Sleepers Awake!
Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14
March 2, 2008
What difference does beauty make? Is hospitality anything more than a social nicety? Why consider these in the context of Christian worship, as values or practices having something to do with Christian faith and life, and, moreover, why take them together?
I’m not sure that I can answer those questions in any systematic, theological way this morning, so let me simply share a few provisional impressions.
A decade ago, when I was doing a three-month stint of clinical pastoral education at Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, our CPE supervisor described the experience of many patients in hospital by recalling the Biblical story of the spies sent in ahead of the children of Israel to check out the promised land and returning to say that it was a land of giants who spoke a foreign tongue. I was thinking of that story this week while considering the mission work of our young people in preparing a room at the pediatric clinic, and it occurred to me that, to some extent, mission is hospitality.
I am awash in opportunities to think about hospitality just now. It may seem otherwise to those who know how much time I have spent over the past many weeks as part of the planning team for this week’s Christian Peace Witness and the Olivebranch Interfaith Witness. It probably sounds like, oh, just more of David’s peacemaking and politicing.
But last Friday, as I juggled phone calls, e-mails, a newsletter, the bulletin and plans for a funeral service with housecleaning because we had dinner guests, I realized that all of this work – whether it was the pastoral work of comforting those who mourn, the priestly work of preparing for worship services, or the prophetic work of peacemaking – all of this work was first and foremost a matter of hospitality.
I assure I was not thinking in any high-minded manner about it, though, because my tasks included securing port-a-potties for the interfaith witness on Capitol Hill this Friday and cleaning the toilets in our house for the folks coming over for dinner. I did pause to consider the story of Mary and Martha – you remember: Jesus comes over for dinner and Mary sits with him while Martha runs around the house making sure that everything is just so. I wondered, “am I Mary or Martha just now? Am I preparing to welcome Christ just as Christ welcomes me, or am I just cleaning house so folks will notice how clean the house is?”
Well, trust me, no one ever walks away from our house saying, “my, what a spotless place they keep.”
I do hope, however, that folks walk away feeling that they have been deeply and warmly welcomed, that the Christ in them has been honored by whatever there is of Christ in me.
This is how we live as “children of light.” It is the greater part of what it means to “awake.” It is a central part of discerning Christian vocation.
If, as my friend Leann Hodges puts it, discernment means simply “wake up!” then extending authentic hospitality is the alarm clock of vocation. Hospitality extended or received awakens us to the presence of Christ in our midst and opens us to hearing Christ when he calls us by name.
Too often, though, we confuse hospitality with something else. In an age of disconnect, when so many folks are searching for some sense of welcome, of connection, of community, we wind up looking for it in places shaped far more by market values than by faith values. I may be wrong, but I don’t think the Kingdom of God – a foretaste of which we will share together at table in a few minutes – is going to look much like the Magic Kingdom; when we are honored in the presence of the Holy One it is not going to look much like the Hilton Honors program.
Why? Well, to begin with, because everyone will be there. The folks who cannot dream of a night at a Hilton banquet come to this table. The folks who cannot dream of a day at Disney are welcome always to this table. Moreover, the folks who are locked out and marginalized from the centers of market power because of economic status, sexual orientation, race, gender and so on, are welcome to this table.
I’m not knocking Disney or Hilton – they probably have their place. It’s just that we have come to imagine or allow them to occupy what is not their proper place. We’ve come to imagine that we can buy connection and meaning and community through the entertainments the market entices us with, and we’ve lost track of the gift of simple hospitality that is at the heart of authentic Christian connection, meaningfulness and community.
We have also lost sight of simple beauty. God’s gracious hospitality to us includes the lilies of the field and the birds of the sky. The seas and mountains are God’s handiwork. On the one hand, that recognition calls us to embrace deeper values such that we do not demean or destroy that which is of God, and on the other hand, that recognition calls us to join God in creative work to construct in our own lives small spaces of beauty.
So we get the bathrooms cleaned … and we put some flowers there. So we do the work of hospitality and create a space of great welcome and beauty right here. Look around you, and consider all of the work by all of the hands of so many folks for so many years right here.
When we look past beauty we lose track of God and of God’s remarkable gift of hospitality through the primal act of creation.
Our lives are cheapened as a result. Moreover, as I have considered the work of peacemaking and justice seeking that we are engaged in these days, I have come to believe that our politics – secular and within the church – are cheapened as well to the extent that we look past beauty and ignore this fundamental Christian practice of hospitality.
I believe that is one of the principle reasons that we’ve come to privatize faith and to disassociate our faith lives from our public lives. When we do so, we impoverish both spheres.
Christianity has always been inherently political, but it has been so in a way that calls forth a profoundly enlarged view of the political – the polis, the city and its ordering and one that values the beauty of the created order for more than its use value. When we attend to beauty we deepen our sense of connection to the earth and all that is therein – that is to say, we deepen our sense of connection to that which belongs to God.
When we practice authentic hospitality we broaden our own sense of connection and welcome and relationship to include folks who are not like us and who do not see the world through the same eyes. That does not mean backing down from our own convictions, but it does mean recognizing in those with whom we disagree a fundamental common identity as children of a loving God.
I’m here to tell you, not only are Dick Cheney and Barack Obama distant cousins as defined by human relations of kin, but also they are brothers as defined by Godly relations.
The call to hospitality is a call to see that which is of God in every other. Responding to that call with grace and authenticity explodes every narrow politics and invites us into a new space of relationship and community.
God does set a table for us in the midst of our enemies, and the call to hospitality asks of us that we invite those enemies to join us at the table. You see, hospitality is peacemaking. And the banquet of the beloved community is a place of deep beauty reflected in the faces of all those gathered around the table that marks in center.
So come, this morning, beautiful people of God. For a place has been set for you and a welcome has been prepared.
March 2, 2008
What difference does beauty make? Is hospitality anything more than a social nicety? Why consider these in the context of Christian worship, as values or practices having something to do with Christian faith and life, and, moreover, why take them together?
I’m not sure that I can answer those questions in any systematic, theological way this morning, so let me simply share a few provisional impressions.
A decade ago, when I was doing a three-month stint of clinical pastoral education at Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, our CPE supervisor described the experience of many patients in hospital by recalling the Biblical story of the spies sent in ahead of the children of Israel to check out the promised land and returning to say that it was a land of giants who spoke a foreign tongue. I was thinking of that story this week while considering the mission work of our young people in preparing a room at the pediatric clinic, and it occurred to me that, to some extent, mission is hospitality.
I am awash in opportunities to think about hospitality just now. It may seem otherwise to those who know how much time I have spent over the past many weeks as part of the planning team for this week’s Christian Peace Witness and the Olivebranch Interfaith Witness. It probably sounds like, oh, just more of David’s peacemaking and politicing.
But last Friday, as I juggled phone calls, e-mails, a newsletter, the bulletin and plans for a funeral service with housecleaning because we had dinner guests, I realized that all of this work – whether it was the pastoral work of comforting those who mourn, the priestly work of preparing for worship services, or the prophetic work of peacemaking – all of this work was first and foremost a matter of hospitality.
I assure I was not thinking in any high-minded manner about it, though, because my tasks included securing port-a-potties for the interfaith witness on Capitol Hill this Friday and cleaning the toilets in our house for the folks coming over for dinner. I did pause to consider the story of Mary and Martha – you remember: Jesus comes over for dinner and Mary sits with him while Martha runs around the house making sure that everything is just so. I wondered, “am I Mary or Martha just now? Am I preparing to welcome Christ just as Christ welcomes me, or am I just cleaning house so folks will notice how clean the house is?”
Well, trust me, no one ever walks away from our house saying, “my, what a spotless place they keep.”
I do hope, however, that folks walk away feeling that they have been deeply and warmly welcomed, that the Christ in them has been honored by whatever there is of Christ in me.
This is how we live as “children of light.” It is the greater part of what it means to “awake.” It is a central part of discerning Christian vocation.
If, as my friend Leann Hodges puts it, discernment means simply “wake up!” then extending authentic hospitality is the alarm clock of vocation. Hospitality extended or received awakens us to the presence of Christ in our midst and opens us to hearing Christ when he calls us by name.
Too often, though, we confuse hospitality with something else. In an age of disconnect, when so many folks are searching for some sense of welcome, of connection, of community, we wind up looking for it in places shaped far more by market values than by faith values. I may be wrong, but I don’t think the Kingdom of God – a foretaste of which we will share together at table in a few minutes – is going to look much like the Magic Kingdom; when we are honored in the presence of the Holy One it is not going to look much like the Hilton Honors program.
Why? Well, to begin with, because everyone will be there. The folks who cannot dream of a night at a Hilton banquet come to this table. The folks who cannot dream of a day at Disney are welcome always to this table. Moreover, the folks who are locked out and marginalized from the centers of market power because of economic status, sexual orientation, race, gender and so on, are welcome to this table.
I’m not knocking Disney or Hilton – they probably have their place. It’s just that we have come to imagine or allow them to occupy what is not their proper place. We’ve come to imagine that we can buy connection and meaning and community through the entertainments the market entices us with, and we’ve lost track of the gift of simple hospitality that is at the heart of authentic Christian connection, meaningfulness and community.
We have also lost sight of simple beauty. God’s gracious hospitality to us includes the lilies of the field and the birds of the sky. The seas and mountains are God’s handiwork. On the one hand, that recognition calls us to embrace deeper values such that we do not demean or destroy that which is of God, and on the other hand, that recognition calls us to join God in creative work to construct in our own lives small spaces of beauty.
So we get the bathrooms cleaned … and we put some flowers there. So we do the work of hospitality and create a space of great welcome and beauty right here. Look around you, and consider all of the work by all of the hands of so many folks for so many years right here.
When we look past beauty we lose track of God and of God’s remarkable gift of hospitality through the primal act of creation.
Our lives are cheapened as a result. Moreover, as I have considered the work of peacemaking and justice seeking that we are engaged in these days, I have come to believe that our politics – secular and within the church – are cheapened as well to the extent that we look past beauty and ignore this fundamental Christian practice of hospitality.
I believe that is one of the principle reasons that we’ve come to privatize faith and to disassociate our faith lives from our public lives. When we do so, we impoverish both spheres.
Christianity has always been inherently political, but it has been so in a way that calls forth a profoundly enlarged view of the political – the polis, the city and its ordering and one that values the beauty of the created order for more than its use value. When we attend to beauty we deepen our sense of connection to the earth and all that is therein – that is to say, we deepen our sense of connection to that which belongs to God.
When we practice authentic hospitality we broaden our own sense of connection and welcome and relationship to include folks who are not like us and who do not see the world through the same eyes. That does not mean backing down from our own convictions, but it does mean recognizing in those with whom we disagree a fundamental common identity as children of a loving God.
I’m here to tell you, not only are Dick Cheney and Barack Obama distant cousins as defined by human relations of kin, but also they are brothers as defined by Godly relations.
The call to hospitality is a call to see that which is of God in every other. Responding to that call with grace and authenticity explodes every narrow politics and invites us into a new space of relationship and community.
God does set a table for us in the midst of our enemies, and the call to hospitality asks of us that we invite those enemies to join us at the table. You see, hospitality is peacemaking. And the banquet of the beloved community is a place of deep beauty reflected in the faces of all those gathered around the table that marks in center.
So come, this morning, beautiful people of God. For a place has been set for you and a welcome has been prepared.
posted by David Ensign at
10:20 AM
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