June 29, 2014

Sermon     06-29-12                            Matthew 10:40-42

It’s good to be back.   As much as I enjoyed my time away in recent weeks, coming back this week and re-engaging into the busy days at the Spring Glen Church over the past week has been a blessing.   There’s lots to tell you about my time in Alaska.   It’s an experience that I know I’ll be commenting on, in conversations and from the pulpit, for some time to come.

          One of the special blessings for Maggie and me, when we go on vacation, is the chance to sit together in worship.   Last Sunday, we joined with the good folks of Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, where we found the worship very meaningful.     A good sermon, very engaging music, and a very nice, well-lit sanctuary.  When clergy persons go to worship on vacation, it can be a bit like a professional chef trying out a new restaurant down the street.   We can’t help but look things over for ideas to “borrow” and use in our current churches, and clergy, are as capable as anyone, of being tough critics on their colleagues.   Christ Church Cathedral is a vibrant inner city church doing some very creative ministry in Vancouver and if your travels ever take you there, I would certainly commend it to you to visit or worship at.

Traveling and worshipping in new churches can be both informative and grace-filled.   As we spoke over lunch last week, Maggie and I couldn’t help but remember an experience we had at another church that we visited while on vacation several years ago.   This also was a well-known downtown church, known for its various ministries, sacred music and architecture.   After church, worshippers had the chance to tour the church and grounds or attend the coffee hour.   Also, on the Sunday we were there, the church was having a special information meeting for church members on a major church project right after worship in the sanctuary.

          As the service concluded, I chose to tour the church and grounds, being drawn to the wonderful architecture, stained glass windows and exceptional grounds.   Maggie was curious to go to coffee hour, hoping to glean some ideas there as to how to do fellowship.    And some worshippers stayed in their seats for the information meeting.

          At lunch that day, we compared notes.  I spoke with enthusiasm about the building and grounds, relating many of the stories the tour guide told about the facility, its history and their ongoing efforts to be good stewards of their properties.   Given our experience, there didn’t seem to be anything this church could do wrong.  

          Maggie’s experience at coffee hour proved that was not the case.   After walking all around the church hall twice, reading every bulletin board in the place, and not being greeted by anyone else, she approached another person who was also standing by herself, saying Hello and then asking if this person found the church membership to be as indifferent to her as Maggie was experiencing  them to be.    Before the other visitor could answer, a church member, overhearing the conversation, rose to defend the congregation, commenting in defense, “Oh, we’re a very friendly church.   It’s just that today, all the friendly people are attending the parish meeting opstairs!”  

          It’s been several years now, and we still laugh at the story, certain that the woman mis-spoke at that time, meaning to say that those charged with welcoming visitors to worship were busy at the meeting, but the way she said it amused and concerned us.  It was a memorable reminder of Paul’s caution in I Corinthians 13, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”  (13:1)

          Feeling welcomed as a visitor or stranger is indeed an act of grace; an act that helps one to feel valued and appreciated.   I will never forget the Sunday school class where the teacher told of the importance of welcoming others, quoting that beautiful verse from Hebrews 13, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing, some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

          A colleague tells the story of a visitor coming to her church one Sunday morning a few minutes before the service began.   Wearing skin tight pants and an equally tight top, and with a shaved head and carrying a bicycle helmut, he went directly to the men’s room, where he washed up for some time, before moving on to the water fountain, where he gulped down cold water.   After church, he was eager to get to the coffee hour, where he consumed a good amount of baked goods.    When someone finally approached and welcomed him, they found out why.  

          The young man was riding across the nation that summer, seeking to raise funds for cancer research.   Regardless of where his travels took him on Sundays, he stopped at the nearest church (whatever denomination it was did not matter to him) at 10 am to worship.   As they talked further, the young man revealed his interest in furthering cancer research was quite important as he was fighting the disease  himself at that time.   “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing, some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
 

          Feeling welcomed touches us to our core.   It feels good to be recognized and affirmed.  Queen Victoria once spoke of her different impressions of two of the prime ministers who served during her reign.   About William Gladstone, she remarked, “When I am with him, I feel as if I am with one of the most important leaders of the world.”  On the other hand however, Benjamin Disraeli “makes me feel as if I am one of the most important people in the world.”  (The Friendless American Male, David Smith, p. 72)

          Think about those persons whose paths you may have crossed in the course of your days, who in their interaction with you, make you feel as if you are one of the most important people in the world.  They may be hard to find, but they do exist.  In fact, I can easily identify some people like that who I’ve met here at Spring Glen Church.   People, who have about them that quality of grace, that ability to fully engage you when you speak with them, and in whose presence you feel like the most important person in the world, at least their world in that time.  

When I’ve been blessed to have that experience, it moves me and I want to embrace that same spirit and share it.   I want others, whose paths I cross, to know that moment of grace and be as moved and transformed by it as it has been my experience to be.

          Welcoming others in indeed a hallmark of discipleship.   During our Monday afternoon Bible study this year, we’ve spent some time learning of the importance of welcoming and hospitality in the mid-Eastern culture, both during Biblical times and today.   Understanding the very high priority placed on being hospitable to others, especially travelers and visitors, is important in understanding so much of the lessons that the Bible has for us today.

          Welcoming others brings with it rewards.  In today’s lesson, the word “welcome” is used six times and the word “reward” three times.   That’s a good formula for success.

          And note that Jesus recognizes the learning curve in this area of discipleship.   He suggests we start small—offering a cup of cold water to a thirsty person.   We are all capable of taking baby steps in this.

          I believe this lesson serves as an important reminder of connection between faith and action, between what we believe and how that belief changes the way we act.   For many seekers and believers, there is often a certain quid pro quo in our thinking about faith and discipleship.   Because I believe in God, I must do X.  Because I believe in God, I must welcome others.   A faithful person welcomes others because this is God’s will, this is pleasing to God.

          And yet, given that today’s lesson is a part of chapter ten in Matthew’s gospel, a chapter devoted to giving teaching instructions to the disciples as Jesus prepares to send them out into the world, let us be mindful that here Jesus is also teaching us how to live life.   In his own way here, Jesus is challenging our quid pro quo thinking, “Because I believe in God, I must do X” when it comes to discipleship.  In a way he says to us--do not focus on getting to know God so you can, in response,  do God’s will.   No, do God’s will and in the process, you will get to know God.

          The inspiring Trappist monk of the last century, Thomas Merton, once wrote in a question to God, “How shall we begin to know You who are if we do not begin ourselves to be something of what You are?...We receive enlightenment only in proportion as we give ourselves more and more completely to God by humble submission and love.   We do not first see, then act; we act, then see………And that is why the man who waits to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey.”   (No Man Is An Island, Thomas Merton, p. 241)

          Growing in faith and discipleship moves us to seek and pursue the holy and sacred that exist in all of God’s creation, including all of God’s creatures.    Welcoming others, being an agent of the grace of God, does indeed touch and transform lives.    An act as simple as offering cold water to a thirsty person, as gentle as being “one of the friendly ones” at coffee hour, has the potential of changing the world, one minute, one life at a time.

          The Rev. Stephen Crotts, in writing on today’s lesson from Matthew, highlights the impact that a welcome can make, with these words:

          “One unsung hero of the Bible is Onesiphorus. He is forever known as a minister to the minister, the one who kept the Apostle Paul on his feet. In 2 Timothy 1:15-18, Paul confided, "You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me -- may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day -- and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus."

Crott notes--Just listen to the action verbs:

He often refreshed me.

He was not ashamed.

He searched for me.

He found me.

He rendered service.”

(The Rev. Stephen Crotts, “In Our Pastor’s Success, So Is Our Own.”)

          And so the action of one unknown to many of us changed the life of Paul, the primary theologian for Christianity, and in the process, changed the world. 

          Jesus’ call to us to live lives that warmly welcome others begins with the reminder to start small, to take baby steps.   Offer a cup of cold water to a thirsty person, a smile and a greeting to a visitor or stranger.    

          And stay with it.   The gifted pianist Arthur Rubinstein once noted, “If I skip practice one day , I notice it.   If I skip it two days, the critics notice it.   If I skip it three days, the public notices it.”    Growing in faith and discipleship is like every new skill we know.   At first, we need to be mindful and attentive, but with experience, it becomes second nature, it becomes part of who we are.

          Thanks be to God both for the transformative words of Jesus as well as the blessing of a new day to live into them and change ourselves.   Amen.