Christian Community
Hospitality
Presbytery Pastoral Care
Network National Gathering
October
20-23, 2003
Rev.
Deborah McKinley
Hebrews 13:1-2
Luke 10:25-37
Hospitality. What does that mean to you? Providing a warm home on a cool evening for friends you=ve invited to dinner? An important industry in today=s cities as they seek to increase the tourism financial base? Sitting on the porch of your neighbor=s house - enjoying a glass of lemonade or iced tea after you=ve both finished mowing your lawns? Hospitality - a sense of warmth, welcome, comfort, security.
In the Old Testament, the story of Abraham and Sarah welcoming the strangers to their tent reflected the bedouin tradition having to do with a resident=s obligation to nourish and protect travelers who find themselves in hostile environments. Later, the hospitality code based such hospitality on the graciousness of God, reminding the Israelites of their own days of wandering, and of God=s faithfulness in the wilderness. Remember that you were a sojourner, and you ARE a sojourner. It is only by God=s gift that you possess this land.
What, exactly, is the purpose of hospitality? In ancient times it was safety and sustenance. Practicing hospitality reminded the covenant people that they were God=s people - that they were dependent upon God=s goodness and faithfulness for their own safety and sustenance. They, in turn, offered that to those strangers around them. I would suggest the same is true today. You and I are recipients of the grace of God - we know how far short we=ve fallen. We know how deeply God reaches to pick us up. And the only response is to invite and welcome another into that realm of grace. Henri Nouwen writes that AHospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.@ (Reaching Out, pg. 51) It is to make the Kingdom of God a public space. Walter Brueggeman, in this year=s Stewardship Magazine, published by the Congregational Ministries Division of the General Assembly - Walter Brueggeman writes that the Kingdom of God is a Apublic life reorganized around neighborliness.@
Hospitality - welcoming the stranger. Just as the lawyer pushed Jesus for definition, AWho is my neighbor?@ We can ask, AWho is the stranger?@
Strangers, we know, may be God=s special envoys to bless or to challenge us. The writer of Hebrews goes so far as to claim they may be angels. God may use these strangers for some special purpose in our lives. And suddenly the role of host is no longer a position of power - of bestowing something on someone else. The stranger bestows on us and the host becomes the guest. You know, of course, that the Greek for stranger is xenos - and it means, simultaneously, guest, host, and stranger. The verb form means to receive as a guest, or to surprise. Philoxenia - to love the stranger - is actually a larger concept - it is to delight in the entire guest/host relationship. And that is what the gospel calls us to - philoxenia - to delight in the relationship between guest and host/ between stranger and host who then becomes the receiver.
Hospitality is a hallmark of Christian community. What does it mean for you and for me? What does it mean for our presbyteries? Who are the strangers we are to welcome?
Strangers need not be people we do not know - or people of different culture, race, or socio-economic status. They are our neighbors, and store clerks. They are the people who wait on us in restaurants and pray with us at staff meetings. They are our fellow presbyters.
Practicing hospitality is not easy. Far from those cozy images of fireplaces and good friends, - hospitality often takes us out of our comfort zone. Because we are to welcome another - who is different than we are - into our lives. And in so doing, you and I risk being changed. Hospitality is not cookies and tea. It is, very simply, a relationship which is open - to the other person, to how God might be at work in them and through them in your own life.
AIt has been said that >God is always revising our boundaries outward.= A primary way this occurs is through an encounter with the other, in which an empathetic bond is established that transcends us and them, creating a new we. This grounds commitment to the common good, rather than just to me and mine.@[1] God is always revising us. As individuals and as communities of faith we are always growing more and more into the people God created us to be, growing more and more into that baptismal identity. ABelonging should also be for becoming.@[2]
I=m not sure about your presbytery, but in Philadelphia we have passionate debates on the floor of our presbytery. Over new church developments and statements of faith. Over changes in the Book of Order and goals for our presbytery. Over staff designs and inclusive language. I would suggest that those on the opposite side of the debate are the strangers you and I are called to welcome. If our presbyteries are to live fully into its life as a Christian community, then ought the pastors not learn how to delight in a relationship involving those they disagree with? The purpose of the relationship is not to change someone=s mind - or convince them of the errors of their thinking or perspective. It is, rather, to create a holy space between them - where God can be active in prodding both to growth. At the end of the day we may still disagree - and we probably will. But Christian community demands that you and I delight in the relationship - keeping the Kingdom of God a public thing and not a private affair - seeking out our neighbor.
Who is your neighbor?