Radical Hospitality

Luke 7:36-8:3

Last week I talked about Compassion. This week, it is Hospitality.

Here in the South, we have a strong tradition of showing hospitality. Our usual idea of hospitality is to be a good host - offering our guests comforts of our home. 

I would suspect that anyone who has lived in the South for very long has at least one story of a time that they were shown great hospitality, or perhaps when hospitality went a bit far. Like the poor fellow who was trying to be a good guest.

When his dinner plate was empty, the hostess would offer, "Don't you want a little more? Her have another bite of this." He's thinking to himself, "I can't eat another bite, but I don't want to be rude." And he accepts the offer. She simply wants to be sure that he doesn't go away hungry and she doesn't know what kind of appetite he has. So she keeps offering and figures that when he's had enough he will say so. I suspect she was thinking to herself, "I can't believe he keeps eating, but as long as he wants to eat, I'll keep the food coming." You know, so often our hospitality is reflected with food.

So, what about being a good guest? Sometimes when I would visit with folks, I would be going into homes that were not always so clean or modern. Sometimes, in their kindness and generosity the person I am visiting will offer me food or drink. I have had the expected offer of a glass of water, ice tea, soda, or coffee. I've also been offered cake or coffee cake, or cookies. One fellow was making lunch when I arrived at his run down mobile home. The inside was piled high with junk, and not particularly clean. He was making home-made quesedillas. He offered to make some for me. Once, when I was pastor in South Carolina, a woman was cooking up a mess of pokeweed for a Poke Salad. That was NOT a hospitable recipe, in my mind. So, as a guest, when you are offered, is it rude not to accept? What to do? 

One nurse went to the home of a person I was also seeing. He happened to have a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS. This was several years ago. There was awareness of how AIDS is spread, and how it is not spread, but she still lived with fears and prejudices from years before. She did everything she could to not touch anything in the house. She carried a towel that she put down before she set her bag of supplies down. Sit down? forget it. Frankly, the man she was there to see could tell how uncomfortable she was in his home and he felt the sting of shame whenever she came to minister to him. So, can you be a hospitable guest as well as a hospitable host?

Sometimes there are barriers to our giving hospitality and to our receiving hospitality. We are in tough economic times. Sometimes people have to do things they would never have dreamed of doing before, like borrowing money from family or a friend. And how easily can such an act of generosity become a barrier to hospitality! Think about it. You've borrowed money. You have every intention of paying it back. Circumstances are such that you are not able. When you do get a little extra, do you relax and enjoy a little fun in life, or do you do without a little longer so you can give the extra as a payment on the loan? And when you visit with the friend who loaned you the money, things have changed. There is a barrier between you that interrupts the good relationship you've had over the years. 

Our Gospel lesson, this morning, is a story of hospitality on a variety of levels. Jesus is invited to be a guest at a dinner party with some religious leaders of the town. Simon is the host. Frankly, you could feel the tension on the part of Simon and his peers toward Jesus and his disciples. There was a sense of judgmentalism, of self-rightness on the part of Simon and company. Jesus, on the other hand, graciously breaks bread will all sorts of people: down and out, scoundrels, tax collectors, and even society snobs. And then there was the uninvited guest, the woman who crashes the party. She is the one who treats Jesus with true hospitality, more so than the host. And Jesus sees in the eyes of Simon and his cronies their judgmental attitude toward her, and him. How does Jesus respond? Well, he tells a story, of course. Two people owed sums of money to a creditor. The creditor forgave both debts. Which one would be more appreciative, would love the creditor more? Simon answers, "Well, I suppose it would be the one who owed more, who had more forgiven." Jesus affirms Simon's answer and explains the parable further and Simon just stands there, silently condeming himself.

Jesus is regularly seeking to remove the barriers to hospitality, to friendship. Jesus accepts dinner with Simon hoping to see barriers fall. Ironically, the woman seems unaware of the social barriers that should have kept her out. She understood something about Jesus' love and his hospitality. 

I don't know about you but I find that this story challenges me. It challenges me to consider the nature of God's radical hospitality. I am challenged to accept God's radical hospitality. God knows how I am made, and God sees within me something that is lovable. Honestly, I don't always see it. I see my faults and my failures and my private shame. God knows all of that, but God also celebrates that I am made in God's own image and there is capacity within me to be compassionate beyond my imagining. God is ready to be the hospitable guest, showing me great love, and ready to receive from me what love I am ready to give in return. It is truly a radical hospitality.

In Nevada County, California, there is a ministry that sprang up several years ago called Hospitality House. Essentially, this is a ministry to homeless people during the more severe months of late fall through the winter into early spring. The ministry is a cooperative venture by several churches. Each day from 4-6 pm, the Hospitality House welcome center is open for guests to take showers, get warmed up, socialize. They then take buses to a host church where they will enjoy a hot meal, perhaps watch a movie or play some games. They spend the night, in doors rather than on the street. The host church provides a person who keeps watch through the night. Often a breakfast is provided before they leave to head back to the welcome center, where they leave their sleeping gear and pick up the supplies they use through the day.

In the words of a supporter of Hospitality House:
"There are many remarkable stories-some heartbreaking and some heart mending--among the guests at Hospitality House. In all, a total of 133 people stayed the night with us [through the season], including 20 children (lots of babies), 19 veterans, 23 over age 50, and 43 disabled people. By the end of our season, guests, staff, volunteers, and board members had established a deep sense of community, recognizing that we all shared a common bond of profound, intense experience. Sharing food and rest in an atmosphere of peace and safety may well be the simplest and loveliest thing people can do together.

"Not that everything was simple. There were plenty of difficulties and a great deal of suffering at Hospitality House, often in the form of illness and injury. Two of our guests had cancer; two had heart attacks; one 20-year-old boy was a survivor of brain cancer; one, a 73-year-old man, was so severely injured that had he been living outside, he would almost certainly have died. Indeed, we made several trips to the hospital, and several people might have died had they not been with us. Deep gratitude goes to Drs. Jean and Craig Creasey, who performed emergency dental work, sometimes even late at night. And profound thanks to Dr. Frank Lang, Jr., who was our doctor in residence every Monday night.

"Almost every night for the past five and a half cold, rainy, and often snowy months Hospitality House has provided homeless community members with a warm, safe place to sleep and a delicious dinner lovingly prepared. For some people, that has literally been the difference between living and dying.

"For some, it has meant the opportunity to overcome addictions; for some, it has meant coming in from the cold of a disorienting, long-term sense of isolation to the warmth of human companionship; for some of the children, it has meant birthday parties attended by caring friends; for some families at risk, it has meant remaining intact; for one newborn baby boy and his family, it meant nourishment, care, and a safe place to be in this world."

At the end of the season a guest of Hospitality House wrote: 
"Next fall when Hospitality is born again, many of the 
same church members will be there with all their love and a 
deeper understanding of the down and out. They will see 
we are not invisible, not ogres, but that we have stories,
histories, pasts, and problems like everyone else."

Granted, this Hospitality House is a radical example. But then, God's hospitality IS radical.  I suspect that there are folks who live and work in the areas around the church that have a hard time imagining that God could ever love or even care about them. They could use some of that radical hospitality. So, where do you see God's love demonstrated in your life? God sees in you something that is truly good and lovable, whether you recognize it yourself or not. God continually seeks to remove any barriers that might keep you from knowing God's love. Are you ready to accept God's hospitality? How might we extend that hospitality? Or shall we be like Simon, and just stand there, doing nothing.