"Entertaining Angels"
Luke 14:1-14 and Hebrews 13:1-2
By all accounts, Jesus loved parties. The Gospels
tell us that he often had so much fun at parties that he was accused by some of
being a glutton and a drunkard.
Yet the
party Jesus attended at the Pharisee’s house didn’t get off to a good
start. It seems that this party didn’t
seem to be a party at all—not by the standards of the Kingdom of God.
A leader of
the Pharisees had invited him to a Sabbath meal, and people were watching him
closely.
Now,
from a biblical perspective, a party or shared special meal is supposed to be a
gospel feast-- a sign of God’s hospitality,
a sign of God’s kingdom breaking in, offering
hope to the poor and oppressed, the least and the lost. The prophet Isaiah described the great messianic banquet, where God will be the host: "…the LORD will make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines…and wipe away the tears from all faces"[1]
Note that the text
says "all people." That’s part
of what Jesus was getting at when he told his host he should invite the poor
and the lame and the blind –- not the social elite, but the ones who have
nothing of their own to bring. They
can’t offer anything in return for their invitation.
One
thing you can be sure of: they won’t be
heading for the "highest," most prestigious seats. They’ll hang shyly by the door, probably
wondering, “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?” They might be afraid to take any seat until
the host comes over, puts a reassuring arm around their shoulders, guides them
to a table, and then introduces them to the other guests. That’s what a party is like in the kingdom of
God.It’s helpful to know something about Palestinian wedding feasts of that time. It was the custom for the male guests to recline on couches, with the center couch being the place of honor, reserved for people of wealth, power, or office. If somebody was reclining there and a more prominent man arrived late, someone of lesser rank would be asked to move to a less prestigious location.
In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus isn’t just giving a lesson in manners. He’s pointing to the ways in which the realm of God turns these customs upside-down and establishes its own social and spiritual order.
In today’s gospel,
we hear Jesus saying, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
In the epistle
lesson, from the letter to the Hebrews, we hear words written to the early
Christian church a few decades after Jesus:
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some
have entertained angels without knowing it.”
Hospitality
is a very important biblical theme. Lives
which have been redeemed and re-formed by the love of Christ demonstrate
openness and generosity and hospitality.
When the
Epistle to the Hebrews talks about how, in showing hospitality to strangers,
some have entertained angels without knowing it—it alludes to a story in the
eighteenth chapter of Genesis, in which three strangers visit Abraham and
Sarah. They receive them graciously,
bring water to wash their feet, and extend typical Middle Eastern
hospitality: they bring them drinks,
slaughter a calf, and bake cakes. It
turns out that the three strangers are on a mission from God, there to tell them that Sarah is going to
conceive in her old age and have a child.
So the men were angels, messengers from God.
This is one
of many Bible stories in which God makes an appearance in an unlikely,
unexpected way. If people aren’t open to
something new and strange and different, they might miss a revelation from God.
“Let mutual
love continue,” the letter to the Hebrews admonished the early church. Let love among you be genuine and powerful
and real. But don’t forget the stranger…don’t
forget to be hospitable.
Sometimes
people in a congregation enjoy loving one another so much that they become an
intimate and closed community and an outsider
doesn’t feel welcome… can’t figure out how to break in. When that happens, we might miss a revelation
from God.
But what
Jesus was talking about in Luke is even more serious than that. He scolds the host, criticizing him for his
choice of guests. “Don’t invite these
kind of people,” Jesus says, referring to friends, relatives, business
associates—people who will, in all probability, agree to the conventional
social custom and in some way return your invitation. People who are like you, people you’re comfortable
with.
Jesus
proposes a human community based not on social custom, economic reciprocity, on
“people like us”— but on the good news that each person is a precious child of
God. This teaching challenged people two
thousand years ago, and it continues to challenge us today.
At Jesus’
table there is no distinction. There are
no boundaries. And he insists that this
is the way things will be in the kingdom of God.
Jesus tells
a parable to make his point. A man gives
a party, invites friends, and at the last minute learns that not one of them
can come. So the man invites “the poor,
the cripples, the blind, and the lame.
He invites strangers who are passing through town. To any who are reluctant to come because they
don’t have the right clothes or manners or connections to come, he won’t take
NO for an answer. Go out, he says. Bring them in. I want my house to be full.”
This advice
runs counter to the way we’re used to thinking about things. We tend to invite people who are our friends
or relatives—people we feel comfortable with…people like us… people who’ve
invited us to their parties. But Jesus
says these notions of politeness and reciprocity and associating with people
like us miss the true meaning of hospitality.
The
connection between today’s Gospel and epistle lessons is in how they move beyond
the specific reference to hospitality, to focus on grace and love in our
interactions with others. Today’s
scripture lessons remind us that there are lots of people out there who need to
experience the love and peace and joy of Jesus Christ. They remind us that we need to be faithful in
our relationship with God, and in our relationships with others.
At the very heart of Jesus’
preaching and teaching is a radical inclusiveness. This is one of the basic principles of our
Christian faith. We can’t escape
it. All are welcome at the table.
Many
communities in this world define themselves by exclusion. But a church united around the story of Jesus
is a very different sort of community.
The New Testament word for “hospitality”-- philoxenia—literally means “love of
strangers. It’s the opposite of xenophobia,
which is the fear of those whom one does not know. Hospitality, in the biblical sense, is about
making room for others in our lives. It
means being able to say, “Make yourself at home.”
We are a
community of people who follow Jesus—the One who upsets the seating arrangement
at the dinner party by suggesting that the people on the fringes of society are
honored guests. The Jesus who dared to
hang out with women and tax collectors.
The Jesus who calls us to love our enemies and welcome the strangers.
The epistle
lesson from Hebrews chapter urges the church not to neglect to show hospitality
to strangers, “for by doing that, some have entertained angels without knowing
it.”
Alice
Walker’s short story “The Welcome Table” tells of an old African American
woman, tired and thirsty, who enters a white church. “Some of them there at the church saw the
age…the dotage…the missing buttons down the front of her mildewed black
dress. Others saw
cooks…chauffeurs…maids…. While others were reminded of riotous anarchists
looting and raping in the streets.”
The story
tells how the hierarchy of the church mobilizes in defense of the racism of the
congregation:
The reverend
of the church stopped her pleasantly as she stepped into the vestibule… “Auntie, you know this is not your
church?” As if one could choose the wrong
one.
“Inside the
church she sat on the very first bench from the back, gazing with concentration
at the stained-glass window over her head….” Until the men of the church picked
her up and carried her out of the church.
The old
woman stood at the top of the steps looking about in bewilderment. She had been singing in her head. They had interrupted her. Promptly she began to sing again, though this
time a sad song.
Suddenly…she
looked down the long gray highway and saw something interesting and
delightful. She started to grin,
toothlessly, with short giggles of joy, jumping about and slapping her hands on
her knees… for coming down the
highway—was Jesus.
She would
have known him, recognized him, anywhere.
There was a sad but joyful look to his face, like a candle glowing
behind it…
“All he
said when he got up close to her was “Follow me,” and she bounded to his side. Finally she started telling him about how
many years she had cooked for them…cleaned for them…nursed them…
She told
him indignantly about how they had grabbed her when she was singing in her head
and not looking, and how they had tossed her out of his church….”[2]
So… who is on the guest list in the realm of God?
As most of
you know, we’ve been working as a congregation to achieve greater clarity about
our mission and to identify our core values.
A group of 30 people met last November, and then a group met last May to
follow up, and we ended up with a lot of notes from our ideas. There was a great deal of general agreement
about what our core values are, but we needed to do some work to boil down the
work to five core values that can guide us when we make decisions about how to
best use limited energy and resources and that can help others understand who
we are and what makes Littlefield Presbyterian Church vital and unique.
Bob Stead,
Anna Dewey, and I met twice to do this “word-smithing,” to pull together all
the ideas in a way that communicates clearly.
Then we took that draft to Session for some final editing, and Session
approved it at the August meeting.
One of the
core values we spent a lot of time on was the one about Inclusiveness, because
that might mean different things to different people.
There are
people who have been hurt or disappointed by previous church experiences and
people who have never had any experience with a church community. How do we find ways to help them connect with
their spiritual longings? How do we make
it clear that they are welcome and invited?
So we tried to spell it out:
“As children of God, we see all persons as
God’s children. As Christ welcomes all
to the table of fellowship, so we also invite, respect, and accept
all—regardless of social/economic/marital status, sexual identity/orientation,
race/ethnicity, and faith orientation.”
Today’s
scripture lessons remind us that a community that is faithfully following Jesus
cannot be a community that excludes.
It’s un-Christian to do so.
Part of our
hospitality is finding ways to get the word out that everybody’s welcome, and
to actively invite people and then make them feel at home.
You may
remember the story about the man who got on the elevator of his hotel and saw a
neatly lettered sign: “PARTY TONIGHT IN
ROOM 815. EVERYBODY INVITED.”
For the
rest of the day, he kept thinking about that sign. Who would give a party and issue an open
invitation like that? Was it for real? Who would accept an invitation like
that? Maybe others who—like himself—were
in town by themselves and were lonely?
People who were curious? Maybe
some people who were really needy, starved for companionship?
He
fantasized about what the party would be like, and who might be gathered
there. By the time he returned to the
hotel later on, the sign had been removed by someone—perhaps the hotel
management. Or maybe the person who’d
written it had gotten cold feet.
The man
never found out who had posted the invitation, or who would have attended the
party. He felt a vague sort of disappointment,
wondering what the party would have been like.
Who would
throw a party and invite everyone?
Jesus Christ…and the church of Christ.
So I invite
you to reflect prayerfully today and in the coming weeks: Who’s on our guest list? Is it as inclusive as God’s guest list?
We have
been invited to a gospel feast for which we can never reciprocate. Jesus stands waiting as our host, ready to put
reassuring arms around our shoulders and guide us to places of honor in the
kingdom of God.
Like the
host in the parable, God has heaped up his table with good things like love,
grace, forgiveness, and new beginnings… precious promises of the presence of
the Holy Spirit… and the promise that
sin and suffering will not have the last word in our lives, because love is
stronger than death.
Christ has
put the bread of life and the cup of salvation on his table, and he is eager to
share them with his guests. God has
prepared a great feast-- a table piled high with the food and drink that gives
us new life.
At God’s
party, everybody is invited. Everybody
is welcome.
Y’all come!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
August 28, 2016
