Whoever welcomes you, welcomes Jesus.
I’ve always had this dream of setting up a system of Lutherans around the country, who open their homes to fellow travelling Lutherans. We could call it Lutheran-Couch-Surfers-of-America, or something. The Hostel Lutheran Network?
Wouldn’t that be wonderful if anywhere you travel – I’m thinking about travel a bunch since we’re leaving on our big trip today – you had a great place to stay? Not great because of the free wi-fi or continental breakfast, but great because you would always be housed by friends, even if they were strangers at first.
I’ve actually tried this a few times, and it was amazing! Call me crazy. I started small and just asked if I could stay in other people’s churches. I’d call up a church, explain my travel plans and that I was looking for a place to stay, wondering if I could just put a sleeping bag in their youth room. And in the course of that request, I got to meet the pastor, about 3 other members, see another Lutheran church in Louisville, Kentucky and then in Atlanta, GA. Heather and I did this once in El Paso, TX also, when Micah was 2. And that time the Pastor just invited us over to her house for the night. Single woman in her 50’s, just opened the door for us and even gave us dinner (and breakfast)…and even put out some toys on the living room floor from the church nursery.
(We’re supposed to be in Phoenix tonight, and I’m talking myself into trying this again.)
Jesus says today in the Gospel, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.” So put yourself in a position to be welcomed, right!
We have a text before us that is about hospitality. It’s really all about hospitality, isn’t it?
It turns out that my idea of a safe-homes-network is not new at all: It’s a very tame version of the type of hospitality that is offered throughout the Middle East. I’m talking about just offering hospitality to among Lutherans. But anyone ever experienced Middle Eastern hospitality? It extends way beyond religious, ethnic, national and cultural boundaries!
I have a colleague here in San Diego, who tells his story about travelling in Palestine, and his lodging plans fell through at the last minute. So a friend of a friend gave him a number, and he called up a total stranger two days before he was set to arrive from the United States, and asked if could stay just for a night or two while he figured out what he was going to do. Can you imagine?
And this family, let him a total stranger, probably about 25 years old, big guy with blond hair and a thick upper-Midwestern accent, into their home and demanded that he be their guest for his entire stay in the Holy Land, about 2 months! The town where they lived was a little town called Bethlehem. And he later but very quickly learned that this wasn’t just some crazy family, this kind of welcome toward strangers is cultural. He felt all special and lucky at first—“I really struck gold here”—until he realized that anyone would be treated this way. I’m sure that if we were traveling unarmed and vulnerable, we would all be afforded the same kind of treatment, regardless of our religion or anything else, if we just asked. (There’s a certain vulnerability in just asking though.)
There’s a blog online that I like to look at around Epiphany in January, when we reflect on the Journey of the Three Wise Men. And it’s about these three modern-day-Americans who literally traveled the ancient Fertile Crescent by camelback, from Bagdad to Bethlehem. They started in September and got there at Christmas time. Their pictures are astounding—talk about a good place to offered a cool drink of water—and it’s the same story about hospitality as my friend who studied in Bethlehem.
Here’s a quote from one of the travelers: “It is almost absurd, sitting in these peoples' homes and sharing lunch with them, being offered a bed for the night, and their brotherhood. This is Iraq, and if they are the enemy, who needs friends?”
“Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me. Whoever offers just a cup of cold water…”
[slowly] Sisters and brothers in Christ, we have such wonderful opportunities before us all the time to both give and receive hospitality, even as simple as giving/receiving a cup of cold water. Jesus invites us again today to be on both sides, to expose ourselves to both sides, of hospitality. Discipleship is not one-sided; let us be both welcomed and welcomer.
I realized the other day: if you come into Shepherd of the Valley right now, and are looking around you will see the word “WELCOME” at least six times (in six different places) before you even step into this sanctuary. That’s wonderful! And hopefully on a Sunday morning a visitor will hear that word many more times from us.
But may we also allow ourselves to be welcomed too.
When hospitality happens, Christ is there. That’s what it’s really all about hospitality. Christ is moving in and with and around and between both welcomer and welcomed…Christ is moving in and with and around and between both the church people in Kentucky and me, Christ is alive in and with and around and between both the Palestinians of Bethlehem and my Lutheran colleague, Christ is breathing in and with and around and between both the modern-day-American-wise men and every one of their hosts across the Middle East.
And Christ is there whenever you participate in even the smallest act of hospitality, a cup of cold water, a welcoming handshake, an offer—or an acceptance—of lunch or a spare bed, or a coat, or a hug.
I am convinced that we need to work way more on accepting help than giving it. Which is good news, because accepting the kindness of strangers is actually way less work on our part. We need to work on doing less work. And that’s deeply biblical, friends: just accepting the love and grace of another. Sound familiar? Work on doing less work, and instead just receive the very grace and hospitality, the very welcome of God.
Faith itself is a work-less gift, that cannot be earned or acquired, it can only be received, symbolized in one instance as we put out our hands to receive the body of Christ. All you can do is accept the welcome that God has for you. Nothing you can do to earn it.
When there is welcome, there is God. AMEN.
Holy God, our Living Water and our merciful Guide, together with the rivers and seas, wells and springs, we bless and magnify you. You led your people by the pillar of cloud and fire through the sea, and provided them water from the rock. We thank you for the gift of water.
The Holy Spirit moved over water in the beginning of creation. In water, your Son Jesus received the gift of baptism and was anointed by the Holy Spirit to lead us into the way of everlasting life through his life, death, and resurrection.
Gracious God, we pray for those who struggle every day for their daily supply of water: in the slums of Brazilian cities, in the deserts of Africa, in the townships where clean water does not flow. We pray for those who experience floods and for others in desperate need of water. We pray that those who are fortunate to have an abundance of water do not take your gift for granted, or fail to heed and understand the cries of people who need water for life. Amen
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