Presiding Bishop-Elect
Evensong
13 August 2006
Good Samaritan, Corvallis, 4 pm
Lections for the Mission of the Church: Isa 49:5-13, Ps 96, Lk 10:1-9
I remember one of the first times I went to Corvallis Manor for a special communion service. I’d just come back here and been ordained a deacon, and as I recall, Bill McCarthy had gone off on leave, and left me to learn how to deal with the daily challenges of this parish. [That is a great and appropriate teaching method!] Barbara and Inez may remember that day as well. We read this same gospel about eating what is set before you, and I’d said something to the people gathered about finding the blessing in whatever is offered. [I have to believe that there is great grace in the ability to give thanks for what a nursing home kitchen turns out day after day.] And then we had communion together. Most of the people opened their mouths or put out their hands for the bread, and it was given and received. A couple of folks who didn’t respond got a blessing. Afterward, Barbara came up and whispered to me, “that woman over there, the one you just gave communion to, is Jewish!” The woman’s son came up to me later and said, “I didn’t think I’d ever see my mother take communion!” He seemed both a bit scandalized and rather grateful that she had been included. Somewhere in the depths of her being, underneath the surface confusion, she heard the words about eating what is set before you, and responded. And I am quite certain that, baruch atah adonai eloheinu, God was praised.
I tell you that story knowing full well that the rubrics were violated, and that some might find it appropriate to bring me up on charges. Yet I think we have to recognize that sometimes the gospel is not about following all the rules. We live in a society that seems consumed with legalisms, penalties, and punishment. Our church is caught up in a struggle over interpretations of scripture that debate whether and how we should be following rules set down long ago.
When Jesus tells the 70 to travel light, and to go and bring good news wherever they are welcome, he is sending them out without their usual supports. They don’t get to take along their normal excess baggage, their extra clothes and credit cards, and everything they just might need. They are supposed to depend on the hospitality they encounter, on the radical grace present in the world. And if they don’t find it, they’re supposed to keep on going until they do. And you know, after a long day’s walk, maybe without lunch or a coffee break, I think they were probably a lot more willing to look for hospitality in unexpected places. Even the places where the door is already shuttered and the light is off might be a possibility. For when you both need that hospitality, and know and expect that there is grace to be found, you are a lot likelier to keep on looking!
Beginning by saying “peace to this house” is even more likely to bring a positive response. Even a curmudgeon is likely to open up for somebody who comes hat in hand in the middle of a snow storm. The undefended person is not a threat, and grace and hospitality become a likelier response.
Rules can often become fences and defenses that keep some folks safe inside the corral and keep others out. The original genius behind the 613 rules of Torah was about self-definition. By keeping the fullness of that law, the Hebrew people became a nation. Those rules became an occasion of grace that defined their existence and their special relationship to God. Like any other good gift, however, those rules can become an idol, and an excuse for shutting out those human beings we would rather not have in our back yards – or our living rooms. The rules of Christianity or the canons of the Episcopal church or the laws of this nation are no different – they can be occasions of grace that shape our growth, or they can become dead or even demonic idols.
When Jesus tells the 70 that they have to travel light and receive whatever food is offered, he’s taking away all their little comforts and their ability to live by the rules, for the meal of the day just might not be kosher. When they are told to greet the household in peace, it means that whoever lives there is a fit candidate for peace, however that person lives. Peace-bringing and the charge to heal the sickness they find mean that any potential host is capable of wholeness and healing and salvation, and when the disciples can give that greeting with full integrity, then, oh yes, indeedy, the Kingdom of God is close at hand!
What would this world look like if Palestinians were sent off to find hospitality in Israel, and Israelis in Lebanon, and Shiites in Sunni territory? Or Americans in Iraq or Afghanistan? Can you or I go looking for hospitality in the home of an immigrant down the street, whether Mexican or Tongan or Ethiopian? Could we go, two by two, looking for welcome at the home of a paroled murderer or a sex offender?
When Isaiah says I will give you as a light to the nations, that’s the kind of radical hospitality he’s talking about. You and I are meant to be light-bearers and shalom-builders, so that God’s salvation and wholeness might reach to the ends of the earth. Going looking for hospitality has a lot to do with the hospitality of our own hearts. Can we suspend judgment about where or with whom we might find it?
Ensuring that people keep the rules hedges in the hospitality of our hearts. Yes, we can still be hospitable, but our light only stretches a little way, to the edge of the corral and those who are like us, and it will never reach the ends of the earth. Jesus asks a more radical vulnerability, the kind of vulnerability he himself showed us over and over again, eating with the unclean and the outcasts of his day. He asks of us a welcome that will admit any and every image of God walking this earth.
The harvest is plentiful, those who hunger to give and receive hospitality are abundant, but few are able to set down their loads and go freely in search of the Kingdom of God. There are many prisoners waiting to hear “come out” and many living in darkness, afraid to show themselves. There are countless throngs who hunger and thirst and suffer from wind and sun, who struggle up mountains and through the valley of the shadow of death. Yet God in his wisdom called us in the womb to be servants of peace, to share in the gift of what we find in whatever place we visit, to offer healing, and in that meeting to see and announce the present reign of God.
The harvest is rich and abundant, and we only have to go – tripping lightly, announcing peace. And once we get a taste of it, how can we keep from singing?
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody sing rules, or sing about rules. They are vital preparation and discipline, but they are not the goal. We have to be formed by those rules, like a singer who learns scales and breathing exercises, and practices them day after day and year after year, so that when opening night comes his voice can soar. That training sets the artist free to respond to the encounter of the moment, to the rich surprise of an especially responsive audience or an impromptu singing partner in the park.
The harvest, the transforming and liberating gift of the gospel, comes in the ability to see and move beyond our limited perceptions, to see the image of God in this unexpected person before us, however she does or does not keep the rules or fit our fond expectations.
I recall another encounter – a fellow who sat through an entire Christmas Eve service years ago, in that front pew, wearing his 10-gallon hat. The fact that he didn’t take his hat off was what we talked about for ages afterward, not the curious and blessed gift of his personality, which we never discovered.
Encountering the stranger as potential friend means that the kingdom of God has come near, and we will continually discover it when we are ready to eat what is offered, when we can find grace in the stew of sea cucumbers or the frijoles or the struggling sinner across the table.
We are meant to be bringers of peace and shalom, a light to the nations. And we are meant to sing a new song of grace and abundance, of healing and transformation.
May God bless our search for hospitality, within our own hearts and in all we meet. Shalom chaverim, shalom my friends, shalom.
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