Strangers Among Us
A sermon
delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson
September 9,
2012
at Gordonsville
Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia
Romans 12:13b
Deuteronomy 26: 1-11
Luke 14: 7-14
Let
us pray,
Help us to see
despite our eyes
Help us to think
outside our minds
Help us to be
more than our lives
For your eyes show us the way
Your mind knows the truth
Your being is the life.
Amen.
The
NRSV chooses to place a paragraph indention at the end of this morning's verse
in the marks of a Christian from Romans 12, so we've made it through at least
what the NRSV chose to delineate as the first paragraph of this dense passage.
There does seem to be a change of pace after this morning, in that after this
morning, the passage gets even more radical. So far the Marks of a Christian
have been ultra demanding, but next week we get into how a Christian is
supposed to deal with enemies and hatred, pretty radical stuff, especially
since we will talk about loving our enemies and overcoming hatred with love,
but this week, although not so radical, is very difficult in our inward focused
world, and that is Romans 12:13b "Extend Hospitality to Strangers,"
so taking a look back before proceeding forward:
9
Let love be genuine; hate what is
evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual
affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in
zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.12 Rejoice in hope, be
patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the
needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. [1]
To pair with "extend hospitality to strangers" I
chose a passage where Jesus is discussing hospitality in the parable of the
wedding feast from Luke 14:7-14:
When 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; 9 and 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. 10 But 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. 11 For all who exalt
themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
12 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. 13 But
when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the
blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you,
for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
One of the ways that I sometimes get
at what I want to say about a text on a given week is to think about what's
most obvious. I try to get at what the cliche sermon would be for a given text.
I think about all the sermons I've listened to and try to think about what the
typical preacher would say about it, and then I try to tip that upside down,
and go just a little deeper? I try to challenge the standard and see if there
isn't something more waiting beyond obvious. So with this text I think the
standard would be trying to get the congregation to look outside of themselves
and to seek ways to become outward focused, to push people to greet visitors a
little bit more friendly, to be more aggressive when it comes to inviting folks
to the church, that maybe we should reinstate passing the peace to get us out
of our seats and greeting each other just a little more. There are movements
all across America as our the mainline denomination attendance is falling to
try to reach out and grab people and bring them into our church, to be
welcoming because that is what it takes to grow a church, and this passage
sings out to do so. That's what I think the standard sermon for this text would
be, and I'm sure you've heard that type of sermon before. Let's find ways to be
more welcoming, so we can grow, grow, grow, sell, sell, sell, and feel better
about ourselves. But is that hospitality, is that extending, is that what we
are being called to do in this passage, or like most of these marks of a
Christian, does it require so much more. Remember, as we've seen every week
since we've begun this study, that the marks of a Christian parallel the marks
of Christ, the marks of the cross, the marks of the nails through the hands and
feet, requires more than just being more friendly, why would this week be any
different? Why would this passage, and its demands, all of a sudden, be doable,
checkable, simple, and barely nudging us out of our pews and our comfort zones.
Like we've done so often during this
series of sermons let's look at the words. Extend in Hospitality to Strangers.
Basically we are looking at three key words in English, the verb Extend, the
object of what is being extending, "hospitality" and the recipient,
"strangers." In Greek though what is 5 words, extend in hospitality
to strangers, is simply two. Diokontes Philoxenia. Diokontes which is
translates as extend, and then hospitality to strangers is Philoxenia. Let's
talk Diokontes first.
The NRSV says "extend",
but as I was looking it up in the lexicon I found it is translated many different
ways, but based on the context is best looked at as "to run fast in order
to catch a person or a thing." To chase, to pursue, to earnestly endeavor
to acquire." This is much more aggressive, much more direct than merely to
"extend." So the ante is raised, extend just falls far short.
Now let's look at the object,
"strangers," skipping over hospitality because I want to spend the
most time on hospitality, bringing our gospel passage into play. Philoxenia, a
word that is typically translated as "hospitality to strangers" is
actually a compound word. Philo, which we've seen before, "love" like
in English Philosopher, lover of wisdom, or Philadelphia, brotherly love, as we
looked at a few weeks ago, Philanthropy, lover of people, here we have philo xenia,
lover of the stranger. Now when we think of stranger, perhaps you are like me,
you revert back to childhood, and possibly it is different for you all because
our society has greatly changed over the years, but think of what we now teach
our kids about strangers. There is "don't talk to strangers;"
"Don't take candy from strangers;" "Beware of strangers;"
In Strangers there is danger. Was it like that for you when you were a kid? But
here we are called to go out, actively pursuing strangers in love.
As our Old Testament lesson showed
there is a grand tradition in the Bible of strangers, both in being a stranger
and in caring for strangers. "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor, and he
went down into Egypt and lived there as a stranger. . ." It all begins
with being a stranger, and many of the rites and rituals outlined in the
Pentateuch are focused on remembering that as a people the Hebrews were once
strangers, remembering that, remembering the vulnerability that a stranger
experiences, remembering how God reached out his hand to help, how others along
the way reached out their hand to help them as they were strangers in a strange
land, throughout the history from Egypt to the promised land, to the divided
kingdoms, to the exile, to the reclaiming of the land and the reestablishment
of the temple in Jerusalem, the concept of care for strangers is central to the
Jewish understanding of identity and responsibility. It's somewhat foreign to
us in America, though it is ironic as this is a nation of immigrants and in such
a nation of strangers, but rather than allowing our status as strangers bring
us together we have let it tear us apart, maybe it is because we do not know
who we are. Perhaps, and maybe forgetting that we are strangers and vulnerable
is a major part of our problems.
I bring this up because this is the
context for hospitality to strangers in our text. Strangers is not simply the
people that we don't know, but the people who are on the outside, the margins
of society, and to extend, rather chase, pursue, overcome, run after, is our
call to them, quite more extensive than merely greeting our visitors, whom we
do not know. It is interesting too, because the reaching out to strangers is in
a way forging an identity. For the Jews it was part of their history, part of
who they were as a people, and reaching out to strangers became a way of
internalizing that unique status and position. Now look at us Christians, as we
try to live up to the Marks of a True Christian, we too find our identity in
our history as strangers, looking to Christ, our Lord, who was a stranger in
this world, was cast aside. Remembering that heritage as a part of who we are
and who we are called to be can really be centering and identifying for
Christians.
And that brings me to hospitality.
Do we understand hospitality any more in our culture? We are consumers we pay
for people to be hospitable to us. Restaurants and hotels and the such have
changed the idea of hospitality. In ancient times travelers were welcomed in,
given food, given shelter. There were no such thing as reservations, no such
thing as travelers checks, no such thing as McDonalds. Travelers had to rely on
the hospitality of folks if they were to survive, and like most things in
society where there is necessity there is invention. Because there was a need
for people to be hospitable people were. It was understood, it was part of a
code. In many so called underdeveloped societies in our modern times you still
see these types of hospitality remnants. Are we truly so advanced? Remember
what we teach our children about strangers, hitch hikers, strange knocks at the
door. Think about it the next time at Halloween you see a "Trunk or
Treat" and think about why there is a need for safety's sake to not have
kids knock on strange doors. Where is the hospitality in our society today? Our
fragmented distrusting world has almost completely forgotten the notion.
And so that leaves church. Are we
hospitable to the stranger? Do we know what true hospitality is? Are our
greeters and visitor cards and warm smiles enough? We've had visitors, we've
had people we've never met walk through that door, but when was the last time
we had a stranger, on a Sunday, a true definition of a stranger, the oldest
definition, the wandering Aramean type definition? And yet this passage says
that the "true Christian" doesn't just wait for the stranger to
greet, who never shows up, but runs after the stranger, takes hospitality to
the stranger, on the stranger's terms, on the stranger's turf. Hospitality on
the run.
Now why? Let's look at what Jesus
calls hospitality because he like me, seems to like to take common
understandings and amp them up beyond the cliched norm. The first part of his wedding feast parable deals with the
humility needed to be hospitable. There is a lowering of self, so that the
other, the stranger may truly be raised up. The I is lost, the I am such and
such is lost, the we are such and such is lost, the us is lost, and it becomes
about the other person. Not we are glad to have you, see the pronouns of
inclusion and exclusion, we / you, but "he may say to you, friend move up
higher." Radical, the stranger sets the parameters of the meeting, the
guidelines, the status. Then the second part has to do with the why. Why humble
yourself? Why extend hospitality? Why stick your neck out?
I've seen it across the country in
meetings and focus groups and seminary classes we need to grow our church, we
need to get people in, the church is dying, we need to be more externally
focused so that we do not die. Again there it is we, we, we. Look at how Jesus
explains hospitality.
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. 13
But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and
the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.
They cannot repay you, hello, it's not about you, it's about
them. We extend hospitality not because we want to grow but because we care. We
care about the stranger. We care about the stranger because we are strangers
too, we were strangers too, Christ was a stranger too, and set an amazing
example of hospitality by disrobing the heavenly honor, casting aside the
crown, and becoming flesh, becoming one of us, a stranger amongst us, to save
other strangers, so that we may all be found again, loved again, claimed again
in God's house, in God's family, to live in peace and love and new found
identity forever. So yeah we better greet our visitors, and yeah we better be
as friendly as we can, but our hospitality cannot be bound by that door, and it
cannot be bound by this hour once a week, it must be a hospitality that
aggressively breaks outside into the world. Romans 12:13b Diokontes Philoxenia,
Agressively pursue being a lover of the stranger, again the marks of the
Christian are the marks of Christ, radical, extreme, immaculate, messy,
personal, sustained with blood and sweat, and discomfort, and risk, and above
all forged in the amazing possibilities of the ultimate definition of love. May
God give us the strength. Amen.
[1]The
Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Ro 12:9-13). Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers.
No comments:
Post a Comment