Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

A sermon preached at Old South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Hallowell, Maine, September 2, 2007.

Text:  Luke 14:1, 7-14

The Rev. Susan M. Reisert, Minister

            When I took an initial look into this week’s lectionary readings, I read the passage from Luke first.  This summer, we have been spending most of our time on Luke.   We’ll review some of that in a moment.  But, after reading that particular passage, as it is a rather tough passage (especially for a holiday weekend!), I decided to take a good look at the other selections—a reading from Jeremiah, another from Hebrew, and also a Psalm.  They seemed just as difficult and challenging.

            So, I took a deep breath and went back to Luke.  And, this is the part that I couldn’t get out of my head.  Jesus said, “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. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”  I couldn’t help but think of our annual, let’s get a good cry at the end of summer and welcome the new school year,  Labor Day gathering—slated to happen just tomorrow-- and wondered:  do poor, untenured, Colby faculty count?  Or, how about the fact that even though we invite them, we have found, over the years, that that does not at all mean that we will ever receive an invitation to the houses of many of our guests?  How about inviting people that I don’t like so much?

            As we have made our way through this middle section of Luke’s Gospel, we have traveled with Jesus through a number of different situations—from the Mission of the Seventy to the Parable of the Good Samaritan to Martha and Mary to the Lord’s Prayer and the significance of perseverance in prayer to the rich fool to the bent over woman who was healed by Jesus after being crippled by a spirit for 18 long years.  We encountered her just last Sunday. 

In this middle section of Luke, there are many critical lessons, many significant messages on which to reflect, but whether we have taken this up directly or it is remained just below the surface, certainly one of the abiding themes is that of hospitality—God’s expectations for being hospitable, Jesus’ modeling of radical hospitality in the people with whom he chose to eat (a household headed by a woman, Martha, for example) or teach (like Martha’s sister, Mary), and the instructive stories that he shared about loving one’s neighbor  (the Good Samaritan, for instance), the response that his followers should have in the face of the lack of hospitality in communities (Jesus told them to say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you.”), and even in the illustration that Jesus used just after he taught them to pray.  You will remember the man who knocked on his friend’s door at midnight, asking for assistance.  Ask and it will given you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened—that’s what Jesus taught.  And, now this section of teachings finds itself squarely in the midst of one particular topic.  In case you missed it, Luke just wants to make it perfectly crystal clear:  hospitality and the critical relationship between hospitality and the Christian faith.

Hospitality.  I’ve been thinking then of hospitality these past few days.  Is it just that I have not done a good enough job when it comes to the guest list for our gathering tomorrow?  What does it mean for us to be hospitable—as individuals, as people of faith, as a community, as a church?  What does it mean for us to follow Jesus’ example of radical hospitality?  What would Jesus write if he were to write one of those helpful books on good etiquette, a sort of Miss Manners for Christians?  I daresay, it would be even more challenging than Judith Martins’ view of good manners—in how to respond to invitations (certainly a lost art!) and how to identify various utensils at an elaborate table setting.

For my book group, I’ve been reading To Kill A Mockingbird, a wonderful book made into an extraordinary movie that many of you have probably seen.   Though I’ve seen the movie several times, I haven’t read the book since high school, where I am sure that I did not appreciate it nearly as much as I do as an adult.  I’m only about half-way done with it, but it still seemed a good illustration for today.

I’ve been struck in a number of ways in regard to how hospitality is played out in this story of a young white girl growing up in the deep South during the Depression.  In one minor incident, Scout and her brother, Jem, have brought one of the poorer children at school home for the midday meal.  The poor child, a classmate of Scout’s, Walter Cunningham, once he is served, asks for the syrup and covers his plate with molasses.  You might remember this scene from the movie as well.  Scout is aghast and makes her revulsion clear to everyone at the table, including certainly her guest.  The Finch’s maid, Calpernia, calls Scout into the kitchen and gives her a stern lecture on manners and guests—basically, on the simple rules of hospitality. 

Good manners, it is often remarked, are not supposed to be about who knows how to identify and properly use the fish fork or how to make someone feel inferior.  Manners are a part of hospitality, of making strangers feel welcome.

The other aspect of hospitality that I’ve been thinking about as I read To Kill a Mockingbird is the broader brushstrokes of hospitality and, more precisely, the lack of it—or, the provincial quality of hospitality.  In addition to Scout’s small, distinct incident with her poor classmate, the matter of hospitality—or general lack thereof—is woven throughout this moving portrayal of the coming of age of children in a rigidly structured society.

One of the things that is not presented in the movie, but I found particularly interesting is the portrayal of the wider Finch family.  Through the story line that Atticus, Scout and Jem’s father, the local attorney, had taken the case of Tom Robinson, a black man who had been accused of raping a poor young white woman, we discover the deep comfort with the language and perspective of racism.  Words and phrases that are today clearly understood to be racist and derogatory are simply part of the normal rhythm and flow of familiar language and conversation.

The assumption that the black man is obviously guilty also pervades the conversation of the family, not to mention the wider community.  Certainly, there is—from this vantage point—an alarming lack of hospitality.  Although Scout is chastised for being rude, there is little or no chastising of the adults who display such rude behavior. 

Hospitality presents its provincial nature—that though most characters probably feel that they are certainly employing good manners and showing good hospitality, it is also clear that their circle is very limited.  In a broader view, their hospitality is, indeed, lacking.

To bring this back to our Gospel lesson for this morning, I think it is important to take particular notice not only of the hospitality on which Jesus so obviously expounds, but also the circumstances of that hospitality.

Over and over and over again, Jesus pushes the limits of what is considered normal, appropriate behavior and ways of life.  The Pharisees, by virtue of their place in society, obviously deserved places of honor.  Didn’t they.  Jesus clearly says no.  You’ve got it wrong.  The assumptions that have made that have provided structure to society and way of life do not reflect what God set out to create and establish.  Somewhere something went terribly wrong.  And Jesus has come to set them on the right path.

If we were to put into the language of today, Jesus pushes his listeners out of their comfort zones.  Just because it seems comfortable and safe, just because that’s the way that it’s always been, doesn’t mean that it reflects what God intends.

What we see in To Kill a Mockingbird is a way of life that is comfortable to many, a rigidly structured society where everybody knows their place, where they belong on the social scale and ladder.  Everybody knows who belongs where and why, probably many believing that it’s God’s will to live as they live and to do as they do.  Yet, it is so clearly wrong, so clearly unjust—in so many ways, from so many perspectives.

The question, then, must be turned back on us.  We must ask significant questions of ourselves.  We must ask important questions of our faith and what it is calling us to be. 

Where and in what ways have we built nice, neat, comfortable structures of who belongs where.  In what ways do we fail to offer hospitality?  In what ways is Jesus pushing us out of our comfort zone, asking us to take a good, long look at  how we do things and saying to us that we’ve got it wrong?  Just because we’ve always done it a certain way, doesn’t mean that that’s what God intends.  And, we must also consider carefully and honestly the ways through which we offer hospitality and, perhaps even more importantly, in how we fail to offer hospitality and how we might then do a better job, how we might be led by Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to offer the kind of welcome that God intends.

When Joe, Margaret and I first moved to Maine, I did not have a call to a church.  And, so that first summer when we had moved here, I began looking for a church to attend.  Usually, I went alone, not knowing what might be available for my active infant (Margaret was only seven months old when we moved here).  I was amazed at how many churches I attended where no one spoke to me.  Churches that I suspect viewed themselves as warm and friendly and welcoming.  Yet, that’s not what I experienced.

Near the end of the summer, I attended the Waterville Congregational Church, UCC.  As I came out of the sanctuary, one woman asked me a question.  I don’t remember what that question was.  I only remember that it really didn’t have anything to do with welcoming or hospitality.  What I do remember is that apart from her, no one spoke to me.  I went to the fellowship hall and got a cup of coffee.  I read and looked at every bulletin board I could find.  Still, no one spoke to me.

A few years later, when I found myself between church jobs, I ended up joining the Waterville Congregational Church.  It was convenient and I had become friends with the ministers.  As I began to participate in church activities, I would often hear church members reflect on their church as a very, very welcoming and warm church.  I couldn’t help but to give them my look of disapproval.  That had not been my experience.

This is a problem for churches—church members’ perceptions not meeting the perceptions of visitors.  We must be willing to be pushed from our comfort zone and take an honest look at ourselves, and not only give ourselves a pat on the back for how we do welcome strangers, but also how we fail to show hospitality, how we fail to be inviting.

My general impression, in the time that I have served this church, is that most visitors are spoken to and welcomed.  But, I would also admit that I am increasingly troubled by the impression that we have a lot of visitors who come once and then never again.  Why is that?  I don’t have the answer; it is something for us to think about and to reflect on in a serious way.

As people seeking to be ever more faithful to the Good News, we must be willing to be drawn to that place where we may lovingly confront our weaknesses.  How can we be more welcoming?  How can we be more inviting?

The people of Maycomb County, in Harper Lee’s world of To Kill a Mockingbird, just as the people of the first century, created a carefully constructed world of manners, of who belonged where, of what could be said in what company, of people primarily just hanging out with like people.  And, whether we wish to admit it or not, we do very much the same.

Jesus says don’t.  Jesus says to welcome the visitor, to be hospitable to those who are different, to invite the stranger.  That’s part of the kingdom of God.

So, how can we be more welcoming?  How can we be more inviting?

I suspect that our Savior would love to show us, to lead us in the way, to help us be a stronger witness, to reach out in love and in faith.  We may have work to do, but the Gospel is also all about the fact that we do not need to do this work ourselves.  We are blessed with a guide, a Holy Spirit, who lives in and among us, who nurtures us and beckons us to follow, even when the path seems unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

May God continue to be with us, helping us to be welcoming and inviting, as Jesus is for us.  Praise be to God. 

Amen.