Entertaining Angels

                                          Hebrews 13: 1-6

 

 

          Hospitality is almost a lost art. How often do you entertain guests these days? How often does someone drop in on you just to visit? What would happen if they did? Some of you can remember the days before air conditioning—when everyone had a front porch and it was used generously in hot weather because sitting on the front porch was cooler than sitting in the house. The fringe benefit of all that porch sitting was the natural hospitality and neighborliness that resulted from it. People visited more frequently. It was a natural thing.

          The Bible talks about hospitality. In fact, the Bible makes a pretty big deal about it. You know, hospitality has a lot to do with generosity. Are you selfish with your time, your stuff, your food, your hearth and home? Or are you generous? There’s a kind of openness that goes with hospitality. Open your hands. Open your hearts. Open your doors.

          Some people have hospitality as a spiritual gift. While it is not mentioned specifically in terms of a gift in the Bible, it is mentioned as something Christians need to do and it is mentioned often. The thing is, Romans 12: 13 seems to tell us that all of us need to practice it. In a litany of the marks of the true Christian, Paul ends his list with this sendoff: “and seek to show hospitality.”

          Here’s some Greek for you that you might find helpful. The Greek noun for hospitality is philozenia, a compound word composed of philos, which means affection and zenos, meaning strangers. So taken in its original context, hospitality is affection toward strangers. And Paul says that every Christian should seek to show that. It seems that hospitality is just another form of expressing your Christianity, but in this form, it is usually done in your home.

          Now, some people, probably lots of people, equate hospitality with being a good entertainer or throwing a lot of parties and get-togethers.  They might say that so and so is good at hospitality because he or she entertains and plans a lot and does things perfectly and serves, from food to party favors. I suppose that these attributes are a form of hospitality, but that’s certainly not what the Scriptures are getting at.

          Listen to what Peter has to say: “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” [1 Peter 4: 8-10]  In Peter’s world, hospitality is about service; the kind of service that pours forth from the love experienced through the grace of God. Peter reminds us that while each of us may have different gifts, all those gifts can be used in the framework of hospitality.

          There’s not much question in my mind that hospitality has to do with food. In Acts 2 when the early church is literally being formed, Luke tells us that the believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” [Acts 2: 42] The gospels are littered with stories of the disciples breaking bread together. Of course, there is the example of Jesus himself. When the time came for him to sacrifice himself for us, he commemorated that time with a supper, his last supper, in which in an act of unbridled humility and hospitality, he knelt and washed the feet of the disciples. When he appeared to the two men on the road to Emmaus, Luke tells us that his true identity “was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” [Luke 23: 34] In John’s Gospel, Jesus says goodbye to seven of the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee over a charcoal fire with fish and bread for breakfast.

          The evidence is unmistakable. There is vulnerability and intimacy in having someone over to your house or your campfire. If you don’t believe it, go camping and see how many friends you make over an open fire. It’s hard not to be neighborly when you’re sitting in someone’s kitchen or den or roasting s’mores over a campfire. Food certainly helps, but there is more to it than that. Home and hearth offer the opportunity to be real in the place where we are most real.

          I’m wondering how life might have turned out for Rahab if she had not opened her home to that Israelite advance team in Jericho. Rahab showed courage under fire and hospitality in the bargain, and the lives of her and her family were spared. I’m wondering how life might have turned out for Boaz if he had not had the hospitality to share his crops with the gleaners of his fields. One of those gleaners, a Moabite woman, a foreigner, would become his wife—and the great-grandmother of King David.

          It’s a popular thing these days for churches to appoint a welcome committee. People are picked who are good at being friendly and they are assigned to do that to visitors. What does that do to the rest of us? Do we leave it up to the professional welcomers? Are we at liberty to ignore? What does it say to the visitors when they come back the next week and they are welcomed by the same people? Being hospitable is not a job description. It’s a way of sharing your Christianity with others.

          I’m also wondering about the account in Genesis 18, where three men come to the door of Abraham’s tent. Abraham senses that they are important and he acts accordingly. And yet, he does not know who they are. A meal is hastily prepared, and Abraham and Sarah show them the best hospitality they can on short notice. It turns out that those three men were the Lord himself and two of his angels. [Genesis 18: 1-15] That meeting turned out pretty good for Abraham. You just never know who will drop in when your door is open and so is your heart.

          Remember the conversation about the sheep and the goats, about how they will be separated? Strangers are fed and clothed. Sick are visited. Those who do so find themselves in the favor of God. Those who don’t, suffer God’s wrath. When they inquire about how they ministered to Jesus, they are answered in this way: Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me. [Matthew 25: 40]

This brings us to our scripture for today. It is an echo of those other scriptures  from the pastor of Hebrews that tells us the ultimate reason for hospitality. It is the breath of God, from him to us to the strangers in our midst. It is our way of un-strangering them.

There is a story about this group of Mennonites in the Midwest who were pretty closed about their lives and religious practices. As fate would have it, some Hispanics moved to town. As they had no church in the area, they began to attend the Mennonite church. There was a language problem, but eventually that began to be bridged. Eventually, in the public prayers, their stories began to surface: the hardship they had faced, the prejudice they lived with, the obstacles they had to overcome, the prayer lives they practiced. Strangers became friends, and the people found that they had much more in common with these strangers than they had ever thought possible. It changed the politics of that church. The chasm between stranger and friend is almost always bridged by story. Listen, really listen,  to someone’s story and then try to treat him like a stranger.

Hebrews 13, our passage for today, implores us to “let brotherly love continue.” It calls upon us all to “not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.”  And it reminds us that, in the same way that Abraham came to find out, sometimes we are entertaining angels unawares.

Who’s that knocking at your door?