Now Serving: Angels

Abraham entertaining angels, by Jan Victors

Pentecost 12 Sermon, Year C 2019

September 1, 2019

St. Michael’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Canon Michael J. Horvath

Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15,16; Luke 14: 1, 7-14

One of the biggest challenges that our society and Church faces today seems that of acute individualism.  Now, from a wider perspective, there are many benefits to individualism – it encourages us to understand ourselves and our motivations; it moves us to achieve and succeed; in some ways it is important for the preservation of self and our loved ones.  On the other end, our penchant as humans to simply look inward and to exaggerate our personal needs and concerns can make us lose perspective on the greater joys to be found outside of ourselves.  So how does this square with the idea of being the Body of Christ?  Well, if anything our faith teaches us that believing in God and living a life in Christ should actually move us from a relationship of “Me and God” to a relationship of “Me and God and You.”  We are to exist and relate to one another in the Trinitarian model that we so love to proclaim.  And this existence requires the ability to create and maintain relationships, and ultimately community.

            

Our Gospel lesson for today, the parable from Luke about guests at a wedding banquet, challenges us to think about what is important for us as Christians as we relate to one another. One thing that was certainly important to Jesus was the opportunity to be with people, and Scripture makes it clear that there was nothing Jesus enjoyed more than sitting at a table with a bunch of folks and eating.  Who doesn’t love that? In the Gospel of Luke alone, Jesus is at table with others 10 times. This man knew how to create relationships, and where better to create these relationships than around the table? 

            

We know he performed his first miracle, the changing of water into wine, at a wedding feast in Cana; it was at a dinner that he honored a woman who had been reviled by religious leaders, allowing her to anoint his feet and dry them with her hair; and in a few weeks we will see Jesus expand the conversation at dinner to include the pleas of a Syro-Phoenician woman for her sick daughter.  And, of course, his final gathering with his disciples was for a meal, a very special meal that we continue to observe in our Eucharist.

            

One of the things I love about Jesus was his determination to gather around a table with all kinds of people: the powerful and the lowly, the religious perfectionists and those who had no religious standing at all, society regulars and complete strangers outside the usual cast of “acceptable” characters.

            

People around Jesus were uncomfortable with his insistence on inclusion, but that did not concern him. It’s no wonder that our Scriptures are more full of people criticizing Jesus’ choice of dining companions than disapproval of what he taught. But the reality is that Jesus was modeling what is sometimes called “radical hospitality.” Radical hospitality requires intentional invitation and welcome. It goes beyond greeters at the door and handshakes during worship to welcoming every person as an honored guest.

            

What Jesus is asking us to focus on today is how we value people in our lives and in our society. He identified boldly the honor vs. shame, the pure vs. impure, and the insider vs. outsider dichotomy in his culture, something that was painfully visible in the protocol of entertaining guests for dinner.  Guests of honor were seated closest to the one who hosted the meal; people of lesser importance were relegated to back seats, and if you weren’t important enough you were simply never invited. Determining where to sit was strategic analysis in Jesus’s world. Honor would be implicitly bestowed by simply being seated closer to the host or to the guest of honor.  You were in a sorry state if you found yourself banished to the “boring” end of the table. 

            

Jesus’s words are worth noting and chewing on because they were so counter-cultural then, and are counter-cultural in our own time: 

·     Do not think too grandly of yourself. 

·     Practice humility. 

·     Assign yourself a lesser place and then be invited to a better place.

·     Do not always include just those who are closely connected to you and can reward you, but rather use opportunities to include those who cannot necessarily reciprocate your hospitality. 

            

It’s easy to compartmentalize people by gauging how they will best serve our interests in exchange for our friendship – in other words, by making human relationships transactional.  But some of my most enduring friendships are with folks I happened to have been seated next to by chance at a dinner or event and sometimes never expected to see again.  Now, I’m a rather shy person so when I’m in a situation where I’m seated next to someone new, it takes me a bit of time to warm up.  It helps immensely when the person seated next to me is a bit of a talker, but the simple act of being interested in the other person, with no expectation other than enjoying their company, is at the core of relationship building.  Being interested and curious about one another moves us from a perspective of judging and assuming, to creating an opportunity for God to sit between you and me. It helps to remind us that we are part of something greater – we are already part of a larger network and we are already connected through Christ.

            

Perhaps some of you have heard of Rosemarie Harding – she was a profoundly spiritual teacher and American social activist whose family moved from the South to Chicago during the Great Migration.  In an article she wrote on Radical Hospitality she recalls her growing-up days, especially remembering the hospitality of her mother and her great-grandmother, who had been born a slave. Both these women cultivated a deep hospitality, Harding says, as well as a profound mystic spirituality. In the years that Harding was growing up, her parents’ house was a regular stop for neighbors and relatives and friends.

            

She says: “My mother and father made the house welcoming—sometimes too welcoming, it seemed, for all kinds of people came through, not just neighbors and friends, but peddlers, professional gamblers, petty thieves, prostitutes, and people we would probably call homeless today. My mother would set out beautiful china dishes and slices of her homemade pound cake for all of them—especially for the ones just passing through. It was as if she knew that they needed special attention, and besides, she genuinely enjoyed hearing their stories and learning from them. She knew that wisdom came from many sources.”  I love this because that’s the level of hospitality and relationship building Jesus calls us to.

            

How can we help to make a place at the many “tables” in our lives for those who can bring us wisdom in unexpected ways?

            

How can we help ourselves remember that the church is the one institution in our society that does not exist for the benefit of its own members. Instead, we are called as a church to go out into the world and stand with and advocate for those who need to experience the Good News in their lives.  Perhaps we can be instrumental in bringing the love of Christ to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers suffering from the humanitarian crisis at our nation’s borders due to an inhumane enforcement system? Or help provide relief to those in the path of Hurricane Dorian?  There is so much that we can do.

            

This is what being the Body of Christ is all about. So let us do all we can to live our lives with humility and radical hospitality, caring for those who have nothing to offer in return. Perhaps by doing so, we may be blessed enough to entertain Angels without knowing it.  AMEN.