Whoever
Text: Matthew 10:40-42
(Gary W. Charles, Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA,
7-2-2017)
Our
house in Alexandria, Virginia was full to overflowing. The average age at this
dinner party was 19, with a few guests several years younger and a couple as
old as 24. It took all my concentration to follow the conversation, because
though all the guests were speaking English, it was English tinted with a lovely
Northern Ireland brogue. This group of young Irish men and women had come to
the D.C. area for an international Habitat build and were sponsored by an
interreligious peacebuilding association.
All our guests had grown up in and
around Belfast. Many had come from troubled family backgrounds and they had
agreed to travel to the U.S. to build a Habitat for Humanity house. Prior to
the trip, they had been informed that they would be working across Catholic-Protestant
lines. What they did not realize was that the group gathered in our house
represented an equal number of Catholic and Protestant men and women.
Soon after Jennell and I had been introduced and
thanked as the American hosts for the evening, the ice started to wear thin. A
young Protestant woman casually said, “I can spot a Catholic two hundred yards
away.”
“Can you now?” responded one of the young
Catholic males.
“Absolutely,” she said.
At this point, the casual chit chat stopped and
no one missed the next words that were spoken.
The young Catholic man said, “Funny, because I
can spot a Protestant three hundred yards away.”
A chill fell over the room and the director of
the program knew that it was time for him to speak. He challenged this room
full of Irish Catholic and Protestant youth to use the next six weeks to move
beyond their stereotypes and to extend hospitality to those they had learned to
hate since childhood. He told them that hospitality is not an offer to come to
our place and to be like us; hospitality is an invitation to share with and to
learn from those who are altogether different from us.
At the beginning of the evening, I thought that practicing
hospitality would not be much of a hill for this group to climb. After all, everyone
in the room grew up within 50 miles of each other, had the same skin
complexion, had a similar diet, knew similar songs, and spoke with the same
lovely brogue. It did not take long before I realized that for this group to practice
hospitality to and beyond themselves would not be a leisurely hike up a little hill,
but a hard climb up a treacherous mountain path.
Thank God that we do not engage in
such silly, hurtful, inhospitable, discriminatory behavior in the U.S.;
certainly not here at Cove. After all, we are a congregation where everyone is
welcome. We say so on our new website that will premier later this week! You
are welcome here if you a biblical creationist and believe in a literal
interpretation of the first creation story in Genesis and deny any form of
human related climate change, or are you? You are welcome here if you think the
death penalty is a great idea and a necessary deterrent, or are you? You are
welcome here if you prefer rock, hip hop, praise, jazz, and alternative forms
of music in worship, or are you? You are welcome here if you believe that the
Bible says once and for all that marriage is to be only between a man and a
woman, or are you?
We may not
be doing battle in Northern Ireland, but we have our own mountains to climb
before we can practice the kind of hospitality that Jesus embodies. Taught from
childhood not to associate with Gentiles and that “those kind” were not welcome
at his table, Jesus crossed the boundary of segregation. Taught from childhood
not to touch anyone who is ritually unclean and that “those kind” prefer to
stay with their own anyway, Jesus crossed the boundary of ignorance. Taught
from childhood that violence is a necessary tool for change and that unless we
use violence, “they” will, Jesus crossed the boundary of retaliation. In Jesus,
the oftentimes clipped wings of hospitality take flight.
Wherever Jesus traveled, he embodied
the hospitality of God. I think of Cove as one of the most hospitable,
genuinely hospitable, communities of Christ that I know, because it is. That,
though, is not how Christians and the church are viewed in much of popular
culture. More often than not in most forms of media, followers of Jesus are portrayed
as narrow-minded, bigoted, fearful, dull, dense, idiots who are quick to hate, who
refuse to forgive, and who, if they know any good news, keep it only to
themselves.
Maybe that is why most progressive
Christians I know are so tentative to practice the hospitality that Jesus
teaches us to practice. We would rather wait for people to walk inside our
lovely sanctuary and to play by our rules, and then we can bestow on them a
healthy dose of Christian hospitality. Surely, when you and I come together in
worship, to sing God’s praise, to pray for each other and the world, and to
sing to God’s glory, then we make glad the heart of God.
I am convinced that we do, but I am even more
convinced that we make glad God’s heart leap for joy when do not view this
sanctuary as a hiding place, but as a fueling station to go out and practice
hospitality. Jesus does not say, “Just stay in your sanctuary and make sure you
are extra nice when whoever pays a
visit.” He says, “Go, get out of this sanctuary and welcome whoever, especially when whoever looks different from you, votes in
a different way than you, thinks about God differently than you, loves
differently than you. Listen to whoever,
and practice hospitality to whoever, and
you will discover that God’s good news comes in many guises.”
So what happened to the group of young
adults from Northern Ireland? They all became best friends, married across
religious lines, and never again thought or said a discriminatory word. Well,
not exactly. Some friendships were forged across long standing boundaries. Some
long held assumptions were challenged and for some, self-righteous religious hatred
no longer had the same appeal. A few, though, went home with their prejudices
confirmed.
It is a long, hard, and lifetime journey to practice
the hospitality of Jesus. It may be a journey that leads some of us to Justice
Park in Charlottesville this Saturday, July 8 and later in August to offer a
cup of cold water and to hold a tough conversation with grown men dressed in
white robes and hoods, as we try to understand the deep well of their racial
hatred.
Following Jesus is always a journey that leads to
this table that is open to whomever, people
of considerable faith and people who doubt if God exists at all, people who are
regulars in church and people who are in church for the first time in a long
time.
At this table, we are refueled for the journey of
hospitality. For outside these walls and doors, whoever is waiting for us, to listen and to speak, to give and to
receive, to forgive and to be forgiven, to hear about the One we follow into
life, to practice hospitality with abounding love and in so doing to make glad
the heart of God.
According
to Jesus, we are whoever. We are the ones
for whom God has practiced hospitality. We are the ones who are invited then to
leave this place and do the same. If you are out of practice, do not worry. We
have an outstanding coach who is ready to lead us out of our segregated silos
to practice the hospitality of God.
Whoever is
waiting.
AMEN
