Seeing with Hospitable Eyes (Part 2)
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
April 14, 2024
Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. The scripture I have chosen for today is from Luke 14:12-24 in the New Revised Standard Version.
He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’”
Last week, I went back to the 5th century to talk about some of the roots of modern hospitality found in the Benedictine monasteries. This morning, as we look at the second part of hospitality, I want to go all the way back to the first instance of hospitality seen in the Scriptures.
In the book of Genesis (chapter 18 verses 4 to 5) we get this story about Abraham receiving an unexpected blessing. Sitting at the entrance to his tent one day, resting in the shade of the great trees of Mamre, Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. He hurried toward these strangers and greeted them as honored guests.
“Let a little water be brought,” he said, encouraging them to rest with him, “and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way.”
Abraham asked his wife, Sarah, to bake bread for the strangers, and he personally selected a tender calf from his herd for his servants to prepare for the guest to eat. As they enjoyed the special meal together, the strangers spoke.
They brought a word from God: within the next year, they said, Sarah would bear a child, a son.
What I find most interesting about this first display of hospitality is that in welcoming complete strangers, Abraham learned something about God, and about God’s plan for him. In these strangers were that of God as we Quakers would say.
“This first formative story of the biblical tradition on hospitality is unambiguously positive about welcoming strangers,” Christine Pohl writes in Making Room. “It connects hospitality with the presence of God, with promise, and with blessing.”
This was only the beginning for hospitality. It would become a very important and serious part of the spiritual life – so much that the Hebrew people developed codes and rules for hospitality that would go above and beyond what we would even consider, today.
Currently, in our world hospitality might mean welcoming and being polite, but it has also become about being at ease with people and sensing an amount of safety. But that was not always the case in our Abrahamic religious history. Hospitality in Biblical times grew to look a bit different than what we have found acceptable in America, today.
And this was mainly due to hospitality being offered to complete strangers.
Marjorie J. Thompson in her book “Soul Feast” (which I consider a primer for experiencing the Spiritual Life in a Christian context) says this about hospitality in ancient times,
“People who appeared from the unknown might bear gifts or might be enemies. Because travel was a dangerous venture, codes of hospitality were strict. If a sworn enemy showed up at your doorsteps asking for food and shelter, you were bound to supply his request, along with protection and safe passage as long as he was on your land. All sorts of people had to travel at times through “enemy territory” which meant the hospitality to strangers was a matter of mutual survival. It was a kind of social covenant, an implied commitment to transcend human differences in order to meet common human needs.”
Wow! I think it is time for us to reinstate this “social covenant” in our day and age. It makes me wonder how the early Abrahamic faiths would have viewed the refugees on our borders.
Thompson continues, she says:
“Hospitality was a hallmark of virtue for ancient Jews and Christians. But in scripture, hospitality reflects a larger reality than human survival codes. It mysteriously links us to God as well as to one another…Hospitality in biblical times was understood to be a way of meeting and receiving holy presence.”
If we as Quakers truly embraced the theology of “That of God in everyone we meet,” then each encounter with even a complete stranger is an opportunity to meet and receive holy presence. This has happened to me on so many occasions.
One of the encounters I still remember like it was yesterday, was when I was a young child. My mother and I were traveling across Fort Wayne when our tire went flat. My mom pulled off the road into a vacant lot, but before we even got out of the car to access the damage. Seemingly out of nowhere, a big, leather-wearing, bearded man with lots of tattoos of naked women on his arms (I remember that because as a child I was intrigued and a bit worried) had gotten off his Harley and was standing beside our car. He told my mom to pop the trunk and he would help her change out the flat. We didn’t even get out of the car. He took care of it all, asked for nothing in return, and told us to have a good day. And then he seemed to disappear as quickly as he appeared. We considered him our Hell’s Angel.
In reality, he was a complete stranger, but he was also a real person who understood hospitality.
That was the beginning of the end for judging people by their outward appearances. I have had people tell me that you can know someone just by looking at them, boy has that not worked out on so many occasions. Instead of judging people by looking at their outward appearance and often writing them off, maybe we should start with having “hospitable eyes.”
I am pretty sure I have shared this before, but before coming to First Friends, I had the opportunity for a silent retreat at the Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon – just down the road from where we lived in Silverton. On my last day there, I had spent some time in the library and was on my way out and decided to grab a quick drink of water out of the drinking fountain. Just above the fountain was a beautiful sign made with colorful mosaic tiles. Ironically after my sermon last week, on it was written the Rule of St. Benedict #53 – Receive all as Christ.
Receive all as Christ.
Receive all as a holy presence.
Receive all as if we believed that there was that of God in them.
As I studied this more, I noticed this theme popping up more often. Mother Teresa said,
“Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other–that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?”
Even Mr. Rogers said,
When we look for what's best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does, so in appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something truly sacred.
You see, when we start to receive people differently and see with hospitable eyes that of God in them, then we are evoked to create new places of belonging and sharing.
I believe one of the biggest challenges within churches and Quaker meetings today, is that they too often have stopped creating new opportunities for belonging, sharing, and seeing.
They continue to do the same thing over and over hoping for different results. I love all the ways we have been creating opportunities here at First Friends to help people find a place to belong, share, and see one another.
We start early on with New Attender Dinners for people beginning the journey with us. Then come Affirmation Classes, Threshing Together gatherings at community eateries, Serving our community at the Food Pantry, Sing-alongs, Women’s Retreats, Oak Leaf Meetings for Reading, small groups, Seasoned Friends, children’s ministries and VBS, Grief Gatherings, Unprogrammed Worship opportunities on three different days, a community garden and meditational woods to celebrate creation, and that is only a few of the great ways we are creating opportunities for belonging, sharing and seeing one another.
As Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove said last week, slowing down and spending time with people for the purpose of developing community, friendships, and deeper relationships is essential to hospitality.
Marjorie Thompson went a little further, she says this about the essence of hospitality.
“Hospitality means receiving the other, from the heart, into my own dwelling place. It entails providing for the need, comfort, and delight of the other with the openness, respect, freedom, tenderness, and joy that love itself embodies.”
Folks, Hospitality is an expression of love. Or maybe I should say, it is an expression of unselfish love.
In our scripture text for this morning, before Jesus shared his parable, he decided to say a couple things to his host. He says in verse 12,
“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.”
In other words, you don’t give in order to get something in return.
Why not? Because when you behave in this way, it means that you are looking for a selfish gain in some way.
Instead, Jesus tells the man in verses 13-14,
“…invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.”
In Israel, the crippled, the lame and the blind were obviously the poor of the society. These were the people who, because of their physical disabilities, could not work, and therefore they could not earn a salary. Most of them depended on charity to survive.
Why should you invite them?
Precisely because they can’t repay you. This is the exact opposite of the worldly way of thinking – you scratch my back, and I will scratch yours.
Very few give in this way, in a spirit of unselfish love. But this is how we are to respond, this is the true essence and nature of hospitality – it is a concrete expression of our unselfish love for our neighbor. Let me repeat that – it is a concrete expression of our unselfish love for our neighbor.
Also, I categorize this type of hospitality as a justice issue or part of Christ’s social gospel, because hospitality to strangers often is considered “doing justice.”
Interestingly the biblical meaning of justice is simply conveyed as “right relationships” with one another.
So, showing kindness to the nomad or vagrant, or offering support to the widow or orphan, taking in the homeless or poor, and offering hospitality to strangers (even enemies) – these were all expressions of just relationships with one’s neighbor in scripture.
Take a moment to really think about this…I believe this is exactly what Eric Baker was getting at last week in what he shared out of the silence.
Who are the nomads, vagrants, widows, orphans, homeless, poor, and strangers in our neighborhoods?
Who are the people who cannot repay us?
Who are the people who are neglected by the mainstream of culture?
Where do they live and spend their time? Why are they neglected?
We often look at the extremes and point outside our own four walls, but the reality is too often the strangers are also in our midst. Just maybe the stranger is,
· someone who feels alone,
· someone who has no friends, no one to talk to.
· someone who gives and gives but is never recognized by others for using their gifts.
· someone struggling to keep their marriage together and afraid to admit they are struggling. Or someone whose marriage ended, and they feel lost and alone.
· someone suffering from depression or anxiety or any other mental health disorder.
· someone who is ashamed by what they have done or what has been done to them.
· Someone who is addicted to pride or power or prestige.
· Someone who is scared or wishes they could be stronger instead of living in fear.
The reality is that each of us in this Meetinghouse all have at one time been or maybe currently are strangers.
Author Barbara Brown Taylor said it this way when looking at scripture:
“You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Those most likely to befriend strangers, in other words, are those who have been strangers themselves. The best way to grow empathy for those who are lost is to know what it means to be lost yourself.”
· We all want to be welcomed.
· We all want to belong.
· We all want to be full participants.
· We all want to be needed.
· We all want to be delighted.
· We all want to be loved.
· We all want to be in right relationships.
· We all want to be seen and known.
This is why it is so important that when we practice hospitality, as John Fenner at Parker Palmer’s Center for Courage and Renewal claims, it is an “appreciation of otherness.” He says,
“Appreciating the value of otherness, for me, goes beyond tolerance – beyond “you’re welcome as long as you play by our rules.” Appreciating the value of otherness entails a level of engagement, inquiry, dialogue, and interaction in which all members can freely share their gifts, learn from each other, and ultimately grow spiritually together. This is hard work and takes time and practice. It takes a willingness to be stretched and to sit with discomfort. It takes a belief that there is “that of God in everyone.”
So, whether at Meeting for Worship, at your work meeting, with your yoga class, or wherever you are called to be hospitable this week, remember to have hospitable eyes, receive all as Christ, help people to feel that they belong and are appreciated, and remember that we are all strangers seeking to be known.
Now, as we enter waiting worship, take a moment to consider the following queries:
1. Who are the strangers in my midst? How am I a stranger to others?
2. How might I engage, interact, learn, and spiritually grow with those around me?
3. How at First Friends are we creating new places of belonging, places of sharing, of peace and of kindness, places where no one needs to defend themselves; places where each one is loved and accepted with one’s own fragility, abilities, and disabilities?