June 21, 2009 Weaving Hospitality Romans 12:9 13 In a day and age when hospitality can mean little more than a smiley face at the end of an email this morning we have an opportunity to consider wonder what the word hospitality really means to us. This is the third part of our Summer Sermon Series, from the book Practicing Our Faith an anthology of essays describing ways that we meet that of God in the normal, everyday course of our lives. What does hospitality mean to you? What images, feelings, does it carry with it welcome, warmth, kindness, generosity, openness to strangers, what else? The primary image that comes to my mind having to do with hospitality are the summertime picnics that my folks put on as I was growing up. For me, summertime picnics are virtually synonymous with hospitality. First, to begin to make it happen, there was the big tub of ice; a big ice block that my stepfather would always get, first thing in the morning, and then chip away at with an ice pick to make sure all the drinks would be as cold as possible then cover the tub with three old quilts we kept around for just this reason. So, underneath the cherry tree, inside the tub would go all the A Treat sodas, especially the cream soda, and orange, and birch beer, then the Yuengling lager, Genesee cream ale, & St. Pauli Girl, too. Over on the picnic table you d find it heaped with corn on the cob, baked beans, three bean salad, not to mention potato salad, deviled eggs, & a collection of summer salads: jello, tomato & cucumber, & egg salads, (is anyone hungry, yet?) That s not to mention the dessert always brownies, and the pies: strawberry, cherry, apple, rhubarb, and my all time favorite, shoo fly pie. Out in the backyard, there d be a game of badminton going on; a round robin tournament; and up the hill, on a level piece of land, a game of horseshoes that will go well on into the night; doubles, that is with the clank of steel on steel ringing on most every toss these guys are good! It was a routine we took part in at least twice a summer usually around now on Father s Day weekend; (a good excuse to grill burgers), and then at least again on Labor Day, to conclude the summer season. 1
Now, you might think that sounds like a fun time for sure; but what about it embodied hospitality? Thanks for asking; because it was this. At every picnic I can remember, there were at least a few people who had never been to one of our family picnics before a new boyfriend or girlfriend of one of my cousins (and I have a lot of them, cousins, that is) or someone new somebody was hanging around with, or coming back from work with; or a fraternity brother, or roommate from college. There was always someone new and I remember very clearly my stepdad Bruce, greeting them with a big handshake, a pat on the back, a welcome and an invitation to a cold drink from the tub of chipped up ice. Then my uncles & everyone else would chime in for the guests to get to the head of the line to be first to fill up their plates. And the guestswhoever they were would come away from the event just overwhelmed with hospitality having been made to feel more at home than they ever could have expected. After thinking about these summertime picnics this past week, I thought I might title this sermon: Everything I learned about hospitality I learned from my folks at summertime picnics and I wouldn t be far off the mark. The Germans call it Gastfreundschaft, friendliness built for guests; a time filled with Gemütlichkeit a warm heartedness, coziness, a spirit of open hospitality and acceptance, all around the absence of anything hectic, and with it the ability to spend good, quality time. The Apostle Paul used a different word, but equally interesting; philoxenia love of strangers/ coming from philos and xenos; it s the opposite of xeno phobia: fear of strangers. Listen to its use in the context of his letter to Christians in Rome Paul s epic treatise and his definitive, most clearly formed message for new believers: Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Extending hospitality was the culmination of the Apostle s list of ways to share God s mercy. The fact is, for the early Church, philoxenia meant far more than extending a 2
handshake at a picnic or a welcoming greeting at the church door after worship. Hospitality was a central and necessary practice as new believers escaped persecution and traveled to spread the gospel. Early Christians regularly received strangers into their homes and shared meals. Hospitality was practically necessary and theologically central, woven into daily life. Deacons took over many of the practical aspects of providing hospitality, and letters of reference were used to introduce people as they moved from one community to another. For us today, philoxenia, gastfreundschaft, hospitality appears to be more of an option we can choose, or not, rather than what we need to do, how we need to act in order to survive. We are not a persecuted minority; threatened because of our faith. We don t depend on the hospitality of others for our continued existence. But I would contend that regardless of the threat around us, or lack thereof, practicing hospitality is the right thing to do because it is healthy and it is one of the things God made us for. We are made to share, we are made to extend ourselves for one another; we are made to care for one another concretely, specifically and regularly. Rabbi Harold Kushner says that just as our bodies are made so that certain kinds of diets and activities are healthy for us and other kinds are toxic, he is convinced our souls are made so that certain kinds of activities make us healthy. Haven't you had the experience of going out of your way to do something nice for somebody and after you do it, almost despite yourself, you feel good; you feel light and cheerful; you feel healthy. What happened then was that you discovered that this is the way human beings are supposed to live. (It s like those TV commercials, when someone does something good for someone else, anonymously, it becomes contagious, with good deeds then cascading along to unsuspecting people throughout the day ) Each of us makes the world a different place by doing good and generous things regularly. If you want to feel good about your life, here is a very specific, simple prescription. Three times a week go out of your way, and be hospitable to somebody. Make them feel at homebe nice. That s all it takes. You will be astonished how quickly you start feeling different about yourself. 3
Do you know why this works? It s very simple. We are made in such a way that cheerfulness, honesty and generosity are literally healthy for us. Studies done at Duke University Hospital (that I could cite) have shown this over and over again That is why one of the primary messages of the great religious faiths boil down to reaching out to other people in honesty, in generosity and in hospitality. Hospitality philoxenia, is what Jesus referred to, over and over again, throughout his life and ministry, in the words of Leviticus; You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Hospitality is a basic principle and building block of human life. A final story; just a few years ago, I sat in an advisory group to the Campus Ministry Office over at Johns Hopkins University; this was when Sharon Kugler was chaplain. The task given to us was to listen to reports from the various campus ministry leaders about their work, and to offer counsel and supportive advice. At one meeting we had heard the leader s reports and we were asking them questions. An older member of the advisory group asked the leaders, "What are the university students like morally these days?" The leaders looked at each other, wondering how to answer that question. Finally one of them took a stab at it. "Well," she said, "I think you'd be basically pleased. The students are pretty ambitious in terms of their careers, but that's not all they are. A lot of them tutor kids after school. Some volunteer at Our Daily Bread, and go on Mission trips for Spring Break. There are always debates going on about Darfur, and what the West can really do about failed states ; how we could intervene in a helpful humanitarian way. As she talked, the Jewish chaplain in our group who had been listening intently to her began to grin. The more she talked, the bigger he grinned, until finally it became distracting. "Am I saying something funny?" she said to the Jewish chaplain. "No, no, I'm sorry," he replied. "I was just sitting here thinking. You re saying that the university students are good people, and you're right. And you're saying that they are involved in good social causes, and they are. But what I was thinking is that the one thing they lack is a vision of salvation." We all looked at the Jewish university chaplain, not quite knowing what he meant, exactly." No, it's true," he said. "If you don t have some vision of what God is doing to repair the whole creation and how you can be who God made you to be, you can't get up every day and work in a soup kitchen. It finally beats you down." 4
That phrase is what I remember most about that meeting if you don't have some vision of what God is doing, and how you can be who God made you to be, it all finally beats you down. You know, you can be as nice as you possibly can be; be the best do gooder in the world. You can serve people till you are blue in the face, and more and at some point you will become frustrated and angry and resentful, exhausted, and beaten down. You can be the incarnation of hospitality; but unless you know, deep in your heart, why you are doing it and whom it is that you re serving; you will sour of it, give it up and walk away. Only when you know how it is that God made you to serve can the awareness come to you that as you serve a stranger, as you welcome someone new, as you make them feel at home and share with them the resources that will make a difference in their lives; only then can you at the same time find real meaning in your own life by doing what it is you are made to do. Knowing who it is that God made you to be makes all the difference. So given all this, what does hospitality mean to you? In the good times, celebrating, and even when life is not a picnic (and especially then) if in the living out of your definition, there is generosity and hospitality, doing the good that you were made for, seeing in someone else how God sees you and treating them accordingly, then go right on giving and living and loving and sharing, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 5