Rev. Linda B. Hirst

July 22, 2001

Genesis 18:1-10a
Luke 10:38-42
 

At my last church in Westport, Ct., I had the dubious honor of living  around the corner from Martha Stewart; the Martha Stewart - author of countless cookbooks, how-to-books, how-to-do entertain, how to plan weddings and bar mitzvahs, how to entertain 200 of your closest friends, how to renovate and redecorate your home, you name it, she’s done it and she’s done it better than you or me.  Martha is - a legend in that town and yet, very few people have actually seen her.   I used to go past her house whenever I went for a walk in the neighborhood and in the four and a half years I lived there, I never saw her.  I even climbed her stone wall - just once - just to try to get a glimpse of her - a Martha sighting was all I wanted- but all I saw were a couple of vegetable gardens - although I must say
 they looked spectacular - planted and nurtured and weeded to perfection.  And yet, even though my friends  and I - never actually saw Martha Stewart - we could feel her presence - we knew she was there.

The food at gatherings and parties in town was a little more exotic - prepared with just a little more flair than ordinary parties - it was as if Martha herself were watching over us to see how we were doing.  We all read her books;  we knew her standards, we followed by that familiar adage that presentation is everything.  Even church suppers were elegant, formal affairs, and coffee hours looked like they were catered.   Whether we knew it or not, we were all living under the influence of Martha Stewart.

Well,  about six months ago, you may have heard about this - news about Martha gets around - Martha announced she was going to be leaving Westport.  Her major complaint, it appears is that Wetsport was no longer
 the hospitable town she once knew.  No one  invited her to dinner, to lunch, or for coffee, anymore.  Neighbors never came calling, where were the friendly invites to the garden club? she wondered.  Where were the invitations to anything?

Her decision to leave shocked the town - they couldn’t believe it - "Martha, the letters  in the local paper said. Who knew you were looking for neighborhood barbecues and old fashioned teas.  Picnics in the park,  dinner at the beach?  Who knew?  Who knew you were looking for...friends?  One lady even went home,  baked cookies and brought them to Martha after hearing the news that she felt no one in the community cared about her,  but it was too late.  Martha was leaving to find true hospitality elsewhere. Which just goes to show you...that presentation isn’t everything.  And when you get right down to it, hospitality is not just about food.  It’s about people.
Four thousand years ago in the ancient near east during the time of Abraham and Sarah,  the purpose of hospitality - the act of friendship shown a visitor - was to change a stranger into a guest.  Isn’t that a wonderful description? To change a stranger into a guest.  To treat a person in such a way - with warmth and kindness, providing food and shelter, rest and shelter, conversation - that at the end of the stay, he or she was no longer a stranger but a friend.
Biblically,  hospitality is something that is mandated by God.  In the Old Testament, the Israelites were instructed by God to welcome the strangers in their land - to give them food and clothing - because the Israelites were once strangers in a foreign land and they knew what it was like
".

In the New Testament, Jesus taught his disciples and all who were within earshot all about hospitality and what was expected of them:

 1.  When you give a banquet he told one host - a Pharisee - don’t invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind and you will be blessed.

 2.   Are there children around you?  Receive them, embrace them for whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me.

 3.  What is the greatest commandment in the Law? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  The second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

 4.   Feed the hungry, he said,  give drink to the thirsty, invite the stranger in, cloth those who need to be clothed, look after the sick and visit those in prison.  And remember that whatever you do for the least of these you are doing for me.

Jesus knew about hospitality.  He relied almost completely upon the hospitality of friends and strangers during his ministry.  Close friends like Mary and Martha and Lazarus, who opened their home to him, he dined with people who didn’t really like him - Pharisees and Saduccees, he ate with sinners, he stayed in the homes of the outcast like Zaccheus the tax collector.  He knew that hospitality was about more than just food; it was about people; about caring for one another, serving one another, listening to one another.  He knew that if people would open up not only their homes but their hearts and their lives, they would find God.

I read something the other day about hospitality; and it goes like this:

"When anyone receives another human being with warm heartedness he may  be nearer than he knows to a divine experience."

This is what happened to Abraham.   Abraham was sitting in the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day;  resting in the shade when all of a sudden he looked up and saw three men standing in front of him.  We know the three men are from God - but Abraham doesn’t - he jumps up,  surprised because he didn’t see them coming but he welcomes them warmly, invites them to sit and rest a while, to wash their feet which are dirty from traveling.  Then Abraham sets about preparing a meal - a feast - for the three with  Sarah and their servant.  Bread, curds, milk and a tender young calf are offered to the strangers.
 
 

After the men - the angels of the Lord have eaten, one of them tells Abraham, "this time next year your wife will have a son" - a surprising statement, since Sarah is well into her 70’s and has never been able to bear children.  The promise God made to Abraham to make of him a great nation and to bless all the people on the earth through him is about to come true.  It is a divine experience.

I think each one of us here can tell of a time when we have had a divine experience - been in the presence of God - a time when someone has opened up their homes, their hearts and their lives to us.  Think of those precious moments that happen when we visit someone who is sick or when we’ve been sick and someone has visited us.  Think of those moments when you’ve reached out to someone who’s troubled and anxious... and those moments when someone has reached out to you.  Think of those times we’ve been in prayer together for the needs of our world...or served together - fed and clothed the least of these as Jesus commanded.  Think of those times when you have been touched by God because you have taken the time to practice the art of hospitality, you have taken the time to turn a stranger into a guest.

God is nearer than we know.

This is what I learned in Kentucky on our mission trip to Winchester with 35 high school youth and 8 adults.  Altogether last week, 453 people practiced the art of hospitality;  we were on the giving end and the receiving end all week and I want to share with you just a few of our experiences where God was truly nearer than we knew.  Times when God was there.

It all began on our trip down - we had an eventful trip  to Kentucky - we weren’t on the bus for two hours before one of our kids cut open his arm.  A couple of hours later one of our kids fainted at the MacDonalds - lack of food apparently - and as soon as we stepped foot onto our camp ground in Hershey Pennsylvania, one of our girls was stung by a bee and her foot became infected.  Combine that with very little sleep in our tents thanks to a train which ran by, maybe it was through the campground - every ten  minutes, I think - then torrential rainstorms which caught us by surprise in West Virginia.  Through it all - through the tending, the mending, the caring, the trips to the various hospitals made by our very capable adult advisor Alli Beesley, everyone - adults and youth - remained positive, upbeat, and sure that everything would work out, sure that God was with us, would take care of us, would sustain us.  On Wednesday when one of the youth received the very sad news that her cousin had passed away, the youth group was there.  This young woman shared her pain, her grief openly and  guys and the girls  surrounded her; with words, with hugs, and with their faith. It was an awesome example of true hospitality - giving,  caring and loving - and God was there.

Each night we heard stories and saw slides of everyone hard at work; roofing, building, painting, we also saw pictures of workers with their residents; sitting side by side with the men and women they were helping, pictures of our youth playing with children,  hugging the older women and men whose homes they were working on, and all were smiling.  And it was clear to all who watched each night, that more than homes were being built there, relationships were being developed.  And God was there.

I had the task, with my work crew, of tearing off and putting on a roof.  I’ve done a little bit of roofing before so how hard could it be, I thought?  On Monday, our residents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox greeted us warmly, invited us into their home, even made us coffee.  They were an elderly couple who had moved off their farm to the city of Winchester five years ago and the roof had been leaking for quite some time.  They had buckets placed in various spots around their bedroom.  They were warm and giving and had incredible confidence in four teenagers and a couple of adults who sort of thought they knew what they were doing.  We climbed up on that roof and began to rip off three layers of shingles.

On Tuesday, we arrived, still somewhat confident that we could do the job we were assigned.  The Wilcox’s, received us warmly and graciously as if we were family.  Use our bathroom anytime, just come on in, they’d say.  Come in and talk, I love to talk and don’t have much company, Evedna said.  Billy would stand back and watch us tear off his roof and shout words of encouragement.  You’re doing mighty fine work, he’d say.

By Wednesday, it was clear we didn’t know what we were doing.  It had taken us three days to rip off one side of the house and we hadn’t even started shingling yet. We weren’t going to finish.   We tried to break this gently to Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox who I think were in denial and just kept saying, "We know you can do it, honey."  I wanted to say, "Oh no, we really can’t." but decided to wait and pray for a miracle.

The next day another work crew from across the street showed up and began tearing off front of the roof while we began shingling the back.    Evidna and Billy opened up their home to all 12 of us and came out and shared devotions with us; telling us about their families, their lives and how thankful they were that these fine young people were putting on a new roof for them.  It still didn’t look like we would finish and I didn’t have the heart to say anything so I didn’t.

On Friday, another work crew showed up, bringing a real roofer with them, and all of a sudden it looked like we might actually do it.  We got into a rhythm, everyone had a job, the kids worked incredibly hard - I can recommend several to do your roofs if you need anyone - Billy and Evedna opened up their homes to 18 people, made ice tea for us, baked cookies,  sat with us in the shade when we needed to sit, and at the end of the day as we were leaving, with tears in their eyes they said:  "Thank you," "We knew you could do it."  "Thank you," we said, "for your hospitality".  And God was there.

One more story...Monday morning is when you pack up your tools and head out to your site to meet your residents.  Monday morning, Tori Rasche, one of our adult advisors and her five youth went out to their work site and there was no home.  The family had picked up their trailer and moved and neglected to tell anyone.  Tori and her crew had no home, no resident, nothing to do.  So they improvised.  They took pictures of themselves in front of where the home was supposed to be.  They got to know each other as a crew;  they opened up, they shared, they laughed - they had a great time. As this story was told to the group one night, an adult from another church leaned over to me and said, "I could not have dealt with that.  I would have been really angry."  And I thought...that is the difference between you and Tori.  Tori was open and flexible and saw the potential in the situation;  she invited God in and her work crew had an amazing week.  They never did work on a home, stead they worked on a church.  And God was there.

The purpose of hospitality, says the writer Mary Anderson  is to prepare a welcoming space for encounters with God’s word.  It’s creating that place,  where we just might hear God speak to us, where we just might experience God in a new and unexpected way.

It happened to Abraham when he opened his home to the three men - entertaining angels unaware,  it happened to Martha and Mary, when they had Jesus over for dinner - only Martha was too busy to see.

And it happens to us...

 when we open our homes
 when we open our hearts
 when we open our lives to those around us.
 when we practice the art of hospitality as Jesus intended and and turn strangers   into guests, God is nearer than we know.  God is here.

Let us pray:

 Gracious and merciful God, you are everywhere in our midst.  In the face of a stranger, in the touch of a friend.  Help us to give and care and serve as you would have us.  When we’re busy and tired and weary and can’t see you, speak to us gently, so we may experience your grace and your love.  Amen