"Hospitality" June 18, 2017

Genesis 18: 1-15 Matthew 9:35-10:8 Last week, to emphasize Christ’s Great Commission, we began with illustration that annually Coach Vince Lombardi started practice by emphasizing The Fundamentals. Unfortunately, after the Worship service someone came up to me saying “Okay Coach, So our purpose is to Win! Our Goal is to do great things, to attract more members, to build up the Financial Reserves, Budget and Program, to do great acts of charity and mission locally and around the world.” And I cried out saying “NO we do not score points or touchdowns. We do not win!” Ever since the 1950s, we have adopted the Pop-Psychology: I’m Okay/You ‘re Okay; when the truth is: “I AM NOT OKAY! You are not Okay! BUT that is okay, God Cares! The World has diminished the humanity of people and the divinity in us... We have wasted the Gift that is God’s Creation, using everything up, in order to win. Instead of attempting to imitate the world, demanding Success as the world measures success, the Church, this Body of Christ, needs to be Counter-Cultural! We need to be weird! Instead of deferring maintenance, we need to boldly act. People come to Church because the goals and priorities and values of the world have not satisfied. Christian faith requires a reorientation of Self, because winning is so much a part of our life. This reorientation of Faith, is like the reorientation of Fatherhood, and like Hospitality. One minute, you are living life for yourself, taking everything as it is, striving only to get more; when suddenly, you are a Father. I would be the first to acknowledge the hardships on a woman’s psyche, body and spirit by laboring to give a child. But women have 9 months to acclimate to becoming a mother. When you become a Father, suddenly in a moment, you are changed to live life for others, Hosting another. One of the greatest tragedies of our culture, is that we no longer know how to be HOSPITABLE! Communicating through Social Media, we choose whether we want to accept one another or not. We choose whether to defend ourselves by only sending an emote, or 132 characters, or leaving a text message, or by talking to one another as if on a telephone, whether to see one another as we talk, but still this is nothing like hosting another in your home, being present with one another. I remember our parents having parties when we were in 6th and 7th grade, in order that we would learn to practice being social. Being HOSPITABLE is greeting each and every guest, sincerely saying “I am so delighted you are present here”, paying attention to their needs, and as they depart sincerely entreating that you wish they did not leave so soon. The vital importance of HOSPITALITY is that you come to realize that all that we possess is here to be shared with others. For me, the greatest awareness of faith came in recognizing that while we labored, and worked for years, spending millions of dollars restoring this church, creating health care in East Africa, a home for elders in this community, NONE of this belongs to us. This is God’s House and God’s Table, and we are gifted with being in this temporary moment in time. Too often, we hear sermons preached on this passage from Matthew, that if others do not receive you as a welcome guest with a great treasure to share, you should shake the dust off your shoes at them. THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT. Instead, that when not received, leave the dust of that place and experience behind you, because you are going to Holy Ground and who wants to carry that hate with them! In the heat of the day, Abraham has been sitting in a temporary place of comfort, a place of shade appreciating life. That is SABBATH. Abraham is a perfect HOST, leaping up when he sees strangers approach, and greeting strangers as loved ones. Offering to wash their feet, giving them bread made of the finest flour, literally killing the fatted calf. Faith is not bartered for or bought, as are possessions in our culture. You do for others, expecting nothing in return, because that is who you are. When in this story, after they have eaten, the three strangers reveal themselves to be Messengers of God, knowing what God knows, bestowing Blessings. This morning’s reading is not about Abram and Sarai. 24 years before they left home and family to follow where God would lead. But over this journey of 24 years, Abram was changed from a name that means “Exalted Elder”, to Abraham, a name that means “Father of Many Generations.” Sarai whose name meant “Princess” has been changed to Sarah which means Mother of Kings/Nations”. What they are promised was nothing new. It was the repeated Promise of the last 24 years. Early on, it hurt, having a promise unfulfilled, waiting without a light at the end of the tunnel, trying to believe against the reality of life. Their HURT turned to ANGER, and over time Anger mellowed to cold resignation, as a bit of them died. Sarah is no longer the “little princess” believing everything is going to be given to her. So when this Promise is given to a 90 year old Woman, she laughs at the Impossibility, literally the Inconceivable. Humor is difficult to quantify, everyone from Aristotle to Schopenhauer, to Freud have tried to understand and explain humor, much like explaining a joke. Reinhold Niebuhr described that HUMOR is the PRELUDE TO FAITH. What he meant was that confronting the incongruous, confronting the contradiction of the impossible being in reality, can lead us to trust God. When Charlie Chaplin slipped on a Banana Peel, when the Three Stooges twisted one another’s nose with a Wrench, we laughed at the absurdity, the slapstick, the indignity. That kind of humor allowed us permission to stand outside ourselves, to realize the roles and situations, all were pretense and sham and meaningless. This was a guard against taking ourselves too seriously. If you have ever had a really horrible day in a series of stressful days, and suddenly you are caught off guard to laugh until you cry, then you know what I mean. These are the moments, the tears and laughter that save marriages. However, there are incongruous moments when we see ourselves, when we do not laugh. What I find truly heart-breaking, is that Charlie Chaplin, and the Three Stooges were born out a time of the Great Depression between World Wars, when all the world was life and death, there was not food to eat, or a future for your children or grandchildren to believe in. Today, we live in greater prosperity and luxury than the world has ever known, and we insult one another, we refuse to laugh at ourselves. Human beings aspire to take on the Cosmos, to leave a lasting mark on all time and space, even more to conquer everything. Pascal described that “standing on Earth, looking up at the stars, we can feel pretty big.” The difficulty came with the Mercury and Apollo missions, when at the end of our universe, we were given glimpses of earth, all the lines of distinction between us as Humans, Nations and Continents were dwarfed to insignificance. Confronting the impossible, facing life and death, facing the contradiction of everything we tried to win being of little to no value, that is the Prelude to Faith. The difference is whether we stop there laughing in embarrassment, with Sarah, or whether we allow ourselves to be surprised. The Stranger responds to Sarah: “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” I love the Hebrew translation here, as the name of God in Hebrew is I AM, so “Is anything IMPOSSIBLE for I AM?” Years ago, between Brooklyn and Long Island, there was a Baptist Minister. A committed bachelor, he had devoted his time to study earning seven advanced degrees including two PhD’s one from Dartmouth, the other from Columbia, when suddenly at age 72 he faced mandatory retirement. He became depressed, laying in bed, saying: I pastored this church, but never really won souls to Christ, I will be gone and no one really cares. Seven days later, he met a Pastor from India, and invited him to preach. After the worship service, the Indian Pastor returned the favor, inviting this Minister to India to preach. The Minister described the mandatory age of retirement, and that he was going to Florida to live out his days. The Indian described that in his home people respected a man after his hair turned white. The Minister prayed about this and decided to go. His congregation asked “What if you die in India?” The Minister replied “India is just as close to heaven as it is from here.” So he sold his home, books and furniture, placed his possessions in a trunk and booked One-Way passage. Arriving in Bombay, his trunk had been lost, and on the streetcar his passport and wallet were stolen. He arrived at the Monastery, where they welcomed him, but stated that his friend had stayed in America and they had nothing for him to do. The Minister decided he would make an appointment to see the Mayor of Bombay. The Missionaries replied, they had tried for years but never been received. However, the next day, appearing at the Mayor’s offices, as an American with White Hair, he presented his Business Card with 7 academic degrees, and assuming he must have some great important business, not only did the Mayor grant him audience, but a High Tea for the Nation’s dignitaries in his honor. The Minister wound up sharing his faith for three hours. Among the guests was the Director of India’s version of West Point, who invited the Minister to become Chaplain. So at age 72 he began a 16 year ministry, traveling the world. There is a thriving Church at Calcutta, and a Christian body at Hong Kong because of this faith. He died one afternoon in Bombay, believing he was just as close to Heaven in India as he had ever been in America.