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Luke Divine Hospitality In the name of him who heals, forgives, redeems, and grants life to us by his holy Word, dear friends in Christ: Times and cultures change – some things for the better, and others for the worse. It’s common for people to pine away for the good old days, back when life was simpler and people were friendlier… and yet, few people would really want to return to such days if it meant giving up all the modern conveniences we’ve learned to rely on. Still, one thing that’s truly unfortunate that we are losing by degrees is the importance we place on hospitality – that is, the art of being a good and gracious host. And please don’t misunderstand me: it’s not that we don’t think it’s important or that people aren’t doing it; but rather that we don’t place as much importance upon it as people once did. And there are a lot of reasons for it. Our lives are more complicated, more hectic and crammed with things to do; and to a certain degree we are more private and insular than in times past. Fewer people have the time or the will to do all the work necessary to prepare their homes, fix the meals, and plan to entertain guests as they once did; and fewer potential guests have either the time or desire to accept such invitations – all, I think, to the impoverishment of our lives and our culture. It wasn’t
too awfully long ago, back before television, the Internet, various sports
leagues for children, and so many other diversions took hostage most of our
leisure time, that people regularly planned get-togethers in their homes for
the express purpose of simply enjoying each other’s company. They’d tell stories or read them aloud,
gather around the piano to listen to some one play, they’d sing songs, play
games, and just have what could only be called “good old fashioned fun”. Yes, of course it still goes on – but not
nearly as often as it once did. And at
all such gatherings in the past, it was understood that the host and hostess
were responsible for ensuring that all present had a pleasant time. Hospitality was the goal – not so that you
could be puffed up with pride for being known as the best host around, but
rather it was a genuine spirit of service that sought to make sure that every
one of the guests was comfortable, included, cared for … pampered even. Now, take that sort of emphasis on
hospitality and compound it many times, and you will begin to get an inkling of
how people valued this particular virtue in ancient We see some of this same emphasis
on hospitality demonstrated in this morning’s readings from Scripture. In the Old Testament lesson, it’s Abraham and
Sarah who play host to the Lord himself – though they are aware of their
guest’s identity at first. We’re told
that Abraham is sitting near the entrance of his tent – the equivalent of his
front porch – during the heat of the day.
It’s likely that he’s taking a little siesta. He looks up all of a sudden and sees three
men standing in the yard out in front of him.
From what he says, it seems that he believes them to be some unknown
travelers who just happen to be passing by.
But look how he behaves: though
he is ninety-nine years old, he snaps out of his afternoon nap, rushes over to
them, and literally begs them for the opportunity to be of service. He actually tells them that he would count
the opportunity to see to their comfort to be a special favor that they
could bestow on him. He proceeds
to downplay what he intends for them.
“I’ll just have a little water brought, so that you can wash your feet;
and I’ll bring a little snack for you to give you energy for your
journey.” And the way it sounds in the
original Hebrew is more like, “I’ll just see if there isn’t a little something
left over lying around in the fridge.” But then, when they agree to stay
for a bit, off Abraham goes. He first
directs Sarah to bake some bread for their guests with their finest flour –
three whole seah’s worth. To give you an idea: that much flour would overflow a five-gallon
bucket. It would make enough bread to
feed these guys for a month. And notice
that Sarah doesn’t bat an eye at the suggestion. She wants to be a good hostess as much as
Abraham wants to be a good host. As she
gets busy with that huge project, Abraham is off and running again – and
remember, he’s ninety-nine years old; but we’re told he sprinted out to the
cattle herd to personally select a choice young calf to roast and set before
his three visitors. A small leg of lamb
would have made a feast for them; but Abraham wants a whole calf prepared. We’re not told how Abraham entertained his
guests for the several hours it would have taken to lay on this elaborate
feast; but from his behavior, we can be certain that it was in ways no less
gracious. Finally, when everything is
ready, we find Abraham not daring even to join his guests in dining, but rather
standing at a respectful distance and attending them like their personal
waiter. And again, the Scriptures
indicate here and elsewhere that Abraham had as yet no idea who these three men
were. As far as he knew, they were just
passing strangers. Can you imagine going
through all this trouble for just anyone who shows up on your doorstep? (Then again, maybe if we all started doing
it, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons would make fewer visits because they’d
run out of time. That, or next time they
came back, they’d bring their whole families!) But all
joking aside, we simply have to marvel at how hospitable Abraham and Sarah
are. And in today’s Gospel reading we
see much the same thing as Martha of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and Mary,
shows herself to be a true daughter of Abraham and Sarah. She, at least, has the benefit of knowing her
distinguished guest; and for him she goes all out. This is not a time for half-measures or “good
enough”. She wants everything to be
perfect. So she has spared no expense;
she’s planned, prepared, and cleaned for days.
And on the day of his visit, we’re told that she’s a veritable whirlwind
of activity as she literally wears herself to a frazzle while carrying out all
the tasks she had planned to serve her Lord.
That’s how dedicated she is to serving him and to being a good and
gracious hostess for him. And we cannot
help but admire her for it. But maybe we shouldn’t. I’ve come across many theological commentaries
on this story that say that Martha and Mary were both serving the Lord Jesus in
their own ways, and that each of the ways has importance and value. Both ways need to be affirmed. And the implication is that we should follow
their examples, choosing either the approach of Mary or of Martha, whichever
people find themselves best suited for.
And that seems to make sense. The
only problem is that’s not what Jesus says.
When Martha, who’s working so hard to please her Lord, complains to
Jesus about how scandalous it is that her sister, Mary, is just sitting there
like a lump on a log at Jesus’ feet, apparently with no notion of how rude and
boorish she is being by not doing anything to help play hostess for her guests,
Jesus tells Martha that it is Mary, and not she, who is doing the right
thing. I imagine that Martha was just
about knocked over by Jesus’ words. How
could it possibly be that Mary is the one who’s correct here? She isn’t doing anything to serve! Especially in this culture that holds
hospitality next to godliness, Mary is showing herself to be utterly void of
virtue – she’s the essence of neglect.
Meanwhile Martha is slaving away – working her fingers to the bone – to
be a good hostess. And everything she’s
doing is only because she wants to do is show her love and devotion to
Jesus. How can that be wrong? What is it with Jesus that he doesn’t
understand what hospitality is all about? That’s a tremendous question. And as it turns out, Jesus knows exactly what
hospitality is all about – he ought to because it is, after all, a divine
virtue. Martha’s confusion comes
of not knowing that simple truth. She
imagines that Jesus is a guest in her home.
The truth is that she and all the rest of us are always guests in his
Creation. Wherever he goes, he is the
host. And as Jesus said elsewhere, “The
Son of Man came not to be served; but to serve, and to give his life as a
ransom for many.” Human hospitality is a good thing. The spirit of wanting to please and serve
others with the things that we can do for them is something we should all want
to have. We make a mistake, however, when
we think we are to offer such hospitality to the Lord. Imagine preparing an elaborate evening’s
entertainment for some special guests you’ve invited. Like Abraham and Sarah, or Martha, you have
“killed the fatted calf”, so to speak, and laid it out with all the
trimmings. You’ve overlooked no
detail. And let’s say you’ve arranged
elaborate entertainment: you’ve hired a
string quartet to play during dinner; and singers, comedians, and even a
magician to put on a show afterward. But
when you’re guests arrive they tell you, “We see you’ve gone through a lot of
needless trouble. We’ve brought dinner
and entertainment with us.” And then
they proceed to pull out a cold can of generic pork and beans, and hand out
plastic spoons. They sit on the floor
and pass the can back and forth so everyone can share. Then, after dinner they pull out their
scrapbooks – all seventeen volumes – of their two week trip to Now, all that sounds absurd, of
course; but it is far less absurd than imagining that somehow we can play host
for the Lord. And if we try, what we are
doing is the same as the situation just described, only many times worse. Mary understood that. She understood herself to be the guest of
Jesus. And sitting eagerly at his feet,
she received the rich and precious gifts that he had to offer. Specifically, she listened to his words – the
teachings of Jesus – because it is through his words that Jesus communicates to
people all his divine gifts, namely the forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus said, “The time is coming and now is
that the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will
live.” That’s what was going on in Mary
and Martha’s living room while Martha was so busy. Jesus was speaking the words that give life
to those who are dead in sin. Mary was
receiving the eternal gifts that come from the Savior while Martha was fretting
over her pot-roast – and worse, imagining that she was more virtuous than her
sister for doing it. How foolish. Her preoccupation with being the server
caused her to miss the true spiritual nourishment being served. We see much
the same thing going on in with Abraham and Sarah. They’re busy bending over backwards to please
their guests. That’s where their whole
focus is: their work for their guests.
And yet, when the Lord whom they are serving tells them that he has come
to inform them that the time has come for the promise of God to be fulfilled
and for Sarah to conceive the long promised son, she laughs outright. And lest we condemn her alone, it’s good to
know that it’s the same response that Abraham had during an earlier
conversation with the Lord when the promise had been made. They both laughed. They could not believe that the Lord could
perform the miraculous regeneration that would make it possible for them, 99
and 89 years old respectively, to receive the child of promise. They couldn’t accept that he was in fact
their host – that he was showing them hospitality far and away above anything
they could offer to him: he had come to
give them a son. Their focus was all on
their own work; but they had no faith in God’s.
Fortunately for them, after rebuking them for their lack of faith, the
Lord fulfilled his promise anyway. He proved
that nothing is too difficult for the Lord by giving them the child through
whom he had promised would eventually come the Savior of all people. Now, all of
this should shape the way we think about the time we spend with the Lord. Wherever we go, the Creator and King of the
universe is never our guest – he is always our host. And no place is this truer than here in God’s
own house: the Church. There are a pair of very popular books that
have been topping the charts for over a year in sales for the category of
Christian reading material that say exactly the opposite. The author says that what we do here on a
Sunday morning is all about what service we can offer to God. He is our guest, and it’s our duty to
entertain him with our praises and offerings. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Such a theology of worship is built upon the
misguided and self-righteous spirit of Martha, not the humble and
hands-open-to-receive spirit of Mary. In fact, it
may be helpful for us to see Abraham and Sarah’s reception of their unknown guests
as an illustration of how the Lord receives us here. We are, in a sense, strangers who show up on
his doorstep. Not that he doesn’t know
who we are; but rather that our sins and other failures have estranged us from
him. But he is nevertheless thrilled at
our having come because it gives him the opportunity to serve us and provide us
with necessary refreshment for our journey through life. Just a little something, he promises; but
then he goes all out. He bids a little water
be brought: water that washes away our
sins in Baptism, and each Sunday when we revisit our Baptisms in the confession
and absolution part of the service. And
then he proceeds to lay on a real feast of his Word that comes at us in
abundance through psalms, through the words of the liturgy (which are all drawn
from Scripture), through the readings, and the hymns, and yes, hopefully through
the sermon too. When you put it all
together, in any one service we are presented with far more of his Word than we
could possibly absorb in a years of intense study – Words of encouragement,
wisdom, guidance, all that provide us with spiritual nourishment and that strengthen
our faith. It is
through these Words that he communicates to us his divine gifts of forgiveness,
life, and salvation. That’s possible
because his Words are not just dead letters on a page; no, they are living and
powerful. Through them God gives us the
greatest gift of all: his Son. That’s what we’re here to receive. God has gone so much farther than just to
kill the fatted calf for us and to prepare a large an especially large batch of
bread. He’s sacrificed his Son for us
and has prepared for us the Bread of Life.
That’s what he serves here. And
that’s why we sing in one of our liturgical hymns, “This is the Feast of
Victory of our God”. What we’re saying
is that here in the Divine Service, and of course especially in Holy Communion,
we are the guests of the Lord. Here we
experience his Divine Hospitality while we receive from him his own Son whom he
has prepared as the sacrifice of atonement for our sins. And having
received such hospitality, it’s certainly appropriate to give him thanks –
that’s what a gracious guest does. We do
this with our praises, prayers, and offerings – and even more by extending his
Divine Hospitality to others. The Lord
doesn’t need us to be his hosts; but others do.
So it’s right that we reflect the hospitality we have been given by
serving the needs of others, and by inviting them to join us at the Feast of
Victory. To him who the host of this
Feast be all honor and glory forever.
Amen. Soli Deo Gloria! |
