Divine Hospitality: A Sermon for Proper 11

Our texts from Genesis and the gospel of St. Luke are both invitations for us to consider the biblical call to hospitality. And as our Sunday adult forum class has been learning this summer, it is not an accident that these texts are paired together on the same day. And the timing as it relates to our life in the Episcopal Church is indeed providential.

These lections come to us on the heels of our General Convention in Baltimore. If you go back and look, most every General Convention in recent memory has had resolutions proposed that dealt with, in some way or another, hospitality. How can we be more welcoming and inclusive? How might we make the Book of Common Prayer and the Hymnal more theologically, scripturally, and culturally diverse in its use of language and texts? How might we do a more faithful job of the Christian call to care for the poor, marginalized, and oppressed – both at home and abroad? How might we as Episcopalians do a better job of having our demographics better represent the communities in which we are located?

All of these questions – and the proposed resolutions that address them every three years– are an attempt for us to faithfully grapple with God’s call for us to love our neighbors as ourselves. A few decades ago, the Episcopal Church was so compelled to be more hospitable that our official slogan became “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.”

Now don’t get me wrong - none of this is a bad thing. Resolutions, constitutional amendments, and even slogans are all a part of being a part of large, complex communities of people who hold to a common goal or purpose. It is true for countries, states, universities, and churches. And in this era of great decline in the mainline church, you will see us all responding with more intentional efforts towards being welcoming and hospitable. And again – I don’t think this is a bad thing.

But I also feel like there is no resolution or slogan or program that we can adopt in the Episcopal Church that will unilaterally turn our decline into growth. We will have to go deeper. All our efforts will always have to be grounded in our understanding of who God is, and who God is calling the Church to be.

In both of our texts today, it was God who was the visitor being offered hospitality. Of course, in the Genesis narrative, the narrator doesn’t identify the three mysterious visitors as being God. But Christian tradition has long associated this narrative with one of the first revelations of the Holy Trinity. The author of the Letter of the Hebrews draws reference to Abraham and Sarah’s encounter with these three visitors when he writes, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”[1]

In Luke’s narrative, Jesus is the visitor at Mary and Martha’s home. In both cases, our hosts – Abraham and Sarah and Mary and Martha - pass the test. If they were in our midst, we’d immediately put them in charge of the hospitality committee at church!

But there are also differences between these two encounters. Mary and Martha knew who their visitor was, at least on some level. Abraham and Sarah did not. Mary and Martha were entertaining a close friend in their home. Abraham and Sarah were entertaining strangers in their midst. When we encounter stories about hospitality in the Bible, we get a whole myriad of scenarios. Jesus was sometimes the host, and sometimes the guest. He was sometimes breaking down religious and social barriers with his encounters, and sometimes he was with his own Tribe. Sometimes his hospitality was indiscriminate and broad – like when he fed the multitudes – and sometimes it was reserved for his innermost circle, like at the Last Supper. So, what are we as the Episcopal Church, we as Christ the King, or we as individuals to make of this incredibly diverse and complex scriptural call to hospitality?

I think perhaps the most important lesson to glean from our stories today is that our attempts at hospitality – on the legislative level and the personal level – are misguided if we assume that we are the ones who always have what is needed. We are misguided if, in our well-intentioned efforts to be good hosts - we assume that we are the only ones who have blessings to give. There is even a bit of condescension if we assume that we are the ones who are doing the inviting and including. Yes, Abraham and Sarah were generous hosts. Yes, they blessed their three mysterious guests with a home-cooked meal and hospitality. But as the story unfolds, who really had the power? Who was it that was able to bestow the shocking Good News of God’s blessing of fertility out of barrenness?

The story of Jesus, Mary, and Martha is a great illustration of how the lines can be blurred as to who is host and who is guest. Mary and Martha have invited Jesus to their home for dinner. When Martha scolds her sister Mary for not helping with the many tasks related to hosting a dinner, Jesus interjects and says, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her." It’s hard to argue with Jesus on this point. Mary indeed had chosen the better part. Though traditionally-speaking, Mary and Martha were these hosts that evening, Mary was able to become a guest at the feet of Jesus. She was able to recognize that the meal and hospitality they were offering were not the apex of the evening. Yes, like Abraham and Sarah did centuries before, they blessed Jesus with their hospitality. And when we offer hospitality – especially to strangers - we oftentimes can catch brief glimpses of the kingdom of heaven.

Yet Mary was somehow able to recognize and respond to the kingdom of heaven right there in front of her. She didn’t just get a brief glimpse of what the heavenly banquet. She was seated there at the feet of Jesus as the host, listening to and learning from him. In that moment she was able to recognize that he was the One who had come to serve his guests that evening. As it turns out, he – not she and Martha –was the host, with abundant blessings to offer.

So, as we in the Episcopal Church - and we at Christ the King – seek ways to be more welcoming and hospitable to our neighbors and guests, we will do well to remember that it is not just we who have blessings to offer. It is not we who have sole possession of the “welcome” that is then generously extended to others because we’re a “warm, welcoming, and friendly congregation.”

In a few moments, we will all come forward to partake in a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, where Jesus is the host, and we are the guests. We are the ones who have been graciously invited to Christ’s table by Christ himself, not because of who we are or what we’ve done but because of who Christ is what he has done for us on the cross. All of us – even I as the presider of the Eucharist - are guests here this morning. The blessings and hospitality are not ours to give; they are ours to humbly and graciously receive. Some come: taste and see that the Lord is good.

[1] Heb. 13:2, KJV