Today is the Third Sunday after Pentecost and it is Father’s Day in the United States.
I’m actually preaching this morning in Columbia, Missouri at the First Baptist Church in celebration of their 200th birthday! (You can watch live here if you like.) Yesterday, I gave a presentation on history as a spiritual practice. My sermon is on these lectionary passages from Genesis and Matthew — and centers on another spiritual practice — hospitality.
The readings are below.
Genesis 18:1-15
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”
Matthew 9:35-10:15
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
Last week’s Sunday Musings made the point that “Ordinary Time” (another name for the season of Pentecost) began with the story of two journeys — God called Abram to leave his home to find a new one, and Jesus called Matthew, a tax-collector, to leave his job and “follow me.” In both testaments, we heard stories of moving from familiarity to uncertainty, from the known to the unknown. You’d think it should be called extraordinary time. But no. Such journeys are the regular state of things when it comes to answering God’s invitation.
One thing that people on a journey know is the importance of hospitality. What will you eat? Where will you sleep? To whom can you entrust your safety?
The readings today are both stories about hospitality — and both make the point that welcoming the stranger is central to the life of faith. Indeed, if the spiritual life is a journey, hospitality is necessary. Without hospitality, without the faith to believe that our basic human needs will be met along the way, most of us would stay cowered in fear, unable to venture forth to follow.
In Genesis, we hear of Abraham sitting by his tent on a hot day. Three strangers wander by, and Abraham offers them water, rest, and food. This act of hospitality sets the stage for the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah: a son in their old age.
What I love the most about this story is that Abraham and Sarah aren’t settled in a new place. They are still on their journey from Ur to the promised land. Genesis mentions some seventeen different places along their way, and this happens in the twelfth — by no means final — location. Abraham and Sarah are journeyers who offer hospitality to others on a journey. And they themselves have been and will be the recipients of hospitality as well as givers.
Christians don’t often read the Matthew text as a story of hospitality. We are trained to read it as a story of mission, and to put ourselves in the place of the disciples who go out to minister in God’s name.
But the entire text hangs on hospitality: Jesus directs his followers to only go to houses that are “worthy.” Skip “unworthy” houses — “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.” Only go to those who offer hospitality. If a household doesn’t welcome strangers like you, bypass those people. The miracles of healing and the message of God’s kingdom are contingent on hospitality offered. To make sure that his disciples understand the relationship between hospitality and God’s blessing, Jesus reminds them of Sodom and Gomorrah — the two cities destroyed in Genesis for not welcoming strangers.
In the same way that God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah is fulfilled through an act of hospitality in Genesis, so God’s promise of the kingdom through Jesus can only be fulfilled by the open doors of hospitality.
God’s journeying people depend upon the hospitality of others; and God’s journeying people offer hospitality along their way. It is this circle of mutual welcome, setting tables of water and bread, providing safety and shelter, that is the nidus of divine promise — the birthing place of the commonwealth of God.
This is Ordinary Time: Follow me. Welcome the stranger.
What surprising promises await? We might even find ourselves laughing out loud. Are you kidding, God? It is that easy?
INSPIRATION
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
They may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Rumi
The rivulet-loving wanderer Abraham
Through waterless wastes tracing his fields of pasture
Led his Chaldean herds and fattening flocks
With the meandering art of wavering water
That seeks and finds, yet does not know its way.
He came, rested and prospered, and went on,
Scattering behind him little pastoral kingdoms,
And over each one its own particular sky,
Not the great rounded sky through which he journeyed,
That went with him but when he rested changed.
His mind was full of names
Learned from strange peoples speaking alien tongues,
And all that was theirs one day he would inherit.
He died content and full of years, though still
The Promise had not come, and left his bones,
Far from his father's house, in alien Canaan.
— Edwin Muir, “Abraham”
SOUTHERN LIGHTS IS BACK!
January 12 -14, 2024
Last January, almost 700 people gathered at St. Simon’s Island in Georgia for a packed weekend of poetry, theology, and music.
WE’RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN!
YOU ARE INVITED to join me and Brian McLaren as we reimagine our faith together beyond patriarchy and hierarchy in our interior lives, in our communities of faith, and in the Scriptures. We’ve asked three remarkable speakers to take us through this journey: Cole Arthur Riley, Simran Jeet Singh, and Elizabeth “Libbie” Schrader Polczer.
Please come and be with us in Georgia. Or, if you’d rather be with us online, you can choose that option as well.
MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION CAN BE FOUND HERE.
Subscribers to The Cottage can receive an early bird discount of $15 off through July 31. ENTER this code: dbcottage24
If you missed my Father’s Day essay, “Dad Pride,” you can read it here. It is a moving and tender story about the complexity of family — and currently is one of the most widely read and shared posts of 2024.
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to all you dads, to you holding memories of your fathers, and those who father anyone in need of a dad.
We always think of hospitality as inviting someone into our space. In Luke 19, Jesus turns hospitality on its' head by inviting himself into Zacchaeus' space.
Hospitality is Grace.