September 1, 2013

          Stories about mysterious strangers are the stuff of legends.     Many fairy tales and folk tales, which we may have heard growing up or tell to children these days, tell the story of a person confronting a dilemma and a mysterious stranger showing up to help.   In college, I learned the phrase “deus ex machina” which describes those scenes in the classic Greek dramas, when everything was failing, but God came out of the sky, to rescue people in distress and avoid the impending troubles.

          And many families tell the stories of their family history which often tell of unexpected persons, coming in from nowhere to help out.    In one of my first churches, a couple who married many years ago, in the days just prior to the husband shipping out to the Army, would tell the story of eloping to Maryland, their car breaking down, and a stranger coming to them on a quiet highway and helping to repair their car.   And whenever they told that story, another member of the church would comment “Hebrews 13.”

          I never quite made the connection until I asked about this and the woman quoted to me one of her favorite Scriptures, Hebrews 13:2—“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so, many have entertained angels unaware.”

          This was an important verse to her personal theology and faith and indeed, it was one that moved her to be one of that church’s most welcoming personalities; the person who gently sought out any new person at coffee hour and anyone who she ever saw standing by themselves there.

          There is something quite admirable in seeing someone whose life and faith is shaped and guided by a theology which seeks to be responsive the “angel, the sacred” in all others.  

          Those who compiled the series of lessons that make up the lectionary, the suggested lessons for each Sunday, have found the perfect match to Hebrews 13:2 in the gospel lesson from Luke today.    Jesus’ call to us to live a life that models humility and hospitality to all the world.    The parable of the wedding feast is a memorable reminder of one of the consistent themes of Jesus’ teaching—the value of every child of God and of our responsibility to live lives that lift others up in a world where circumstances so often break them down.  There is a lot within our Scriptures that move us to embrace a Hebrews 13:2 theology in our everyday lives.

          This past summer, in my ongoing efforts to work through the always growing piles of books in my home office, I finally got to read a book, Craddock Stories,  I have longed wanted to.     Fred Craddock is for many, a preacher’s preacher.    Craddock began as a simple pastor from Cherry Log, Georgia and now teaches at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta.    He is a preacher with a great reputation of speaking God’s truth in a folksy and enriching way.   One of the hallmarks of his preaching is his use of the stories of his life and journey.  

          One story he tells about his experiences, which has great relevancy for us today is this one.  

          “I was invited last year, in mid-October, to the University of Winnipeg in Canada to give two lectures, one Friday night and one Saturday morning.   I went.   I gave the one on Friday night.  As we left the lecture hall, it was beginning to spit a little snow.   I was surprised, and my host was surprised because he had written me, ‘It’s a little too early for the cold weather, but you might bring a windbreaker, a little light jacket.’   The next morning when I got up, two or three feet of snow pressed against the door.   The phone rang, and my host said, ‘we’re all surprised by this.   In fact, I can’t come and get you to take to breakfast, the lecture this morning has been cancelled, and the airport is closed.   If you can make your way down the block and around the corner, there is a little depot, a bus depot, and it has a café.  I’m sorry.’   I said, ‘I’ll get around.’  I put on the little light jacket; it was nothing.   I got my little cap and put it on; it didn’t even help me in the room.   I went into the bathroom and unrolled long sheets of toilet paper and made a nest in my cap so that it would protect my head against the icy wind.

          I went outside, shivering.    The wind was cold, the snow was deep.   I slid and bumped and finally made it down the street and around the corner to the bus station.   Every stranded traveler in western Canada was in there, strangers to each other and to me, pressing and pushing and loud.   I finally found a place to sit, and after a lengthy time, a man in a greasy apron came over and said, ‘What you’ll have?”  I said, ‘May I see a menu?’  He said, ‘What do you want a menu for?   We have soup.’   I said, ‘What kinds of soup do you have?’  And he said, ‘Soup, we have soup.   Want some?’  And I said, ‘That’s what I was hoping to have—soup.’

          He brought the soup and I put the spoon to it—Yuck.   It was awful.   It was kind of gray looking; it was so bad I couldn’t eat it, but I sat there and put my hands around it.  It was warm, and so I sat there with my head down, my head wrapped in toilet paper, bemoaning and bewitching my outcast state with this horrible soup.    But it was warm, so I clutched it and stayed bent over it.

          The door opened again.  The wind was icy and someone yelled, ‘Close the door.’   In came this woman clutching her thin little coat.   She found a place not far from me.   The greasy apron came in, ‘What do you want?’  ‘A glass of water,’ she said.   He brought the water and pulled out his pad and said, ‘What’ll you have?’  ‘Just the water.’   ‘Look lady, you have to order something.  I have customers that pay.   What do you think this is, a church or something?  Now what do you want?’ 

          ‘Just a glass of water and a few minutes to get warm.’  The greasy apron glared, ‘Look lady, everybody else here is paying.  If you’re not going to order, you’ve got to leave.’   And he got real loud about it.

          So she got up to leave and, almost as if it was rehearsed, everybody in that little café stood up and started toward the door.   I got up to join them.   And the man in the greasy apron said, ‘All right, all right, she can stay.’   Everyone sat back down and he brought her a bowl of soup on the house.

          I said to the person next to me, ‘Who is she?’   He said, ‘I never saw her before in my life.’   The place grew quiet, but I heard the sipping of that awful soup.    I said to myself, “I’m gonna try it again.’   I put my spoon into the soup and you know what, it wasn’t such bad soup.    Everybody was eating the soup.  I started to eat it to and started to enjoy it.   I have no idea what kind of soup it was.   I don’t know what was in it, but I do recall when I was eating it, it tasted a bit like bread and wine, just a little like bread and wine.”  (Craddock Stories, pp 83-84)

          Craddock proclaims the important truth, stated so clearly in Hebrews 13 and so memorable in Luke 14, that as people of faith, we are called to watch out for and protect the vulnerable, the outcast, the neglected and scorned in our world.   An old folk hymn of the 1960s, “They’ll Know We Are Christians by our Love” spoke of our commitment to “guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.” 

          The table will soon be set for us to join with other seekers and believers in knowing Christ anew.   This is the table where there is room for everyone.   This is the table with special places set aside for the lowly, the broken, the overlooked and dispossessed.  

          May we come to our places there with new understandings and new desires of how best to live and serve the risen Lord.   And may the reminders of our need to watch over and protect the poor, the innocent and the vulnerable in our world, be a reminder that helps to make the bread we consume more fulfilling and the cup we drink from more satisfying.   Thanks be to God.    Amen.