Sermons

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Welcome!
February 18, 2001
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Luke 14:12-14

It’s good to be with you…I was gone on study leave this week, to a gorgeous, snowed-in lodge on a frozen lake about an hour north of Spokane. The last 1½ days were spent in front of a roaring fire with a small group of seven people and the author and pastor, Eugene Peterson. You have heard me quote Peterson many times…he’s the author of "The Message," a translation of the Bible…as well as a whole shelf full of books, of which I have read practically everything. I felt like he was a mentor of mine, though I had never been with him in person. I wondered what it would be like…you never know.

But I’m happy to report that he is a very gentle, humble spirit and it was an incredible treat to sit and learn from him. In fact, it was almost worth driving back across the entire state and mountains through the only snowstorm of the whole year!

This morning, we’re going to look at a short series of Jesus’ teachings from the gospel of Luke, chapter 14.

Several years ago, in the early-’90s, we were living over on Bigelow street on the east side of Queen Anne. The City of Seattle was trying to deal with the increasing problem of homelessness. The Aloha Motel, just over the hill on Aurora, was available for purchase to be used as a short-term place for folks to stay. The Aloha was a very run-down old hotel in deep need of repair and paint. Half the cars in the parking lot were permanent fixtures. Behind the motel, a steep embankment goes almost straight up in the air, an untouched greenbelt of trees and brush. And on top of that embankment was the neighborhood we lived in. A nice neighborhood, even back then before housing prices skyrocketed. Well-kept homes, quiet streets.

At least, quiet until the City proposed using the Aloha for temporary housing. Then all hell broke loose. People who were normally civil, warm and friendly became upset, angry, even vicious. Protests were staged, hearings attended, arguments fought and lawsuits filed. The 100-foot embankment between the neighborhood and the homeless people was not nearly enough separation for some.

Homelessness is a big issue, an important issue. A key issue. In the city of Seattle, there are roughly 5000 people who are homeless.A hundred are housed in Tent Village in the parking lot of St. Mark’s Cathedral. Dozens sleep in an unfinished basement of Sacred Heart Catholic Church near the Seattle Center. On Queen Anne Hill, there are a number of people who have no place to stay, including one who sleeps on the parking strip across the street. Homelessness is a complicated and uncomfortable issue…and that’s all I started out to talk about today.

But as I started to think about the Aloha Motel, my mind kept coming back to that 100-foot greenbelt that separated the Motel from the people of the neighborhood…and to the call of Jesus to draw people together. In the words of scripture…Jesus, Paul, Hebrews… it’s the call to practice hospitality.

Hospitality is an extremely important word in the New Testament. The word for it, philozenia, is actually made up of two words: phileo (love and affection) and xenos (stranger). Love of stranger. Hospitality.

That is perhaps something different than we normally think of as “hospitality,” isn’t it? Hospitality for us may have something to do with hosting one’s family on Christmas Day, making sure that everyone is comfortable and happy. Or hospitality may make you think of inviting the boss and her husband out for dinner. Henry Nouwen says that hospitality conjures up images of “tea parties, bland conversation and a general atmosphere of coziness.” But that is a long way away from the New Testament idea of hospitality. It’s certainly a long way away from what Jesus talks about here in Luke 14.

Perhaps I should have entitled this sermon “Table Manners.” Jesus has been invited to eat at the home of what we are told is a “prominent Pharisee.” The scripture says that Jesus was being “carefully watched.” The Heretic Police were everywhere. And Jesus comes into the house, and addresses the guests at the meal. He notices that the guests are very aware of which place they will get to sit at. There even is some jockeying for position, perhaps like James and John did in trying to sit closest to Jesus. There is a kind of pecking order for seating, a recognition of who is who on the social ladder. Jesus tells the guests that they should have nothing to do with such nonsense. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

And then Jesus turns to his host, the “prominent Pharisee,” and gives a lesson in hospitality. It’s what I really want us to pay attention to today. It comes from Luke 14:12-14:

“When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” --NRSV

Jesus takes issue with the guest list. Pretty bold, I would say. Not even his house, but it’s like he takes this big dry erase board and starts making changes. First, he throws out the guest list that is popular…and probably dangerously close to what most of our social interactions would be: Wipe off your friends, those who you know well, who you like to spend time with, that you enjoy, that you would be seeing anyway. Oh, and scratch off your immediate family or close relatives…you always see them. And your rich neighbors…they don’t belong on the list either. Jesus might just as well say “Look at your own motives for getting together, and edit your list accordingly. You are worried only about your own comfort, perhaps your own acceptance, your family status, or currying favor with those with money and influence...you want to be a name-dropper.”

Is Jesus saying “Never have a party with family and friends? Of course not. But he is saying “broaden your circle.” Of course be hospitable to those close to you…but also invite others into that. What he is saying is “How big is that greenbelt area that separates your life from the lives of so many others?”

And so, having erased the entire guest list, Jesus proceeds to rebuild it. Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Invite those who have no money, no house, no possession, no way that they could ever repay you…invite those people. Invite the crippled and the lame…those people who do not fit into “normal” society. Who make you feel awkward. In Jesus’ day, those who were crippled were unable even to fully participate in worship. Invite the blind…the blind who cannot see physically. Maybe even the blind who cannot see that the invitation you have given them is truly heroic, and that you are a hero for extending it to them…invite those people who perhaps don’t have it together enough to even be grateful. Welcome those people. Show them hospitality. Love the strange and the stranger.

What does showing hospitality look like today? It seems to have diminished greatly. Samuel Johnson wrote that “In a commercial country, a busy country, time becomes precious, and…hospitality is not so much valued.” Sounds like our time, doesn’t it? But it was in the 18th century! Nowadays, hospitality means entertaining people you know in your home, or refers to the industry of hotels and restaurants that people pay for.

But for centuries, the tradition of hospitality in the church included meeting physical needs: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless. But love for the stranger, real hospitality was bigger. Way bigger. It meant inviting people in. Often into your home, but more importantly into your life. Give the stranger a place to belong, people that know them, people they can know. Relationships with people are what give life, are what sustain life beyond food and housing.

With the help of other folks around us, at different points in our life we have invited people to live with our family, like many of you…exchange students, or young people trying to make a break from the streets. In almost every case, it was some of the hardest times, and now looking back, the richest times…that our family has had. I think back on some of those times now…I’m a little incredulous about how naïve we were.

I remember one young man who lived in our basement. Greg. Greg had a very hard time waking up in the mornings. I could never quite figure it out, because he was a kid full of energy. Well, one day, I happened to walk into the downstairs bathroom that Greg used. The bathroom had one teeny tiny little window, maybe a foot and a half square just above the toilet.

I noticed a little paint had peeled off the wall right below the window sill. It had been recently painted, and I couldn’t figure out how that would happen. I looked for signs of water damage…nothing. I looked at all of the other paint in the bathroom…perfect. I couldn’t figure it out…and then a ridiculous thought crossed my mind. “You don’t suppose that Greg had stood on the toilet and then hoisted himself out of that window at night to avoid curfew, do you?”

“Greg…I’m looking at this paint flaking off. Would you know anything about it?”

“Oh, no, Dan.”

“Oh, so you aren’t sliding out this window and staying out at night?”

Silence.

We learned a lot from those times. But in the middle of those adventures, Greg experienced something he never had. He experienced family, and home, and someone to welcome him home, and stability that he had never, ever known. Things we just take for granted.

Hospitality is a generous welcome. It is meeting of physical needs. But it is perhaps most importantly a recognizing and valuing of another person. How can we welcome people in such a way, how can we include them in our lives, how can we honor others so that they are no longer strangers?

World Relief, the organization that Cal Uomoto and Kelly Pearson work for…practices hospitality, and helps to teach or remind the church of hospitality with refugee families. Can you imagine the impact to a person coming out of years in a refugee camp in a strange country…to have someone meet them at the airport to welcome them, to meet a family that will help them get their feet on the ground. Can you imagine?

For many of us…the practicality or even the idea of having someone live with us is too much, it’s overwhelming. Maybe the idea of just getting to know someone who is out of our comfort zone is better. Maybe coming to a Wednesday Night dinner to just hang out and talk is a big stretch…that’s okay. Lots of things we need to do are a big stretch at first. God tends to use us when we are stretched, not comfortable.

There are so many ways to practice hospitality. And you just start somewhere. Do something. God will lead you from there. How can you make someone who is a stranger not a stranger? Share your life with them. Have coffee. Invite them to one meal with your family.

When we lived in Minneapolis, we hired a guy named Jimmy Joe to be the church custodian. Jimmy Joe had grown up in a series of boys’ homes, and come through the Teen Challenge program…never had a real job before. We invited him over for dinner with us the first week he was there. He was real nervous. The kids were running around like crazy, and it was our usual chaos.

And Jimmy Joe sat and looked around at it all, and then he looked at me and said, “So this is the family thing, huh?”It struck me right then…he had NEVER sat at a family meal around a table before.

How do strangers quit being strangers? When someone invests in them. There are people everywhere around us who are absolutely dying to be brought “in,” to be welcomed, to be known, to belong. Some of them live next door to you. Some of them, many of them are not healthy enough to ever respond, or reciprocate, or even say thanks. And yet, here is Jesus, calling us to invite the stranger, the outcast, the uncomfortable.

This call is very different than what our world tells us, and we need to recognize that. Our world will tell us to cultivate people for what they can do for us. It tells us that we have a right to spend all our time with those who we are most comfortable with. It tells us that there are institutions or helping agencies which are designed to meet people’s needs, that we don’t need to worry about the green embankments that separate us. And along comes Jesus, who tells us to practice hospitality. To practice, in fact, what we’ve been shown ourselves.

It’s part of the dance of the kingdom of God. He calls us to give as we have been given. We have been shown hospitality…by God. He asks us to pass on what we have received. We have received a welcome that is incomparable in all the universe. People who have been nobodies…are somebodies in the kingdom of God. People who thought their value lay in their achievements find that they are valuable because they are treasured by God. People who never received a welcome in their lives find themselves with arms thrown around them while somebody else pounds their back.

The very next story in Luke is a parable that Jesus tells about a man who had invited many guests to a great banquet. But when the great event draws near, people make last minute excuses to stay away. Yet the man will not cancel the banquet. He has his servants go and invite others … guess who? the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. And when these folks come and do not fill up the room, he flings open the doors of the house and shouts to people “Come in! Come in! There is room at this table for you.”

We get the privilege of taking the Lord’s Supper together this morning. Of all of the places of hospitality…of all of the places where the doors are wide open, this is the place. Jesus invites us to gather together, calls us to receive what we could never repay Him for, and tells us how valuable we are. There has never been a greenbelt large enough to separate us from his love. There has never been a welcome like the welcome of God in this meal.

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” -- Ephesians 2:13

“You are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” -- Ephesians 2:19