hospitality
Friends in Low Places
Sabbath Day Thoughts — Luke 14:1, 7-14
A number of years ago, I invited Michael, a local homeless man, to come share Easter dinner with me and Duane. Michael had worshipped with us some and even tried singing in the choir, sweating copiously in his blue choir robe and sometimes playing his African drum for us. I tried on a number of occasions to persuade him to move into permanent housing, but he always resisted, choosing instead to couch surf, moving from home to home, crashing with friends until he wore out his welcome. Michael seemed pleased with the Easter dinner invitation and promised to be there at two o’clock.
I was a little surprised on Easter Sunday when Michael wasn’t in church. But on my way home, I ran into him coming out of Stewart’s. He had a big bottle of Mountain Dew and an equally enormous bag of potato chips. Looking at the chips and soda, I asked doubtfully, “Michael, you are coming to our house for dinner, aren’t you?” He looked a little cagey but assured me that he wouldn’t miss it for the world.
When I got home, I told Duane that the odds were fifty/fifty that the man would actually show. But sure enough, Michael appeared at two, bearing his enormous bag of chips, unopened. I put the chips in a big party bowl and added it to the spread: ham, scalloped potatoes, asparagus, rolls, crudité, salad, and Michael’s chips. It was a feast.
Our lesson from Luke’s gospel describes a sabbath day feast hosted by Pharisees. In Jesus’ day, diners reclined on three low couches, called a triclinium. Those three couches surrounded a low central table where food was placed. Diners ate from common dishes, reaching with hands or pieces of bread to scoop up their dinner.
Your place at the triclinium said a lot about who you were in society. The guest of honor took the place of prominence next to the host with best access to food and conversation. Then other guests, by virtue of their social standing, took places of descending prominence on the couches. Guests of least honor were pushed out to the margins, where food might be passed to them by another diner or a servant. Your place in first century society was worked out with table fellowship. You invited guests of high standing to your banquet, hoping they would accept. This increased your social status in the eyes of the community, especially when your high-status guest had to reciprocate by inviting you to dine at their table.
As Jesus watched this complex dance of social maneuvering around the triclinium, he shared a teaching that contradicted traditional practices of hospitality. First, Jesus counseled diners to choose seats of humility, without any presumption of honor or status. Then, he advised that they should rethink the guestlist. Invite low-status guests who could not reciprocate their hospitality because they were poor or infirm.
Now, while righteous people like the Pharisees gave charitably for vulnerable neighbors, like widows, orphans, and refugees, the people whom Jesus described would never make the guestlist for the sabbath feast. The poor, maimed, lame, and blind would have been a disgrace at the table of a high-status Pharisee, like his host. Jesus’ words would have been incredibly offensive to everyone seated at the triclinium. There would have been some major acid reflux around the banquet table.
Practicing the sort of hospitality that Jesus advocated wasn’t easy in the first century, and it isn’t easy today. That Easter dinner with the homeless Michael was part of many interactions with him that were alternately funny, puzzling, and angering. One morning, Michael called me before six o’clock, waking me up. A doe had been hit and killed on the LePan Highway, near where he was couch surfing. He had butchered the doe for meat, but he wanted to know if I was interested in the hide of the unborn fawn. He thought I might like to tan it so that I could make a drum. Then, there was the day when Michael told me that God was calling him to work with children and youth at our church. That blew up even before it started when I asked him to collaborate with others and follow church policies. On another occasion, I returned home from a two-week vacation to learn that Michael had moved into the church basement in my absence. Everyone knew about it, but no one wanted to deal with it, so it was left to me to have the “come-to-Jesus” talk with my homeless buddy.
“Michael” I told him, “I wish you would let me help you get into an apartment. You’ve got to go. No one gets to live at the church, not even me.” He wasn’t happy, but he moved out, and he stopped coming to our church.
Jesus, do you understand what you are asking of us when you suggest that we invite our vulnerable, crippled, impoverished, crazy neighbors to be a real part of our lives? Honestly, Lord. Do you realize the difficulty, frustration, and risk that come when we open ourselves up to those sorts of relationships? We’re not sure we really want to go there. Can’t we, like the Pharisees, simply do our mitzvah and practice a little charitable giving, assuaging our conscience and maintaining the status quo?
Here is the rub. Jesus chose to specially identify with his neighbors who were vulnerable, stigmatized, and excluded. One of the reasons that Jesus was being carefully watched by the Pharisees was his practice of eating with sinners, tax collectors, and outcasts. On the sabbath day, when all eyes should be on God Almighty, Jesus reached out to heal the lowly, from bent-over-women to men with dropsy and withered hands. And while Jesus could have been building his social status by helping and healing the most prestigious households in the land, Jesus tended to blind beggars, demon-possessed boys, hemorrhaging women, and scabby unclean lepers. When Jesus got to Jerusalem, he would die as many of the people whom he helped had lived: outcast, rejected, in pain, and humiliated.
In the very last parable that Jesus shared with his friends, he exhorted them to see him in their most vulnerable and rejected of neighbors (Matt. 25:31-46). On the far side of death, on the far side of the miracle of resurrection, Jesus would continue to walk this earth in the guise of people who are sick and hungry, destitute and outcast, thirsty and imprisoned. He called these hurting folks his “little brothers and sisters.” Indeed, when disciples choose to welcome and serve these lowest-status neighbors, they are truly welcoming and serving the hidden Christ, who walks among us still.
In following the ethic of hospitality that Jesus taught, we dare to truly connect with our hurting and sometimes hard-to-love neighbors; and at the same time, we are playing host to Jesus. We never know where we might find him: in line at the Food Pantry, pushing a shopping cart home from the Grand Union, in need a ride to a doctor’s appointment, eating goulash at the Community Lunchbox, camping out in the church basement. When we encounter the hidden Jesus, it can be messy and uncomfortable. They may test our healthy boundaries with expectation for things we cannot give. They may not follow our good advice. They may have demons that we cannot exorcise. And still, we owe them a debt of love and a seat at the table. Will we extend ourselves in humility, sharing the simplest gifts of hospitality?
My homeless friend Michael skipped town. He was picked up in Lake Placid for possession of a small amount of marijuana, but because it was near a school, it was a big deal. As his court date neared, Michael vanished. Then, one early morning, almost a year later, Michael called me. What a surprise! True to form, Michael was using a borrowed cellphone, undoubtedly belonging to someone whose couch he was surfing.
“How are you?!” I wanted to know. “Where did you go? Is everything ok?”
Michael assured me that he was fine. He was back in the Midwest near family. He still loved the Lord, and he was helping a lot of people. We talked about life at the church and drumming. After a while, there was just silence on the line. Not comfortable, but not really uncomfortable. Eventually Michael spoke up, “I just want you to know I’m ok, and I’m not mad at you.” I assured him that I wasn’t mad at him either. We prayed and hung up.
I never heard from Michael again, but I suspect that one day we just might meet up again—at that heavenly feast on the far better shore over a big bag of potato chips.
Resources:
Carolyn Sharp. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 28, 2022. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.
David Jacobsen. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 28, 2016. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.
Jeannine Brown. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 289, 2010. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.
Mitzi Smith. “Commentary on Luke 14:1, 7-14” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 1, 2019. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
1On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
7When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 12He 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. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Cold Water
Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Cold Water” Matthew 10:40-42
“That’s some good ice tea.” It was James, in his polyester sport coat, pointy collared shirt, and freshly shined spats. James fancied himself to be the heir apparent to James Brown. Every so often during our Wednesday evening gatherings at the New York Avenue church, James would break into song and share his funkiest moves, feet shuffling almost too fast to be seen, body spinning then dropping into a split before popping back up, like magic.
James had offered his appreciation for the tea in the general direction of the tea makers, Connie and me. I was filling cups with the sweet, lemony tea, while Connie was perched on a chair, working on her latest crochet creation. The week before, I had cleaned out my yarn stash and brought Connie a big bag of odds and ends and never completed projects. If James thought he could compete with that for Connie’s attention, he had another think coming.
“Hey,” James ventured again, “Hey, Connie! I said that’s some good ice tea.” But Connie only rolled her eyes as if to say, “He’s crazy.” And he was. In fact, everyone was, in one way or another, both the guests and the hosts at the 729 Club where I volunteered.
“Connie!” I chided. She gave me a baleful look and put down her crochet hook.
“You are welcome, James,” she smiled as sugary sweet as the tea. That made James so happy that he did a little spin and bow, every bit as deft and debonair as the Godfather of Soul himself.
“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones…”
“I’d like some of that brown stuff,” it was a softly spoken request. I turned away from the sink where I had been washing dishes and peered into the dim light behind me. I spied him near the open back door, swaying a little bit, looking like he was about to bolt off into the dark. I was on the reservation for my cross-cultural quarter of seminary studies. My host was Sally Big Bear, a local spiritual leader, and this was her youngest brother, Habob. I’d seen him around the edges of things but had never heard him speak. Like many of the young adults on Rosebud, he struggled with addiction.
“I’d like some of that brown stuff,” Habob repeated, no eye contact, but his body language told me he was talking about the sheet cakes that rested on the kitchen counter. Earlier, after dinner, Sally had parceled out pieces of cake to the large extended family that had come for the meal – sons and daughters, children, grandchildren, aunties, uncles, neighbors, and even seminarians.
“Brown stuff?” I puzzled, looking at the crumby remnants, and picking up a knife. “Chocolate?”
Habob’s brow furrowed, “No, not chocolate. The brown stuff?” He asked again, hopeful.
That’s when I saw it, more beige than brown, crowned with a frothy brown sugar and coconut icing. “Ah! Spice cake!” I cut a large slab, balanced it on a paper plate and shrouded it in a cocoon of saran wrap. “For you!” I said, holding it out with two hands, and Habob received it with the same sort of reverence that a child reserves for a favorite toy or stuffed animal.
“Hmmm. Brown stuff! Thanks!” he mumbled before slipping out into the South Dakota darkness with his treasure.
About three o’clock the next day we heard news that too many families get on the reservation. Habob had been found dead in the abandoned house where he lived with other addicts.
“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones….”
“Lady, can you help my dog?” It was Johnny Wayne, the seven-year-old grandson of Mr. Robert. So far, Johnny Wayne had impressed us with his ability to cuss and cheat in bike races. I was in eastern Kentucky with my Youth Group. We were putting a new foundation under the back of Mr. Robert’s house. I’d spent most of the afternoon digging a ditch to lay drain tile to divert the water that would pour off Robert’s roof and under his home. Now, I was drinking cold water, as much as I could get, and sitting on the front porch taking a break.
“Lady, can you help my dog?” Johnny Wayne wanted to know. She was a big red pit bull mix with a saggy belly that told me she had had more than one litter of pups.
“What’s wrong?” I ventured warily.
“She’s got ticks.” Johnny Wayne wasn’t kidding. From ears to tail, Rosie was littered with ticks, more than I had ever seen, little and big, making a meal of her.
I confess that ticks repulse me. They’re like little insect vampires, dropping from trees or jumping out of the grass to make our lives miserable. And while I am a dog lover, I try to steer clear of anything that looks remotely like a pit bull. My reluctance must have been written all over my face as I said, “Wow. I’m not sure what you want me to do about that, Johnny Wayne.”
The little boy tried again. “C’mon, please! Help her. How would you like to be covered in ticks?”
I wouldn’t, and that’s when I realized that Johnny Wayne was good not only at swearing and cheating but also at getting grown-ups to do what he needed them to do.
“Ok.” I relented and spent the next thirty minutes picking ticks off Rosie. She rolled right over, as if she had known me all her life, while Johnny Wayne told me stories of all the good things that he was going to do with his father when he got out of prison.
“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones….”
There was a big cardboard box, right on the stoop, blocking my way to the front door when I got home from work. I’d had the “brilliant” idea to leave a well-paying job back east and test the waters of a career change by serving as a VISTA, Volunteer in Service to America. Now, I was a volunteer coordinator and health educator, working out of the Jackson County, Oregon, Health Department. That meant I spent all my time touting the benefits of WIC and the Oregon Health Plan while trying to convince women to get prenatal care and immunize their children, all for a princely monthly stipend of $600, which did not go far in a community where just renting a room cost about $350. I ate a lot of rice and beans that year.
Taped to the top of the cardboard box was a note written in easily recognizable, large wobbly letters, “For Joann.” The handwriting belonged to Ivan, a Vietnam vet who suffered from PTSD. I’m not really sure how I had met Ivan. He belonged to the Seventh Day Adventist Church in town, and sometimes he would join me on Sunday afternoons for hikes up in the mountains or drives down to the coast, activities which he felt a young woman should not be doing on her own.
A box from Ivan could hold a lot of things – tracts touting the benefits of being an Adventist, pumice stones that he picked up along the banks of the Rogue River, or maybe some great thrift store find, like a Rubik’s Cube or a jigsaw puzzle, missing a few pieces. But this night, when I dragged the box inside and popped it open, I found that it was full of vegetables. There were cucumbers and tomatoes, big leafy collard greens, onions, and zucchini squash big enough to double for baseball bats. Move over beans and rice, I had just hit the fresh produce jackpot!
When I called Ivan later to thank him for his kindness, I learned that he had grown the vegetables in a little garden plot that he had down at the Adventist church. I could just picture him that summer, patiently pulling weeds, watering, and harvesting. It was without question one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me. But why me? I wanted to know. Ivan’s answer was heartwarming and humbling all at the same time, “Joann, the Lord would want me to do something good for you.”
“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
Jesus taught his followers about the importance of simple acts of kindness that we can share in the course of our everyday living. When Jesus sent his disciples out on their gospel mission, he knew that they would depend upon the kindness of strangers. Jesus also taught that when we extend hospitality to our vulnerable neighbors, the little ones of our world, we are really caring for him. Hospitality, given and received, grants us a foretaste of the world that God would have us forge. It’s a kingdom where all are welcomed, loved, and cared for. It’s a world where James will spin Connie around the dance floor, and Habob will tuck into a second slice of spice cake. Johnny Wayne will play ball with his Daddy, Rosie will be free from ticks, and the tables of the poor will abound with fresh-picked produce. I want to be a part of that world. How about you?
Matthew 10:40-42
40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
The Community of Overflowing Love
Sabbath Day Thoughts — Matthew 28:16-20 “The Community of Overflowing Love”
Ireland has long been known as the Land of a Thousand Welcomes, with a well-deserved reputation as the most hospitable nation on earth. In Ireland, lost tourists looking for directions find themselves escorted to their destination with many a story along the way. Visitors to a pub are welcomed like old friends with raised glasses and calls of “Slainte!” An afternoon visit leads to tea with many a cuppa’ and soda bread dotted with raisins and slathered with butter.
This unofficial code of Irish welcome dates back more than 1,000 years to when the Irish clans were regulated by the Brehon Laws. Under Brehon Law, all households were obliged to provide some measure of hospitality to strangers—food, drink, entertainment, and a bed. No prying questions could be asked of the guest, and once hospitality was accepted, the guest refrained from any quarrel or harsh words. The only price of hospitality was the exchange of stories, poetry, and song. In a rural land with few roads and long distances between settlements, these ancient Irish traditions ensured a much-needed welcome for weary travelers.
Today, the warm welcome of the Irish continues to summon visitors from around the world. In 2019, before the pandemic, 11.3 million travelers visited the Land of a Thousand Welcomes, more than double the Irish population. That’s almost three times the number of annual visitors to the Holy Land.
At the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus cast a vision for the life and ministry of his disciples. We call it the Great Commission. Jesus sent his friends forth to all nations to share the gospel. They were commissioned to bear witness to God’s great love for all people, a love that was revealed in the life, death and rising of their Lord. For their mission, the disciples would rely on the hospitality of others. They had to trust that there would be a welcome waiting for them at the end of a long day of travel—safety, the sharing of food, drink, entertainment, and a bed.
It was in acts of hospitality, in the welcoming of strangers and the telling of stories, that the good news of Jesus Christ was shared. At the table or while seated at the fire, tales were told. Strangers became friends. Disciple begat disciple. Hosts were welcomed into the community of Christ, which had its own far-reaching hospitality, a hospitality that found its ultimate expression in the rite of baptism. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, guest became host, host became guest, and all became One in the family of love and faith that Jesus commanded his disciples to make.
Jesus’ vision of an expanding community of love is grounded in the Trinity—the belief that God is Three-in-One. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in eternal community, three simultaneous, co-equal expressions of the One Holy and Almighty God. The theologians say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit indwell each other (perichoresis). They make room for one another and are hospitable to one another. Reformed author and pastor Leonard Vander Zee describes the Trinity eloquently and understandably when he writes, “At the center of all reality, at the heart of the universe, there exists an eternal divine community of perfect love.”
Everything that we know flows forth from that perfect love. Creation is the expansion and delight of that overflowing divine love. All creatures arise from that overflowing divine love. We are an expression of that overflowing divine love. It is no wonder that when Jesus cast the vision for the church, it was a vision of overflowing divine love, of disciples going forth in love to welcome friends, neighbors, strangers, and all nations into that eternal community of perfect love. Now that’s what we call holy hospitality.
Standing at the intersection of the ancient Brehon Laws of hospitality and the overflowing love of the Triune God is Brigid of Ireland. With Patrick and Columba, Brigid is one of the three patron saints of the Land of a Thousand Welcomes. While Patrick evangelized the Irish, and Columba sailed off to share the gospel with the Scots, Brigid was consecrated as a bishop and established Irish communities where the overflowing love of Christ was revealed.
In the 6th century, Brigid was born a slave to a pagan chieftain and his Christian dairymaid. From an early age, Brigid resolved to live a life of dedication to Christ with great kindness and generosity. She so infuriated her father by giving away his possessions to anyone in need that he sold her with her mother to the household of a druid priest. There, Brigid’s generosity got her into trouble again. Her druid master confronted her for giving away the entire supply of butter, but when Brigid prayed, the butter supply was divinely restored—and more. Her master’s household prospered and grew rich with abundance. Convicted of Brigid’s holiness, the druid and his family were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The druid’s first action as a newborn member of that community of overflowing divine love was to give Brigid her freedom.
Brigid’s kindness and generosity often extended to the most vulnerable of her neighbors. When she fell while riding and struck her head, she asked that the blood from her wound be mixed with water and used to anoint two sisters who were deaf and mute. Both were healed. When a cow had been sorely troubled and milked dry by hungry neighbors, Brigid blessed the poor beast, which then provided ten times the milk expected of it and never went dry again. Brigid gave a mug of water to a leper, instructing him to wash with it, and he was made clean. Brigid’s self-proclaimed purpose was “to satisfy the poor, to banish every hardship, and to save every sorrowful man.” That sounds like what Jesus had in mind when he sent out his disciples to share the overflowing love of the Triune God.
Brigid believed in the power of community to extend the outreaching, overflowing love of Christ. With seven other Christian women, Brigid went to the King of Kildare to request land to build a Christian community. When the king refused, Brigid persuaded him to give her a parcel of land no larger than her cloak could cover. The king agreed. Four women were given the corners of her cloak, and as Brigid prayed, they began to walk. The Lord brought the increase, expanding the cloak until it covered a generous parcel of land, the Curragh of Kildare.
There Brigid and her friends built a large double monastery for women and men. Kildare Abbey was a center for learning, worship, farming, the arts, and, of course, hospitality. In the Spirit of Christ and the tradition of Brehon Law, strangers were welcomed with food, drink, entertainment, and rest. In the sharing of stories, many a visitor came to know the overflowing love of God and was baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
On Trinity Sunday, we celebrate that eternal, divine community of perfect love that lives at the heart of the universe. We remember Jesus’s vision of a ministry of overflowing divine love for all nations. Brigid believed that when we go forth in that overflowing love of the Trinity, we become Christ to others and they become Christ to us. Brigid said, “It is in the name of Christ that I feed the poor, for Christ is the body of every poor man.” As we are a blessing to others, they become a blessing to us. This morning, Jesus and Brigid bid us to ponder: How will we go forth to share the overflowing perfect love of the Triune God?
I’ll close with the Irish Rune of Hospitality, attributed to Brigid.
“I saw a stranger yestere’en;
I put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place,
And in the name of the Triune
He blessed myself and my house,
My cattle and my dear ones,
And the lark said in her song
Often, often, often,
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise,
Often, often, often,
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.”
Resources:
Daniel Migliore. Faith Seeking Understanding. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1991.
Leonard Vander Zee. “The Holy Trinity: The Community of Love at the Heart of Reality” in The Banner, Feb. 26, 2016.
Wendy Hopler. “Biography of Brigid of Kildare” in Learn Religions, June 10, 2019. Accessed online at learnreligions.com.
John D. Gee. “5 Lessons from St. Brigid of Kildare” in Patheos: Hosting the Conversation on Faith, Feb. 1, 2021. Accessed online at patheos.com.
Mary Dugan Doss. “A Gift of Hospitality: Saint Brigid, Abbess of Kildare” in Orthodox Christianity, Feb. 1, 2014. Accessed online at orthochristian.com.
Matthew 28:16-20
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Joann White 