HOSPITALITY, STRANGERS AND HOLY GROUND
October 14, 2007
Dr. Stephen D. Jones, preaching
Second Baptist Church
Text: Genesis 18:1-15
Twenty-five years ago, I accepted an invitation to speak to a gathering of
Mennonites in Ontario, Canada. I spoke into the evening on Saturday and we
decided to remain an extra day. I inquired as to a church we might visit on
Sunday. We learned that these New World Mennonites were similar in theology and
style to American Baptists. And the person who had coordinated my visit invited
me to her congregation. She suggested that her church was a young congregation
filled with thirty-somethings, “just like us.” She told us to meet her in the
lobby of the church.
So, the next morning, we walked into her church which was worshipping in a
modern facility. We were a husband and wife with a one-year-old child in our
arms. Reasonably well-dressed, we were the perfect prospective family for this
congregation: we looked like everyone else.
Upon entering the facility, we were surrounded by a community of friends. All
around us, people were hugging each other, warmly greeting each other, and
engaging in animated conversation. It was obvious that there was a depth of
relationship among them.
But there was a problem: they totally ignored us. People were walking all around
us to get to their friends, conducting church business just off our elbows. But
it was as if we were invisible. We waited in the middle of the lobby and the
woman who had invited us arrived much later due to car problems. Finally, we
wondered, “Where is the nursery?”
After an embarrassing interval just standing there amidst all this warm
community, and totally ignored by everyone, we went in search of an usher. The
usher had no idea whether the nursery was open and couldn’t leave his post to
show us where to find it. He turned away to distribute bulletins to those
entering the sanctuary.
Finally, Jan went up to a mother with a young child, interrupted her
conversation, and she took us to the nursery in a remote location. But this
mother entered into conversation with another mother and we were left to find
our way back to the sanctuary. We wanted to use the restrooms but we gave up
asking where to find them.
If any couple should not be frightened or uncomfortable in a new church setting,
it would be Jan and me. For one, we are both extraverts, so we’re not easily
intimidated. And two, we have both been in churches all of our lives. I was in
my tenth year of pastoral ministry at the time.
And yet, 25 years later, I still remember the discomfort, almost the terror, of
standing amidst all those friends and realizing that we did not matter to them.
How would someone experience Second Baptist Church upon entering for the first
time? If someone entered this church with a first grader just before worship,
would you know where to take that family? If they wanted information about this
church, could you offer it? If a visitor arrived early and found herself seated
in this large room by herself, how would she feel?
Most of us forget, once a part of a congregation, how frightening it is to enter
a church for the first time. Churches, unfortunately, are considered private
places, like a club, not public places where anyone is welcome. If you are not a
member, you don’t belong. As a visitor, the last thing you want is to stick
out. You likely want to be anonymous, to check out the church and see if it fits
without making a fuss. But there’s a double-agenda with most visitors: you also
want to feel safety, security, respect, and welcome.
Paul wrote to the Romans, “Welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed you.”
(Romans 15:7) Welcoming is an inherent expression of the Gospel.
Those who are typically most sensitive to visitors are the newer participants
who can still remember the discomfort of walking in their first visit. After
worship, we invite visitors downstairs to coffee hour. They likely think, “If I
go downstairs and become uncomfortable, how easy would it be to find the
door?” It’s probably quite rare for a first-time visitor to go downstairs after
worship unless they know someone.
If you can’t receive hospitality in a church, where else is it
offered? Hospitality seems to be a dying art in our society. It is the
generation older than mine than seems to know how to engage best in
hospitality. It isn’t that the rest of us don’t know how to be friendly, but the
gifts of hospitality have not been valued in this society for 30 years. We are
an anonymous society, where people stay out of each others’ business, where
privacy is valued above everything else, where apartment dwellers have little
idea as to the identity of their neighbors, where home-owners don’t know the
people across the street.
There was a long veranda across the front of our house in Seattle and it faced
the Olympic Mountains with an unobstructed view. There were nine identical
adjacent houses. We could stand on our veranda and easily have a conversation
with neighbors three houses down. So, on moving in, we assumed that the veranda
would be like an old-fashioned front porch, a place to be neighborly. That first
summer, we ate dinner on our veranda many nights watching the sun set over the
Olympics. Not one evening the entire summer did we see another neighbor
outside. They were all inside, locked behind closed doors.
We live in a society where we have to warn our children to be wary of strangers,
where you can’t easily offer rides to strangers, where on the sidewalk in broad
daylight, men have to be careful walking up behind a woman…it helps to move over
so she can see you peripherally. In one church I served, we had a homeless man
who began attending, and he loved children. And Ernie brought a large trash bag
to church every Sunday and he would reach into his bag and give small plastic
gifts to each child he met. The gifts made parents uncomfortable because they
didn’t know Ernie, didn’t know his intent, didn’t know if the gifts were
clean. His attempts to be friendly to children backfired.
The reality is that we live in an unfriendly world. The Midwest is known for its
approachable way, but even so, the rules of American society have become: you
stay out of my space and I’ll stay out of yours. We are often put off by sales
personnel who are too friendly. We have become The Private Society. We are a
Society of Individuals. Our homes are off-limits to strangers; we rarely host
friends in our homes.
One family decided to have the pastor over. He was a rather large man noted for
his appetite. And young Suzie was a great help to her mother and father in
setting the table. When everyone was seated and the pastor took his place, the
mother noticed something was missing, “Suzie,” she said, “you didn’t put a knife
or fork at the Pastor’s place.”
Susie said matter-of-factly, “Oh, I thought he wouldn’t need them. Daddy says he
always eats like a horse.”
Henri Nouwen once wrote, “The word, ‘hospitality’ might evoke the image of soft
sweet kindness… In our culture the concept of hospitality has lost much of its
power. But still, if there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth
and evocative potential, it is this rich biblical term.” (P. 66, Reaching
Out)
Instead of thinking of hospitality as an upper class “tea and crumpets” affair,
a “Miss Manners social event”, the reality is in an anonymous urban society,
hospitality is counter-cultural. Churches have to learn how to be hospitable; it
doesn’t happen naturally. That is not to say that some people don’t have the
gift of hospitality. My sister in law has never met a stranger. She can engage
anyone in conversation. But as a culture, that is not true.
No one enjoys fake friendliness, or syrupy overtures that feel
inauthentic. Hospitality must come from the heart. It doesn’t have to do with
forcing but inviting people to respond. It is not intrusive, but engaging.
Hospitality has mostly to do with the way we interact with strangers. It is
typically offered by someone who has the upper hand, by someone who is at home
in a certain place, who belongs to or owns the place, to another who is a
visitor or outsider. Hospitality has to do with an un-level playing field in
which someone is host and another is guest. In such a situation, the host has
the power and sets the climate in which the guest enters. A host can help a
guest feel “at home.” So, hospitality has to do with power relationships. As
members of this church, we have power here; it’s our place of belonging. The
climate can be welcoming or not. We can help visitors feel at home or remain as
outsiders.
I would submit to you this morning that hospitality is one of the most
counter-cultural ministries of the church. Everyone who visits Second Baptist
Church does so for a reason. They are typically looking for something. They
likely didn’t just happen to be here. It’s not coincidence. Some effort was
required, some selection was necessary, some planning, some advanced information
as to worship hour and location, and a great deal of courage just to come into
an unknown place. The visitors who come here are typically on a spiritual
pilgrimage. And if they encountered someone here who respected their search,
took their questions seriously, it could be life-changing. If they encountered
someone here who wasn’t preoccupied with familiar relationships, someone who
didn’t interact with them superficially, someone who could communicate
vulnerability without straining the space that all visitors need, this church
could have a transforming impact.
So far in my ministry here, we haven’t had many visitors. Is that because people
around us aren’t on a spiritual search? Or because they don’t know of our
welcome? If each of us who belongs here thinks of ourselves as host to guests,
Sunday mornings would become a rare and precious gift.
Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama says, “Whether we like it or not, we are
living increasingly in an international, intercultural and inter-religious
world. Our life is constantly sandwiched between that which is familiar and that
which is unfamiliar. To one person’s ear, the Japanese language may be familiar
and the Thai language unfamiliar. Are you a Baptist? The Baptist church is
familiar to you as the Lutheran is not. We feel hospitable to the person who is
familiar, but hostile toward the stranger.” Koyama continues, to survive as the
human race in our interdependent world, “We must move from hostility to
hospitality, from the familiar to the unfamiliar, for this is the movement of
love, this is the movement of Jesus Christ. As Paul said, ‘For Christ is our
peace, who has made us one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.’
(Eph.
2:14)” (Three Mile an Hour God; pp 74-5)
On my return flight from Oakland last week, I was in the aisle seat in the last
row. Sometimes I talk with others on a plane, but often I don’t. It seems by
being pressed against others in such confining space that the most respectful
thing you can do is hold back. On this flight a man about my age was seated
across from me. He likely noticed the theological book I was reading because
half-way through the flight he said to me, “My father was a Lutheran
pastor.” That began an animated conversation for the remainder of the flight. He
was from Bellingham, Washington, and we have dear friends who live there and I
knew his city well. And it turns out that he trains leaders for large
corporations. He was coming to St. Louis to train a group of engineers who had
just been promoted to the status of team leaders. He had many stories about
growing up in a pastor’s home in the upper Mid-West and he was truly interested
in my stories about pastoral leadership. We tested our theories on one
another. We shared about our families. We talked about the sermon I was
preparing to preach last Sunday.There was a bond between us that made me regret
when the plane set down. Dan took down the name of our church and the hour we
worship. He wasn’t sure when, but he hoped on a return visit to attend church
here. Will I ever see Dan again? Perhaps not. But there was something cherished
about our meeting. We teased. We encouraged. We communed. And the back row of
that plane became holy ground.
Meeting a stranger, truly meeting, creates holy ground. Abraham was minding his
own business, an old man now, sitting “at the entrance of his tent in the heat
of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them,
he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the
ground.” Abraham belonged to a culture in which hospitality was very
important. He urged the three men not to pass by. He said to them, “Let a little
water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me
bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves…” A full meal was
prepared and “Abraham stood by them under the tree while they ate.” (18:8)
Sometimes, by interacting with a stranger, we are more uninhibited, more able to
share deeply, because there are fewer repercussions or restrictions. Can you
remember meeting a stranger for the first time? Most of your friends were once
strangers. If you are married, you pledged your love to someone who likely began
as a stranger. What happened in this stranger-to-friend or stranger-to-loved one
transition? Somehow, together, you found common ground, even holy ground.
On the last night my delegation was in Burma, we were in the home of
missionaries who had invited Rev. Dr. Maung Maung Yen and two of his congregants
to join us for dinner. We were both pastors and we found ourselves drawn
together. In the gracious hospitality of that evening, a friendship was
begun. To my surprise, at the annual Peace Conference this Summer, Maung Maung
was there and we were housed in adjacent rooms. We again shared on a deep
level. We will meet again, I am sure, though we live on opposite ends of the
globe.
Every interaction with a stranger is potentially life-changing. Every meeting
could be transformational. When Abraham met these three strangers, he had no
idea of the difference they would make in his life, bringing an unrealized dream
to reality. You could meet someone today at church who could become a life-long
friend, a mentor, someone who opens a door for you.
The ultimate test of faith, was offered by Jesus when he said, “I was a
stranger, and you welcomed me.” (Mt. 25:31f)
We are to meet that test of faith as we become a community of welcome.
Amen.
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