Hospitality

Luke 10:38-42

I wonder if Jesus wrote a thank-you note the next day.
And if he did, I wonder what it said…

Dear Martha,
I had a nice time at your house last night. Dinner was excellent; the food was delicious and your attention to all the details was remarkable.
But next time, don’t cook.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Jesus

Or maybe the note went like this:
Dear Mary,
I had a very nice time at your house last night. The food and fellowship were excellent. I have rarely felt so welcome as when you sat down with me and just listened to what I had to say.
Your focused attention made it clear that for once, I have been truly heard.
The house was a mess, but tell your sister not to worry.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Jesus

Actually, I suspect Jesus didn’t write a thank you note at all.

When you come right down to it, he’s not a very polite guest. Any first-century Miss Manners would be upset. Throughout Luke’s gospel story, Jesus sits down to eat and promptly breaks the rules or criticizes his host.
He invites his own guests, without telling the host. He disapproves of the seating arrangements. He condemns the hard work of his hostess, rather than thanking her for her care.
He seems to go out of his way, in fact, to be the person you wouldn’t invite a second time.
And yet Luke’s story is all about hospitality. Surprising hospitality, in which the guest becomes the host, the lepers, the strangers, and the socially unacceptable are made the guests of honor at the banquet.
And most importantly, God made flesh is welcomed as an honored guest, by those who have no homes, those who are far from home, and those who have no honor to share:
Notorious sinners offer extravagant welcomes to Jesus, Gentile strangers bring royal gifts to an infant camping in a cave, and women break the rules.

Hospitality is a sacrament.
When you have been truly welcomed and cared for, in a strange place, you know this.
When you have focused on the care of your guest, and seen him or her begin to truly feel at home, you know this.

But Jesus wants a different kind of hospitality than we are usually taught to offer:
Not a good dinner, prepared with care,
but the audacity to step into a room where you really don’t belong, and listen as though you were the only one there.
Like Mary, sitting at the teacher’s feet, when by all common standards, she should be stirring the pot and setting the table to make him feel honored and welcome.

It’s not hard to read this story about Mary and Martha and the dinner at their home, to see and hear the truth that Jesus calls us to focus on the gospel and the kingdom of God, and understand that we need to turn off the oven and the Blackberry and spend more time at church or bible study.
But if we read only this story, it can be easy to miss how much more Jesus wants from us.

Last week we heard a story about neighbors, a story that comes right before Martha’s dinner in Luke’s gospel.
We heard Jesus talking to a lawyer – a man whose job is to study scripture, to read and listen and understand the word of God, without distractions.
To him, Jesus says, repeatedly, go and do. That story is full of action verbs.

It’s about focus on the word and the kingdom of God, yes.
But even more, Mary’s story and the lawyer’s story are about breaking our habits of holiness and finding a radical new relationship with God.

From birth to resurrection, and at every meal in between, the story of Jesus is a story about how God calls us to walk away from our norms and expectations into a new and unpredictable encounter with God.

The motto of this story – of much of Luke’s gospel – might be:
“Do something different for Jesus.”

If you know how to find God in stillness and quiet, volunteer for a week or two in the Sunday School, and listen for God’s voice in the children’s questions.
If you find God most surely in serving others behind the scenes, talk to me about how you might, just once, share your knowledge of God in public – preaching or teaching or writing.

The ways we have learned to know God, to find God, to worship God, to welcome God are all holy and important,
but the kingdom of God is near in the places where we are least at home.

Many of you know that for several years I taught kayaking on Lake Michigan. But you may not know that in spite of that, I think of the great outdoors as foreign territory. Places outdoors – woods and lakes and campsites – are full of bugs or bears, have unpredictable weather, and generally no plumbing. Also, no microwaves.
And there I was, in my first year of guiding, in the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, responsible (with a partner) for the comfort, feeding, and safety of a dozen strangers.
I was definitely not at home. But God was. Not just where I expected, in the beauty of the lake and the sandstone cliffs – but in the way that a dozen strangers began to trust their kayaks and their tents and one another, a dozen new people feeling welcome and at home in a place that’s no one’s home.

I’m pretty sure Mary wasn’t entirely comfortable, sitting and studying scripture with the men.
I bet the lawyer was completely awkward and anxious when he started to seek and serve his neighbors.
But they were acts of hospitality, in strange and foreign places.

Maybe you’ve felt it – the first time you volunteered at PADS, or taught Sunday School, or sang in the choir, or hosted an event.
That's kingdom-of-God hospitality: Spreading the table, opening our hearts to the unknown, offering the loving attention that welcomes God and the stranger into places we ourselves are not at home.

The thank you note for that hospitality won’t come in the mail.
But it’s been written already in the story of God made flesh
of Jesus, far from home,
making sinners and lawyers and women and you and me
at home in the kingdom of God, already
and forever.

July 18, 2010