Sacred
Space 10 BFC 2016
Hebrews
13:1-2
October
23, 2016
As I hope this congregation knows by now, I
struggle with Christian messages that take radical Biblical teaching and
cheapen that teaching by acting like it was intended for the local church. I get it.
I understand it. What we do in
the local church as spiritual practice should have some integrity to it. It should mirror what we are called to do in
the world. But too often all those
messages do is privatize radical Biblical teaching so that we never confront
the public square with a countercultural ethic we are called to by a God of
justice and compassion.
Never is that so true in our own
denomination, the United Church of Christ, when we talk about making our local
churches places of radical hospitality and extravagant welcome without
recognizing the compelling, public issues that are before us. Just at the end of September, United Church
of Christ writer, Lillian Daniel wrote one of her typically pithy daily
devotions intended for local congregations titled, “Hell Is a Place Where the
Visitors Where Name Tags.” Catchy title and an interesting read.
But in a world, where the United
Nations now estimates that 65.3 million people have been forced from their
homes, a number greater than at any other time in human history and that there
are 34,000 people forcibly displaced from their homes every day,
people of faith should be raising their eyes to recognize far more than just
the new young family that made their way to the door of their church. For more than any other identifier of Judeo-Christian
faith is the person, the faith community, which provides hospitality for the
stranger. We trace our faith history
back to Sarah and Abraham, those immigrants who made a journey from the
homeland of Ur, depending on the hospitality of others. We proclaim that wandering Arameans were our
ancestors, a reference to Jacob and Rachel and Leah and their immigration into
Egypt. And over and over again, the phrase is
repeated, “Remember, you were once strangers, aliens, foreigners, immigrants,
refugees in Egypt,” as not only an ethical construct for the Jewish people
which tells them how they are to treat the alien, the foreigner, the immigrant,
but as a statement that goes to the core of their identity.
Indeed. Rev. Joan M. Maruskin, as a former
Washington, D.C. representative for Church World Service’s Immigration and
Refugee program, refers to the Bible as the “Ultimate Immigration
Handbook.” She states, “The Bible begins
with the migration of God’s Spirit and ends with John in exile on the Isle of
Patmos. Between those two events, the uprooted people of God seek safety,
sanctuary, and refuge, and the living God gives directions for welcoming the
stranger.”
As I related in a sermon this summer, the infamous story of
Sodom and Gomorrah is often ripped from its context to provide a vindictive
against the LGBTQ community. Following
the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham sends his servant back to “his” people
to find a fitting partner for his son, Isaac.
All the way to Abraham’s homeland, the servant wonders how he shall know
who is truly one of Abraham’s people, part of the family. He comes up with the answer when he arrives
at the community well. The servant decides
that the one who provides not only food and drink and cares for the well-being
for not only himself but also for his camels . . . that person is the fitting
partner for Isaac.
Bracketing
the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah as an antecedent, we read the story of
three Divine visitors who appear at the tent of Abraham and Sarah. Before the Living God once again makes the
promise of descendants to Abraham and Sarah, Abraham washes their feet, gives
them a little shade, a little bread, tells Sarah to make cakes for them, kills
the fatted calf with a little milk and cheese.
The promise of progeny becomes real because Abraham provides hospitality
to the stranger.
Jewish rabbis have written, “Hospitality is a form of
worship.”
In
fourth century Rome, the Emperor Julian sought to undercut the enthusiasm that
had grown throughout the Roman Empire for Christianity. Pagan spirituality only extended hospitality
to its own kind—Sicilians to Sicilians, people of Gaul to others of Gaul. Julian sought to cut Christianity off at its
knees by having his pagan priests adopt their model of hospitality to the
stranger. Since Julian died in battle
not long after he sent out this imperial decree, we do not know whether his
plan and program would have robbed Christianity of its claim for a
counter-cultural practice. As Benedictine sister Joan Chittister has
said, hospitality for the stranger, and not just a bed and meal, but care for
the whole person, was the primary way monastic Christianity defined itself over
and against the Roman Empire.
With the continuing stories of Abraham
and Sarah and their descendants, we know that these are not only values of
early Christian monasticism over and against Empire, but also the values within
Abraham’s family and Sarah’s circle as nomads, sojourners, migrants, refugees,
and pilgrims themselves. The story
teaches that as we offer hospitality we may find that we are communing with the
divine, sharing with the very people who come bearing divine gifts, maybe
bearing our own salvation.
One of the most powerful UCC stories
happened in Chicago, Illinois. Virgilio Vicente was a catechist in the Roman
Catholic Church who fled his native Guatemala with his family. Virgilio had
been marked for death for organizing workers.
So in the 1980s he sought sanctuary for his family by fleeing to the
United States. The threat was real. Virgilio’s parents were killed by troops
trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, and those same troops
burned their village to the ground.
Virgilio and his wife, Isabel, found sanctuary at
University Church in Chicago, Illinois, a joint UCC/Disciples of Christ
congregation then pastored by my good friends, Revs. Don and Ann Marie
Coleman. Here Isabel, Virgilio and their
family were granted hospitality and raised their four children underneath the broad
and beautiful wings of University Church.
In November 2005, Rev. Don Coleman watched as
Virgilio posted pictures of his parents on the fence at the School of the
Americas Vigil. He began to feel the
pull to intentionally cross the line at the School of the Americas knowing that
action would probably result in a fine and a prison term. With the support of his wife, his church
community, and the Vicente family, Don did intentionally cross the line and was
incarcerated for two months in a Chicago municipal jail.
More recently, one of those Vicente daughters, Gloria,
now in her twenties, left to return to Guatemala. There she learned the Mayan language, the
first language of her mother and father, Cakchiquel. She went to Guatemala as a missionary for
Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ and as a
relationship partner with Guatemala Cultural Action, the religious wing of
refugees who returned to Guatemala after the violence in the 1980s. From
the very people who were offered hospitality comes the missionary who then fed
our church.
From my heart of hearts, I really do believe this is
how God acts in the world. Our stories
teach us this. To those we extend
hospitality in the world, we welcome the divine promise, we break bread with
the Christ, we greet angels unawares.
Such stories and practices call into question the policies and programs
that advocate for hate and discrimination within our world. As Joan Chittister has written, hospitality
too often has become making connections at cocktail parties when we don’t know
our neighbors, don’t dare communicate with others in elevators, or even know
the service employee’s name. Chittister
goes on to write,
Hospitality for us may as much
involve a change of attitudes and perspectives as it does a handout. To practice hospitality in our world, it may
be necessary to evaluate all the laws and all the promotions and all the
invitation lists of corporate and political society from the point of view of
people who never make the lists. Then
hospitality may demand that we change things.
Then hospitality may demand
that we change things.
In the current political
climate, it is almost impossible to speak truth into the thick atmosphere of
hate and fear. During all of my work for
a more humane immigration policy, I have not heard one person seriously ask for
open borders. And the United States
vetting process for Syrian refugees
is so extensive and takes so long, refugees being immediately denied even based
on gut instinct, such that we cannot keep talking about the threat of Isis
terrorism and Syrian refugees in the same breath.
I cannot tell you what an honor it is to pastor a
congregation, that I believe, lives out what it means to be a sacred place of
hospitality almost every day of the week.
With stories of how this congregation provided hospitality for people
like Vilma Reich and other refugee and immigrant people to just our everyday
courage that, I believe, is leading to a palpable, all-out joy here. God and the Living Christ are present in such
real ways.
Sometimes it takes my breath
away—how you all will often engage the stranger in our midst, people we often
know will never be able to return the favor.
How often when I feel uncomfortable with it all, you buck up my courage
with your kindness and care, your unwillingness to promote fear and division.
Some of you who were present
for our Called to Care training may recall that I shared what an honor it was
to minister in the midst of you all as a sacred place of hospitality when
another clergy person almost reeled back in horror that we would not seek to
find the nearest social service agency for people who have elemental needs in
downtown Billings. We pressed her. “But many of these agencies are closed on
Sundays. And we invite many people into
our meals because that is what people of faith do.” She was almost furious with
contempt for us.
At one point I went upstairs
and there was Susan Betz, engaging as so many of you do, with someone who had
walked into our church and clearly was struggling with mental illness. Susan listened, expressed interest in his
life, and introduced him as a person to the rest of us. And I cry thinking of it because in that
moment I knew I was in the presence of the Living Christ, not that we be
irrational about this, but that Susan knew he posed no threat and so she
offered her listening ear, her care and concern. I see this repeated over and over in the
midst of you—an invitation to our potluck, names learned of homeless people who
just want a place of cup of coffee in our building, a young couple who takes
someone into their home and buys them groceries, an absolute lack of fear about
people who are clearly not here to harm us.
I am just swept away with this church as an incredibly sacred place of
hospitality. I am swept away.
Now, more than ever, in our
world, we need the hospitality of Billings First Congregational Church extended
into our wider world. The season
approaches when we remember a story that should identify who we are in the
world but is too often forgotten in a world that peddles in division, fear, and
hatred. The poet Ann Weems writes of
this story:
Into the wild and
painful cold of the starless winter night came the refugees, slowly making
their way to the border. . . .
. . .One man he could
handle . . ..two, even . . ., but a
border patrol . . . they wouldn’t have a chance.
She’d hardly had time
to recover from childbirth
When word had come
that they were hunted,
And they fled with
only a little bread,
The remaining wine,
And a very small
portion of cheese.
Suddenly, the child
began to make small noises.
The man drew his
breath in sharply;
The woman quietly put
the child to breast.
Fear . . . long
dread-filled moments . . . .
Huddled, the family
stood still in the long silence.
At last the man
breathed deeply again,
Reassured they had
not been heard.
And into the night
continued.
Mary and Joseph and
the Babe.
This is our story, that we
remember. we identify our faith ancestors were once immigrants and strangers in
Egypt, once refugees making our way to escape warfare and violence in
the Middle East, depending on the hospitality of others, hoping there is room
at the inn that no border patrol will refuse us as we flee for our lives. At the very least, hospitality should put us
in relationship with people who can then tell us their stories. And as we spread our broad wings to cover
them, we may find that their stories bring about our own salvation—we welcome
the divine outside our tent, we break bread with the Christ on the road to
Emmaus, and we greet angels unawares.
May this beautifully rich community of
faith once again spread its broad wings to do what is definitively Christian
and, in so doing, become aware of the angels that are found all around us. Amen.
