It was a normal day at church. Members drove into the parking lot in cars that had been washed on Saturday; their faces were scrubbed clean and they had on their Sunday best; they smiled as they greeted one another with genuine warmth as they ambled up the sidewalk toward the church building. A normal day, that is, with one notable exception: leaning up against the church building near the main entrance was a street person who was dressed in a shabby, smelly green overcoat, with a hat pulled down over his face, slumped over, reeking of alcohol and snoring loudly, apparently trying to sleep off the effects of a raucous evening on the town. Some people saw him; others looked right past him, but all walked by, each with an opinion, but none who stopped to inquire or to offer assistance.

Imagine everyone’s surprise when, during the processional hymn, they saw the man in the shabby green coat walking up the center aisle following the choir in the procession. The man walked straight to the pulpit, removed his coat and hat, revealing that he was the pastor of the church, who had just pulled a little ethical sting on his congregation. His point was not lost on those who realized that they had just missed an opportunity to be the church. Robert Coles’ father taught him that true morality is doing what is right when no one is watching. But, then again, God is always watching. Reminds me of another test a minister gave his congregation. He told his flock that he would be preaching on the virtue of honesty next Sunday and asked them to read Mark, chapter 17 during the week to prepare for his sermon. Next Sunday, before he read the scripture he asked for a show of hands of those who had read Mark 17; over half the congregation raised their hands. He commended those who had not raised their hand for their honesty, since the Book of Mark has only 16 chapters!

I

Our passage this morning from Hebrews teaches us that we need to extend hospitality not only to our sisters and brothers in the church, those we know and love, but also to strangers, for we never know when we might be entertaining angels unawares. On the surface, this can sound self-serving and a way to make sure we get high marks on our final ethical exams. But dig a little deeper and you will find that genuine hospitality and generosity of spirit are two fundamental marks of Christians whose hearts have been transformed by the grace of God. As Presbyterians, we know that good works do not save us, but they are sure signs that we have received the redeeming grace of God and are living out that faith by loving others as we have been loved.

My mother ran a restaurant at Ocean Isle Beach for seven years and knew the power and authority the health department inspector had over her business. She knew that if she did not keep her restaurant clean enough to insure the public’s health that the inspector could shut her down. Of course, the inspector would make surprise visits, since to announce his visits ahead of time would undercut his ability to keep restaurants on their toes. That is the same principle of the pop quiz. If we go to class each day knowing that we can have a pop quiz then we have an incentive to read the material each night.

In our Old Testament lesson today, God gives Abraham and Sarah a pop quiz by sending three messengers disguised as three travelers who stopped by their tent seeking hospitality. In the ancient desert world, as well as the modern, the custom of hospitality for strangers looms large as a vital part of life. If you have ever spent any time in the desert, you know why. In the heat and aridity of the desert one does not last very long without food or water or shelter. So, if strangers show up on your doorstep, you invite them in and offer them hospitality, no questions asked, because someday you may be in the same position. It is a matter of life and death.

I’ll never forget a narrow brush with death on Nantucket Island with a couple of friends when I was younger and less wise. We had walked a long way out on a point on the end of the island at low tide near sunset and lingered a little too long. On our walk back the tide changed, and we quickly found ourselves walking in waist-deep water as the tide rushed in and had about a mile to go before we got to the high water mark. It was an eerie feeling: one of the few times in my life I have felt up the creek without a paddle – or a boat in this case! Providentially, a small boat with two people in it came by and we flagged it down, asking for a lift. At first, the people were reluctant to let us aboard thinking the boat would not stay afloat with five people aboard. We prevailed on them with some pretty desperate and stern language and they finally agreed to take us. It was a good lesson in the need for hospitality for strangers in a hostile environment.

But let’s get back to the strangers sitting in Abraham and Sarah’s living room. As they sat drinking tea (sweetened, of course) while Sarah prepared dinner in the kitchen, they told Abraham that Sarah was going to have a baby in the spring. Sarah, who was 90 years old, laughed to herself when she overheard this, a normal response. But when it became apparent that these strangers were messengers from God, Abraham must have been relieved that he had offered them the customary hospitality, instead of shooing them off like they were vacuum cleaner salespeople or Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t know about you, but that kind of hospitality seems to be missing in our world today. People are in a hurry; we teach our children to be wary of strangers; we don’t want to get involved or support someone’s bad habits. Why don’t these people plan better? Why don’t they get a job? Am I my brother’s keeper?

Have you ever noticed that when Jesus began his ministry he and his disciples had no visible means of income? Jesus was an itinerant rabbi who had left his father’s carpentry business at age 30, and the disciples were fishermen and a tax collector who left their jobs to follow him. These were not men of means who were living off savings or trust funds; they were dependent upon the hospitality of friends and strangers as they traveled around the countryside preaching the gospel and helping people in need.1 They had good friends like Peter’s mother-in-law, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus who repeatedly hosted them in their homes providing them with room and board.

I don’t know about you, but I think I would have had trouble with that. I have had a job and some form of income since I started mowing yards at age twelve. I delivered papers, worked as a parking lot attendant, packed socks for shipping on Saturdays, delivered furniture, played in a band, worked on heavy construction crews, did carpentry, worked in a pizza parlor, graded papers for a professor in college, was a waiter in a sorority house (that was fun!), house sat for ministers, and did market research for a computer company. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to be unemployed with no visible means of support, and dependant upon the kindness of strangers, to quote Blanche Dubois in A Street Car Named Desire. We are Americans and we tend to be rugged individualists, self-reliant, and independent. One of our biggest holidays is the Declaration of Independence and tomorrow we celebrate Labor Day, a day that honors the hard work our citizens have done and continue to do to make our economy the envy of the world – although India and China seem to be gaining on us lately. So, in many ways what Jesus and disciples did was not very American. They quit their jobs and went on mission for God, depending totally upon God’s providence and the hospitality of friends and strangers. Could you do that? I don’t think I could.

This may mean why so many people don’t get the gospel, the good news that God loves us unconditionally and that our salvation is a gift from God that we cannot earn or purchase. We like to pay our own way and not be beholden or dependent upon anyone – even God.2 And that’s a problem, theologically and spiritually. That might explain why hospitality is in such short supply these days. For if people have not received God’s radical hospitality – grace and forgiveness – then they really don’t understand what it is and are not likely to be motivated to extend it to others.3 John said a very important thing in his letters: we love because first loved us. This is really to say that Christians cannot really take credit for loving others; we are able to love others because we have been loved so much by God. We can see this principle all around us. The apples do not fall very far from the tree. If we are blessed to come from a family full of love and affection, we tend to be loving and affectionate. If we come from a community that is full of kind and generous citizens who create a caring, loving community that tends to rub off on us. If we come from a mean-spirited, self-centered family or community, we tend to exemplify the same values or lack thereof.

I’ll never forget the story of the person who moved to a new town and asked a stranger on the street what kind of people lived in that town. He asked the woman what kind of people lived in the town she and her family had just left. “Oh, they were kindest, friendliest, most loving people she had ever known, and they were going to miss them terribly.” The man smiled and replied that this town had the same kind of people. A few hours another newcomer came up to the same man and asked him the same question, and he asked him the same question, “What kind of people lived in the town he had just moved from?” “Oh, they were terrible, selfish, backbiting people and he couldn’t wait to move away from there.” The man replied, “I am sad to say that you will find the same kind of people living in our town.”

Let me fiinish with a postscript. This is a pop quiz. Do you know why your license plate has inscribed on it First in Flight? Well, according to Tom Carrigan, a reputable source on such matters, a hundred years ago two young brothers from Dayton, Ohio wanted a good place to test their new flying machine. So they consulted an almanac to see where the windiest places in American were and ended up sending letters to three postmasters, including the one at Kitty Hawk, NC. Their requirements were simple: 1. they needed to be able to transport their machine safely to the site, 2. the sustained winds needed to be x miles per hour, and 3) they needed accommodations for themselves and their crew.

As history has it, these young brothers never heard from the first two post masters, but the one in Kitty Hawk replied, telling them that one, they could get their flying machine to Manteo by train and then by ferry to the island; two, the prevailing winds were 15 miles plus, and three, there were no public accommodations on the island but they could stay at his house. So there you have it. The reason you and I have First in Flight on our license plates is the warm southern hospitality of the postmaster of Kitty Hawk back in 1903. And the rest is history.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews got it right two thousand years ago when he wrote, “Let brotherly and sisterly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares … Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Friends, if God has loved us so generously and so unconditionally, then that ought to be catching. We who have been loved so much must in some small way at least have had our hearts so touched as to be transformed into loving, hospitable people. Pass it on and pay it forward. Let us pray.

1Will Willimon, Pulpit Resources, Logos Productions, Inver Grove Heights, MN, vol. 35, No. 3, 2007, pp. 42-43

2Ibid, p. 43
3Ibid

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