"Holy Hospitality"
Matthew 10:40-42
July Fourth is the anniversary of the signing of
the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.
The Declaration of Independence states,
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.” Most of us are less familiar with the part of this
historic document that calls the original inhabitants of our nation “merciless
Indian Savages.” (Don’t take my word for
this. Google it and read the document. I think we ought to read our nation’s
founding documents at least once a year anyway.)
We need to remember that each of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence were white, land-owning men.
When the Constitution was ratified in 1787, slavery was assumed
as part of the way things were in the world. The Constitution declared that a slave would
count as three-fifths of a person in determining the population of a state and
deciding how many representatives the state would have in Congress.
Not everyone was included in the vision
of “unalienable rights” in the Declaration of Independence. It wasn’t until 1865, when the Thirteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed, that slavery and involuntary
servitude were abolished in the United States.
In 1870 voting rights were extended to all male citizens, and in 1920
women gained the right to vote. The road
to freedom and justice for all is not
an easy one.
On this Independence Day weekend, it’s a
time for us to celebrate the many things that are good about our nation.
But we need to remember that we follow Jesus,
who came to live among us, full of grace and truth, preaching a gospel of repentance,
and who claims our ultimate loyalty. As followers of Jesus, we are continually challenged
to re-dedicate ourselves to his mission, to living more fully into the kingdom
of God, the kingdom of justice and peace, which we also know as Beloved
Community. As followers of Jesus, we
need to repent of the ways we benefit from various privileges that others are
not free to enjoy, of the systemic injustices we are reluctant to challenge.
So I think it’s
fitting that this Sunday has been designated as Immigration Sunday in the
Presbyterian Church (USA), and that the gospel lesson assigned for today
challenges us to think more deeply about what it means to welcome one another.
Hospitality
to strangers is a major theme in the Bible. When the Hebrews wander in the
wilderness, God is a gracious host and provides them with manna and water. When
the Hebrew refugees finally settle down and have a home, hospitality is written
into their holy law: “You are to love the sojourner,” says the book of
Deuteronomy, “for you yourselves were once sojourners in the land of Egypt.”[1]
In Leviticus, we are
taught, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the
alien. The foreigner who resides with you
shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as
yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”[2]
The theme continues in the New Testament when Jesus teaches that acts of
hospitality are actually a prime indicator of a person’s relationship with God.
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was
a stranger and you welcomed me.”[3]
The
Book of Hebrews refers back to the Genesis story of Abraham and Sarah. “Do not
neglect to show hospitality to strangers,” it says, “for by doing that some
have entertained angels without knowing it.”[4]
Our
scriptures make it clear that hospitality to strangers is fundamental to our
Christian way of life.
Regardless of
our political leanings, it seems that, at the very least, followers of Jesus
know we are called to be loving, merciful, and compassionate. This should include
those who pick our crops and do a lot of things that most Americans don’t
want to do. At the very least, we can understand the anguish that many parents
experience, that they are willing to seek a better life for their children--even
if it means risking their lives. At the very least, our hearts should break
when we hear about children being torn from their parents by immigration raids.
At
the least, those of us who don’t really understand the issues related to
immigration and immigration reform need to commit ourselves to get better
informed. Some of us took a step in that direction recently when we read and
discussed the book Tell Me How It Ends
in our Engage! Book Group. .[5]
Valeria
Luiselli, is a Mexican writer who was dealing with her own struggles with the
immigration process, trying to get her green card, when she and her niece ended
up serving as volunteer interpreters for a surge of child refugees with
an immigration court in New York City during the summer of 2014.
Depending
on how the children answered the forty questions on the questionnaire, the
children might or might not be granted legal sanctuary of some sort and a
future in the United States.
The
children were from Mexico. Guatemala, El Salvadore, or Honduras. “How did you
travel here?” they ask the children. Most
said, “I came on La Bestia,” which literally means “the beast,” and refers to
the freight trains that cross Mexico. As
many as half a million Central Americans migrants ride La Bestia annually, on
top the rail-cars or in between them. Thousands have died or been gravely
injured. The train itself is dangerous,
and there are additional threats from smugglers, thieves, soldiers, or
policemen who frequently threaten or attack the people on board.
Luiselli
writes that, despite the dangers, desperate people, many of them children, “chase
after life, even if that chase might end up killing them. Children run and
flee. They have an instinct for survival, perhaps, that allows them to endure
almost anything just to make it to the other side of horror, whatever
might be waiting there for them.”[6]
Luiselli
had shared some of the children’s stories with her young daughter in the course
of her work, and her daughter repeatedly asked, “Tell me how it ends, Mamma.”
Luiselli has no answers for her. So far,
there are no happy endings. But toward the end of the book she offers a small
hint of promise. This is an informative and heartbreaking little
book, and it could be a start for any of you who need to understand immigration
better.
Our
scriptures make it clear that extending hospitality to strangers is fundamental
to our Christian way of life. But what
does that mean? What does it look like?
Hospitality
can mean some obvious things: offering food, drink, and shelter to the stranger
in need. But in the Bible, hospitality is a much deeper concept. Hospitality is
an attitude, a disposition of the heart, out of which acts of generosity
naturally flow. Hospitality is a habit of the heart that needs to be cultivated.
In order to do that, we need to overcome our hostility toward people who are
strange to us. We need to remember that each
human being is created in the image of God[7] and is a
beloved child of God.
Our
Christian faith calls us to welcome the stranger, but that idea is loaded
for some, in our divided country.
As followers of Christ, we need to live as if we know that our
citizenship is in heaven.[8] People
of faith have a heritage of radical and risky welcome that goes back over the
centuries.
When
individuals and congregations chose to serve as a stop on the underground
railroad during slavery in the United States of America, the church was engaging
in the risky business of welcome as sanctuary.
In the late twentieth century, churches
responded to a humanitarian crisis of thousands of Central American refugees
fleeing violent conflicts, which in many cases were fueled by United States
government policies. These churches created the 1980’s Sanctuary Movement, born
along the southern borders of the United States.
In
recent months, the number of churches who have officially declared themselves
to be sanctuary churches has grown exponentially. I know of Methodist churches
in Detroit and Ferndale who have offered sanctuary for refugees. In Western
North Carolina, congregations who can’t or don’t want to declare Sanctuary can
declare themselves as a “Supporting Sanctuary” church, pledging resources,
people, and assistance to those churches who have declared Sanctuary.
Some
of us, as individuals, have provided what support we can for the immigrant
community by purchasing food, diapers, and other necessities.
I
think we have a lot of ambivalence about what Jesus’ call
to welcome should look like today, in our context. What does it look like to embody Jesus’
radical welcome?
We
call this space in which we worship the “sanctuary.” I’ve been thinking about
what the word means, so I looked it up and found that it can describe the most sacred
part of a religious building, where worship services are held. But it also
means “a place of refuge and protection.”
I
think we need to practice talking about this in loving and constructive ways.
Is this a place of refuge and protection for us? Is it a place of refuge and
protection for others? Whom are we
willing to welcome, in the name of Jesus?
I
don’t have any definitive answers for the questions I’m asking today, but I do
believe we need to be talking and praying about them.
As we come to the Lord’s Table today,
may we be open to experience Christ’s presence in this holy mystery. May we be fed and strengthened. As we experience God’s gracious love, may we
be transformed. May our commitment to
Jesus Christ and his radical welcome be renewed.
Then let us go out into the world to
serve Jesus by speaking and embodying God’s truth and love.
Amen!
Rev.
Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield
Presbyterian Church
Dearborn,
Michigan
July
2, 2017
