Hospitality to Strangers

My memories of Hebrews 13:2 go back to my childhood, and a book that I received from my godparents.  It was called, "Angel Unaware", by Dale Evans Rogers (remember Roy Rogers?) and was about their young daughter who died while she was yet a  child.  I remember the positive message that caring for a sick child turned out to be a blessing and a transformation rather than a hardship.

I suppose that this verse is one of the best known passages of scripture.  It's right up there with, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever."  Or "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen".  And who wouldn't want to entertain an angel (even though you didn't know it until afterwards)?

But since I am now a student of Biblical languages (especially Greek), and since I have been thinking more deeply (especially lately) about the word "stranger", I can't stop thinking about this passage of scripture.

I start with that really disarmingly short first verse.  "Let mutual love continue."  You know what "mutual love" is in Greek?  Philadelphia.  The city of brotherly love.  So love your brothers and sisters.  That's the first thing.  And that makes sense, right?  Not controversial at all.  Not that I'm saying that it's always EASY, but it makes sense to love "one another."

But the next part -- about showing hospitality to strangers -- well, that's another thing, if you really think about it.  Without any disrespect to Dale Evans Rogers, the word "hospitality to strangers" in Greek is really one word "philoxenia" -- which means "love of the stranger."  To be hospitable is to love the stranger.   And the word entertain?  is the word "xenos" in Greek, which means both to be a host AND to be strange.  To be a good host is -- in a way -- to be strange.  Or maybe -- just maybe -- the best host knows what it means to be a stranger.

This blows my mind.  This blows my mind as an American and a Christian and a pastor.  Partly because when I hear the word "stranger" -- this is a word that I don't associate with angels so much as I do with fear.  Especially these days, but not only these days.  These days we are afraid of the strangers at the border, people whose lives and poverty we cannot seem to imagine.  But most of us -- were at one time strangers and sojourners in this land as well.  We were immigrants from somewhere, poor or hopeful or fleeing oppression.  Most of our families have a story about when they were strangers, when they didn't know the language, when they prayed that someone would be kind, speak slowly, help them count their change in the grocery store, help them find their way in a strange city or a strange neighborhood.

But perhaps the best host knows what it means to be a stranger, and perhaps this applies to the church as well.  We have become too at home here in this world.  We have forgotten what it means to be a stranger, and this affects our ability to truly share the good news.

I remember that long ago, I lived as a missionary in Japan.  I was there to share the gospel, to invite people to the great feast, which is Jesus and his love.  But most of the time, I was a stranger.  I couldn't read the labels on food in the grocery store.  I didn't know how to cook most of the food I found there, at least at first.  I only knew a few other people, who came to Japan with me.  I understood the rhythm of the liturgy, but not the words.   And it seemed to me (although I didn't realize this for a long time) that this was a part of the point.  To be a stranger.  Not to know everything.  Just to know Christ, and him crucified.

We used to get off the trains in our neighborhood, and walk through the streets, smelling the good smells coming from people's houses.  We would joke about knocking on stranger's doors and invite ourselves in for dinner, but we had learned enough Japanese culture to understand that we should never do that.  But we knew that we were vulnerable, and needed help to navigate the world.

Perhaps the best host knows what it means to be a stranger.  I can't help thinking about Jesus, who was guest at so many parties, and how many people thought they knew him, but they didn't.  He was the best host who, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and shared it with his disciples.

The truth is, the world is a strange place, and the Kingdom of God is stranger still.  Love your enemies.  Forgive people, and keep forgiving them.  Be generous.  Give everything away, and you will be rich.  You are deeply flawed, and you are deeply loved.  You are not what you do.  You are not what you buy.   Love the stranger.

There is no "strategy" to mission.  It's just love.  Love one another.  Love the stranger.  Love yourself, in all of your strangeness.  Love Jesus.  After all, the best host knows what it means to be a stranger.

House Blessing

I presided at my first ever house blessing last weekend, after church.  A member of my congregation contacted me and asked if I would come out sometime in June and bless her home, and all of the rooms.  She said that a former pastor had done it for her once, many years ago.  This time she wanted her house blessed because it had been damaged in the hurricane last August.  They had spent the past nine months repairing and painting and decorating:  just she and her son, and a few of his friends.  It wasn't quite done, but she felt that it was time to celebrate their hard work.  It was time to celebrate her home.

I did not grow up hearing about a custom called "House Blessings".  We didn't study it in seminary either.  But somewhere in the past few years, something must have made me curious, because I have a distinct memory of googling "house blessings", and of asking a friend of mine who is Episcopalian to send me a copy of a house blessing from his Occasional Services Book.  I kept that for a long time.  Perhaps I just wanted to be ready, just in case someone asked me.

So when this woman called me, I was eager to come.  And I discovered that my denomination's new Occasional Services Book now had an order for the Blessing of a Dwelling.  I asked my church member if I needed to bring anything.  "No," she said, "but bring a few people from the church.  I want to celebrate with them."  I told he that the service called for the lighting of a candle.  She said that she would purchase one.

She also told me that she would serve us a special meal at the close of the blessing.

I checked my Occasional Services Book, and guess what?  The order of worship says that "a meal may be shared."

I had never been to this woman's house before.  So, on the day of the blessing, I turned on my trusty GPS and we set out.  It was not far, but the house was off the beaten path.  We turned on a couple of gravel roads.  I was afraid I might be lost, but I was not.

The house was modest and beautiful, each room painted in bright colors.  Everything said "celebration" to me.   There were friends from the church, and a friend of her teenage daughter.  We discussed briefly which rooms she wanted me to bless.  At the right time, I stood in the middle of the living area, and we lit the candle and began.  We took the candle from room to room, reading scripture and praying in each area:  the entrance, the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, the place where pets were kept.  There was even a special scripture and prayer for a teenager's room.  I asked her daughter which Scripture verse she wanted me to use (there were two choices).  She chose this one:

"It is in vain to raise so early and go to bed so late.  You, Lord, give sleep to your beloved."  (Psalm 127:2)

Near the end, there was a suggestion for everyone to remember the promise given to them in baptism, to serve everywhere in Christ's name.  And the rubrics said, "Water may be sprinkled on the people in thanksgiving for the gift of baptism."  I wasn't sure what to do, but it seemed like a good idea.

Her teenage daughter said "Wait a minute," and came out with a water bottle.   I sprayed everyone's hands with the water bottle, and we laughed.

Then we prayed the Lord's prayer, and we sat down to the feast prepared for us.

It was my first house blessing.

And I was blessed.

I think how at the end of the service at church I give the benediction:  the blessing.  Why should it stop there?  Why shouldn't it extend into homes and neighborhoods, among friends and neighbors, along gravel roads and at meals, and where people are weeping and where people are rejoicing?  Why shouldn't it extend even farther out, beyond the boundaries to the outcasts and the hungry and the lonely and the desperate?

We have forgotten our mission.  It is blessing.

Doors

This summer we started a new ministry:  a Wednesday all-day program for children.  The children come for fun and games and Bible stories and crafts.  At the end of the day we invite everyone to stay for a picnic on our front lawn, culminating in an informal church service on our front lawn, which we have nicknamed 'Picnic Church."

Picnic church has been pretty successful for us.  Not all of the children stay for supper every week, but we have had a good mix of people from our own congregation and people from our neighborhood.  Some of them just come for the picnic, of course; others have stayed for church, but I haven't seen them again.  A few have come every week, and we've gotten to know their names.

For me, one of the things I love is that when someone comes in for a gas voucher, I can give the letter, tell them about the local food shelf, and then invite them to Picnic Church.

I have been wondering what made Picnic Church successful where other attempts at evangelism have fallen flat.  I have supposed that it had something to do with the informality of the outdoors and the atmosphere.  I have hazarded the guess that there is an addictive substance in grilled hamburgers and hot dogs that beckons people to come.

But, in the end, I decided that it has something to do with doors.

Or specifically, it has to do with the fact that there are no doors on the Picnic Church.

On Wednesday, out on our wonderful front lawn (our front lawn is wonderful), I have on occasion glanced over at the front door to our church.  It's a beautiful church, with stained glass windows.  The first set of doors, though, just leads into the our narthex.  If you want to go into the sanctuary, you have to go through two sets of doors.

I had never thought of that before.

I considered that it might be intimidating to have to go through not one, but two sets of doors, and to sit down and worship with a bunch of strangers.  They may be singing that "All Are Welcome", but it might not feel like it, not really.  It might just be too hard to go through those two sets of doors, into that building that seems like someone else's house.  The doors are thick and heavy, and mark the difference between inside and outside.

At "Picnic Church" you don't have to go through those doors.  There are no doors.

Maybe there is another reason that "Picnic Church" has been successful.  Maybe it is we who are different.  Out there on the lawn, the church is not a building that we built, that belongs to us, that we have to guard and protect.  Out there on the church, we are neighbors and strangers, not insiders and outsiders.  Out there on the lawn we are all hungry, and the grace we all receive does not belong to us, any more than the church, with its heavy doors, belongs to us.

We have not ventured far:  just the front lawn.  But it is a first step out into the neighborhood, the world where God waits, outside the doors.

"Bread And Wine: a Love Letter to Life Around the Table": A Reflection

I just finished reading Shauna Niequest's lovely book, "Bread and Wine," which I have been reading in fits and starts for awhile now, mostly just before bedtime.  The writing is lovely, and sometimes even mouth-watering, which is understandable given the fact that the book centers around hospitality and cooking and what happens when we welcome one another and care for one another at the tables we set for each other.  There's an intimacy in this book:  the stories around the table are filled with people she loves, both rejoicing and broken-hearted, in moments of sorrow and celebration.

I am going to confess right now that I don't do much entertaining, Christmas and Easter and a couple of other occasions are about all I can manage.  Although all of her recipes sounded delicious, I can't imagine myself trying a single one.  Shauna encourages her readers to plan dinner parties, to make entertaining a Christian discipline, although for most of her book, this is implicit in her writing, not stated aloud.  Life around the table is transformative, she tells us.

I believe her.

I believe that life around the table is transformative, as she says.  It matters not whether the meal is elaborate or simple, there is something about eating together, that activity most necessary for life, that binds us to one another and transforms us, makes us family.

I still remember the rare occasion that my family would go out to eat:  at a popular Italian restaurant in the downtown area of our city.  It was supposed to be a big deal, and of course it was; we all still remember the occasions.  But what I also remember is that all of us knew the truth:  my mom's spaghetti was far superior to what the restaurant offered.   My mom's spaghetti was one of the things that bound us together, and not because it was a gourmet recipe.  Simply because it was my mom's spaghetti.  I actually made it for Easter once, when my niece and nephew were little, and my parents were away for the holiday.  I was exhausted from Easter worship, but I wanted to have my brother and his family over, so I made my mom's spaghetti and salad.

Life around the table is transformative, and Shauna writes so well about how the food and company shared got her through hard times and somehow made life holy.

And yet, believing all this, I still think that something is missing.  As I reflect back on the transformation that has happened around tables for me -- I realize that many of those moments involve not the intimacy of sharing with family and friends, but the utter grace of sharing with strangers.  There were the curry rice lunches after church at Hiyoshi Church in Tokyo, especially at the beginning when I knew no Japanese. There was the meatball dinner my church prepared and served at The Banquet in South Dakota.  Then we sat down to eat and share stories with all who were hungry.  There was the time I was living in community in Denver Colorado, and we were told that a number of Arminian refugees would be staying with us for the weekend.  It was my night to cook, I realized with fear and trembling, as I tried to figure out what to make for twenty people instead of ten, half of whom did not speak English.

Life around the table is transformative.  This is most certainly true.

Shauna Niequest's vision is a compelling one.  She tells us that it's not just Holy Communion, but every meal shared, that can be Holy.  Every table can be the Lord's table.  I can see the candles burning down, the table set, the wine glasses poured.  I would love to be a guest at her table.  I know I would learn much about what it means to be loved and welcomed.  I wish I had her cooking courage.

And yet something is still missing for me.  Perhaps it is because, when she brings up the sacrament of Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, what comes to mind for me is not just the intimacy of eating together, but the utter grace of sharing with strangers, and how our tables and our churches are still, for the most part, not inclusive enough, in matters of race and class.

 The stories she tells are holy, and the tables she sets are holy.  But for me, more stretching needs to be done.  My heart yearns for a hospitality that is even wider, a table set to welcome strangers.

Mary, Martha and Me

I was a freshly minted pastor living in a newly painted and repaired parsonage.  In July I had moved in, and I heard stories of how proud the congregation was of its parsonage.  I could tell that they had modernized both of the bathrooms and redecorated the guest room upstairs.

Once fall hit, I began to hear a few people say it was perhaps time for the new pastor to host an open house.  Some Sunday afternoon invite everyone who wants to come from the three churches.  They will want the chance to visit with you informally.  They will be curious about what the inside of your house looks like.  They will want to see how you decorated it.

It was a small parish, but not that small.  There were three congregations.  There was the potential for a lot of people to walk through my house that afternoon.  I needed to be able to serve them.  I needed to have food and coffee (these are Lutherans after all) and other refreshments.  And I was a single pastor:  there was no pastor's wife to pay attention to what was running out and to replenish.  I started to plan and fret and think about logistics.  I wanted to be generous.  Though I am not an accomplished baker, I wanted to bake something.

In the midst of my fretting and caring, someone from one of the churches took me aside and said:  "If you want to make something, Pastor, you go right ahead.  But don't worry about doing all the cooking. And don't worry about serving.  We will also bring treats, and we will serve.  We want you to be able to spend your time visiting, not serving."

It is something a freshly-minted pastor needs to hear, sometimes:  ministry is not just about how much you do, how you rush around and serve and create programs and make things happen.  Ministry is about how you sit and listen.

I wanted to show hospitality:  that's the truth.  I wanted to be a good pastor:  that's also the truth.  What those women were telling me was that their first priority for me, as their pastor, was to know them.  They wanted me to know their names, hear their stories, and listen.  They wanted me to begin to know what the rhythm of their lives was like.  That is as much hospitality as staying up late making brownies and running around filling coffee cups.

These past few days I'm thinking that these lessons apply not just to pastors and parish members, but to whole communities.  I'm thinking that while most of us want to be smart and in charge and running around with the answers, but the first thing we often need to do is sit and listen.  In communities I'm thinking of the conversations we need to have around race and privilege, around profiling and fear.  And I'm especially thinking that those of us who are white need to sit and listen to those communities of color in our neighborhood, to know their names, to listen to their stories, to hear their perceptions and their reality.  But for us it means not being in control.  It means being attentive to someone else's agenda, not just my own.  It means shifting our perceptions.

I think of the women of the church, who wanted me to sit still and listen.  Here I was, a freshly-minted pastor from the big city.  What did I know about the rhythms of rural life?  To truly serve them I needed to sit still and listen.  I think about the pain and fear in our communities, the things we don't know or won't believe because we don't sit still and listen.

There is more than one kind of hospitality:  that's the truth.  But true hospitality always puts the other person in the center, in some ways or another.   Sometimes the greatest gift we can give someone is to sit still and listen.

Printing the Bulletin, Hearing the Word

Bulletins and I  go back a long way.  When I was growing up, the church bulletins were much less elaborate than they are now;  we were supposed to look up both the hymns and also find the correct liturgy (though there were only two options back then).  We did both.

Nevertheless, the appointed readings were printed on the back of the bulletin (it was not called a "worship folder" back then.)  I remember reading the lessons and thinking how cool it would be to cut them out and save them for a couple of years, because then I could cut and paste them together and make a whole Bible!

Lately, in the interests of being more hospitable, we've taken to printing more in our bulletins, now called "worship folders."  Most of the liturgy is printed in the bulletin now, so that we don't have to look it up.  We print the lessons, but not on the back page.  We print them right there in the middle of the worship folder; you don't even have to turn the page.  And, because some of our worship is more contemporary, we even print some of the songs now, because they aren't in the hymnal.

So in the past few weeks we have a new parish administrative assistant who is learning to put together worship folders.  Though she is an extremely competent person, it's a pretty high learning curve, so we've been simplifying our worship. 

For the past couple of weeks we have not been printing the scripture readings.

Some people have said that not printing the readings actually helps them listen better.  One woman said that her adult son actually looked up the readings in his Bible when he got home from worship, which can't be a bad thing.  It is also nice to have people looking at me or the reader instead of staring down at the page.   It made me wonder about how hospitable it really is when everyone is staring down at their paper all the time instead of paying attention to the singing and the liturgy, and one another.  Yeah, one another.   Could those really helpful worship folders be isolating us from one another?

On the other hand, sometimes I think I have seen some eyes glaze over during readings, as if we should have some sort of visual aid, at least, if we're not having printed words.  I also  noticed at worship last weekend the man from Ethiopia seemed a little disappointed that the readings weren't printed.  He is excellent at English, but I'll bet the printed word helps him. 

I'll be honest, the bulletin seems a little bare to me now, after seeing the printed word on the page for so long. 

On the other hand, what is it that makes our worship hospitable, that makes our congregation welcoming?  What is it that draws people to engage in worship together?  What is it that helps us hear and sing and pray as a body?  And what is it that keeps us separate?

How about you?  Do you print less in your worship folders these days?  How do you hear the Word?