are open wide enough for the intolerance of humanity. He shares this vision of a banquet, of a way in which we all come together in unity. And he attended a banquet at a Pharisee s house and this social occasion provided a beautiful and fertile soil for a teaching. He noticed that when guests arrived, They quickly chose seats of honor. Does this sound familiar at all? They just assumed it was their rightful place, to take the seat of honor. And so Jesus told them, When you arrive, sit in the cheap seats. Where are the cheap seats here at Calvary? They are the ones left vacant. These are the cheap seats. What if you pick those first, he said. Suppose the King shows up; And you are sitting in the King s seat and the King says, Hey, that s my seat. What happens then? You ll be moved quickly. Does any of this dynamic sound at all familiar? Have a humble heart when both offering and receiving hospitality. Only the host knows everyone who s coming. Only the host knows where everyone belongs. And brothers and sisters, we all belong in the cheap seats because somehow our merit, our worth, who we are as people, earn us a place at the kingdom banquet, we re toast. We are not only sitting in the front row, we re sitting on the floor in the front of the front row, right? Because we don t earn our way in. So maybe there are some questions that we could ask ourselves to help us understand just what this Kingdom hospitality looks like. These are easy questions: Whose house is this? Whose place is this? Is it yours? Is it mine? Is it the congregations? How about the Annual Conference? Ultimately they are the ones who hold our mortgage. They are the ones who will eat the debt if we don t pay. So maybe it s the Annual Conference. Maybe it s Christ though. Maybe this is Christ s house. Maybe this is God s sanctuary and maybe when we walked in here it might be wise if we had a sense of the fact that only God knows everyone who got invited and only God knows where everyone belongs.
Who invited you? Did you think that you came somehow on your own? Did you think that maybe when you got up today you were going to hit the church and then settle in for a day of football? You were invited here. I didn t invite you. Your neighbor didn t invite you. Your spouse didn t invite you. Christ invited you. Christ invited you to come and Christ invited me to come. Who invited me? Well, who invited you? The same person, the same call came to each one of us and every single one of us, even though we have no right to any place in God s house, we are all invited to be here. So when we ask the question, Where s my seat? Any place I sit down is a gracious gift from God. So if I sit in the front row, if I sit in the back row, if I sit in the cry room, if I sit in the choir loft, if I sit in the bells, any place I sit is a gift given to me. Every place I am is where God s grace comes down. Who gives the blessing at the meal? You do and I do because all of us have been blessed and all of us before we leave this place ought to be on our knees thanking God for the blessings that have brought us this far in life, that will sustain us this day and that will take us forward through the rest of our days. Who sets the etiquette? Christ sets the etiquette. How do we relate to one another? How do we share with one another? How do we sit around the table with one another? How do we embrace one another? How do we celebrate the presence of each other? You don t decide that. Christ decides that. Christ sets the etiquette of the table. And who deserves the gratitude for the feast? Christ deserves the gratitude for everything we have and do. And when am I excused? I am not excused until my job is done. And when is my job done? My job is done when my life is done.
You see, you can t fake this stuff. You can t fake appreciation of how God has welcomed you with Kingdom hospitality. So, I thought it might be kind of fun to take a look at ten ways that you and I could immediately improve our practice of God s Kingdom hospitality. This is not a quiz. You will not be asked to mention all ten of them on your way out of the room. And by the way, where s the greeter sheet? Show me a hand. Ok, alright, ok. Great. Fantastic. Good. Number 1: Go the second mile. When we have a cantata here, when there are a lot of musicians on the stage, a lot of people who come to worship early, we invite them to park in the satellite parking lots. We don t own them, but we have permission to use them. That s over at the high school and across the street and at Pennsylvania Counseling Center. We invite those of you who have the ability to walk a little bit to go the second mile. Hostile-tality takes the closest space for a quick getaway. Of, jeez, Parks is running long. I ve got to get to brunch at Bob Evans. I m out of here. So you park right down you know, right there, right as you go out, right here, right there, you know. Yeah, I m not handicapped, but I need to go, quick getaway. Hostile-tality says, Me first, man. Hospitality parks off site to allow others to be closer. It s not a big deal. These people do it all the time. But it s a big deal if you happen to have an illness; if you re disabled; if you re older; if you have kids; if you are brand new and you are looking for a space and you want to be able to get to worship on time. It s a big deal. Number 2: How about taking some ownership in the hospitality that you and I share with one another. Hostile-tality assumes somebody else will do the job. If that greeter sheet went by you and you didn t put your name down, you are assuming somebody else is going to put their name down. And it s going to be somebody that I don t want to see and I hope they don t do it too often because I kind of get tired of looking at the same people. You know why some people sign up to greet so often? Because nobody else is, and they don t want people to walk in here and not be greeted. That s hospitality. Hospitality is looking for a way to pitch in for everyone s welfare everyone s welfare!
Number 3: This is called the rule of three. Hostile-tality heads for the coffee and donuts to beat the rush. They almost knock you over on the way. And when they get the plate, they pile it up and cover it with a napkin to take it home for later. Hospitality greets three strangers in the three minutes after worship. Do you know why three minutes matters? Because most people are out the door in three minutes or less. The less you know about this place, the faster you leave. Does that make sense? Sure it does. Number 4: The cheap seats. We already talked a little bit about the cheap seats. Hostile-tality protects the space that I m entitled to. Hey, that s my seat. Hospitality is willing to share, move to the middle, open up my space. This isn t a movie theater. You are not going to get up and get another bucket of popcorn. It s okay not to have the aisle seat. If you are eight feet tall and you need a place for your legs, I understand that. I have to deal with that problem all the time. But nobody here is eight feet. You could move to the middle it s okay. It s not going to kill you for one Sunday to sit in the middle. Number 5: 43 or 17. It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile. Hostile-tality smiles only at the people I know and like. And hospitality smiles to everyone as a way of saying Welcome, I don t even know you but welcome. This is God s house called Calvary. I m a part of what goes on here and I don t know who you are from Adam, but you are welcome to be here. That s hospitality.
Number 6: Make your circle bigger. Your circle of friends. Hostile-tality hangs with my circle of friends it s called a clique. But hospitality wants to share your name and learn the name of strangers so you can form a connection. Invite them to the class. Say, Hey, we ve got an Easter Cantata coming up. Do you want to join? That s hospitality. Number 7: did you know that you are on staff? And I don t mean that you are under the employment of Calvary s Staff Parish Committee. I mean you are a shepherd. Hostile-tality assumes that everyone knows where everything is. You see people walking around looking lost, aw, too bad, they will figure it out. Hospitality notices the stranger and notices that maybe they don t know everything and then shepherds them to where they want to go. I can t tell you how many times people have come up to me and said, Pastor Ron I m looking for this Sunday School class. And my response is I don t know where that is but I ll find somebody who does know where that is so that you can get there. It s not a big deal. And if you don t know it s okay to say, Well, I don t really know, but let me see if I can find out who. That s what it means to be on staff. It means to be a shepherd. Number 8: My favorite word: ME. Everybody likes to hear their own name. If you are in a group of people and someone says, Hey, Ron. Who was that? Hey, they are calling me. What s up? What s going on? We want to hear our own name. So the reason we have these things hanging around our necks is we assume that it s important to call one another by name. Hostile-tality assumes everybody knows me, that s why I don t have to wear one of these, and that I know the name of everyone in this room worth knowing. So, I won t worry about looking at their nametags and I sure don t wear one.
But hospitality comes at it from another point of view. It wants to share my name. I don t expect you to know my name just because I stand up here. I want you to remember it. And I want to learn your name, to learn the name of strangers so that we can form a connection. That s hospitable. That s what these friendship pads are about. You see, it s not just so we know who is here. It s so that you can sign your name and hand it to the person next to you and they can read your name. And then when it comes back through you can read their name. So you sign it and you share it and then you read it as it goes by and you recall, even if you have to make a little note for yourself on your bulletin, hey that dude three guys down is named Bob, so that when you finish in worship and you get up to leave, you can say, Bob, hi! My name is Ron. It s great to meet you. Is that a hard thing to do? No, it s not. Number 9: I ll go first. Here s a tough one. Initiating conversation with people you don t know all that well. Hostile-tality never initiates conversation with strangers, although I may be willing converse if you corner me. You know how animals react to being cornered? It s not pretty. Hospitality makes the first move to engage people you don t know so well. And it also respects the boundaries that may be evident. Hi, my name is Ron. I didn t catch your name... Okay, it s nice to see you. Some people won t give you their name. Some people won t tell you where they live. Some people are very close to the vest with information about their life. That s ok. That s alright. It s not a problem. FORM a connection. Ask about somebody s family; occupation; recreation; motivation. Hey, it s great to have you here this morning. How did you get here? How did you find out about us? Did someone invite you? Did somebody bring you? Is there something we can answer for you, a question perhaps you have? See what makes them tick. You can do that in like thirty seconds you can ask some questions that sort of invite people to open up if they want to.
And then finally: Y all come back now, y hear? Y all come back. There is not guarantee you are going to come back. I ve said it a hundred times: it s nothing short of a miracle that you showed up today, given what happened last week, which was great, I thought. But you may not have thought so. But you came back. Y all come back now. Hostile-tality says nothing to people as they leave and doesn t care whether you ever see them again. Hospitality affirms the value of people. You ve been here. We re glad. Come back, worship with us again. Hospitality is stranger-friendship. And as I think I ve already pointed out, we re all strangers pretty much here, even with nametags and friendship pads, and some people who have been here since the first day this place opened its door, you are still pretty much strangers to one another. So, hospitality is being a friend, one of those two or three or five people that you know well, treating people as though they were friends. And Hostile-tality eh, whatever to the stranger, to the people you don t know real well or like. You can t fake either one. We either genuinely want to be in communion with one another or we genuinely don t. And people know when they walk in here that this is a place where Christ lives. Let s make sure they know. So, that pad that goes around, if you haven t had a chance to sign up yet or if it went by before I smacked you upside the head with this sermon,
You got another chance As you go out the door there are these little flower stands sitting out there on which those pads will be. So, as you go out, and by the way, the doors out of the sanctuary there have been locked and bolted. No, they haven t, I would never do that. But as you go out the door, think, You know what, I haven t greeted ever, or maybe it s been 5 years or maybe there s some reason why: I m concerned about the flu. There are all sorts of reasons, but you can t fake hospitality. We either want to be truly friend to one another in the love of Christ or we don t. Let us present our tithes and offerings. Benediction: We are people of hospitality. Hospitality is treating every person as though the love of Christ is real in them just as it is in us. They may be strangers, but we know them as friend. Hostile-tality, that s when everyone else doesn t matter, except me. And we can t fake either one. Thank you for signing up if you have done so. If you haven t done so, here s your big second chance. Let us go forth with the love of Christ in our hearts. Let us welcome one another in his peace. Amen.