Looking Ahead to September 1, 2019

This being the first Sunday of the month we will be celebrating the Sacrament of Communion.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Hebrews 13:1-3
• Luke 14:1, 7-14

The Sermon title is Radical Hospitality

Early Thoughts: What does it mean to be a good host? To be a good guest? For hospitality to work we need to be both.

Hospitality is one of those things that makes it possible for us to live together.  In some parts of human history the need to be a good and willing host was truly a matter of survival. That may be less true for many of us now but it is still true for us as a community.

And yet there seems to be a lot of rhetoric that goes directly against hospitality. There are those who claim immigration is somehow a bad thing. There are those who think some people are more welcome than others. There are voices who advocate tossing out those who, in their opinion do not add to/take away from the quality of life in our community. (I have got to stop reading posts about the homelessness issues/ tent city and the drug issue in GP because I keep getting enraged at the comments).

I fear that we, as a culture, have become less welcoming, less hospitable as we have also become more suspicious about those we define as "them". Then I read Hebrews 13. Or I remember the story of Abraham and Sarah entertaining three strangers (Genesis 18)  or even the story of Lot in Sodom (Genesis 19 -- Scripture itself tells us the the sin that led to the destruction of Sodom was a lack of hospitality [Ezekiel 16:49, Matthew 10:13-15]). And when I read these stories I am reminded that we are to welcome the stranger.

What about the other side of hospitality? What about the guest? In this passage from Luke Jesus gives some hints.  And my summation of those hints is "don't think too highly of yourself". This morning as I re-read the Luke reading for this week I am once again given the impression that a great deal of what makes hospitality work is to not think too much of ourselves. Both as guest or host we need to keep ourselves humble.

To live as citizens of the Kingdom means, in part, to practice hospitality. Indeed it is one of the 12 practises cover in the book  Practicing our Faith (need to re-read that chapter this week). It means to recognize that God is present in the act of hosting. It means that we might have to rethink and relearn some of our assumptions about what it means to be a good host and a good guest.

One model would be the communion table. We in the United Church hold an open table, where all are welcome. We do this because we recognize that God is the real host and that God welcomes all to come and eat and drink. Let us eat and drink together, and let us be transformed in the process.  The hope for the future of our culture lies, i part, in how we practice radical hospitality.
--Gord