5th Sunday after Pentecost
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
A number of years ago, my family and I travelled to Germany to attend my brother’s wedding. My brother and his fiancé had found friends willing to host out-of-town guests. We were guests of Mr. and Mrs. Ach. They were teachers in their late fifties who opened their apartment to us. We slept in their bedroom while they moved into the guest room. They provided us with nice meals, and we all enjoyed the fellowship around the table.
When we were getting ready to leave after three days and said our good-byes and thank-yous, Mr. Ach said to us: “After having lived with you all for three days, I need to adjust my pre-conceived notions about Americans.”
I had to think of that comment when I read today’s gospel text. Jesus asks for his followers to be a welcoming people. On the surface, that doesn’t sound like a problem. Every church I ever served or visited would claim to be a welcoming congregation. There is more here, though, than meets the eye.
First of all, this request comes right after last week’s gospel reading with its warning about the cost of discipleship and about hostility and family strife as the result of following Jesus, with Jesus proclaiming that he came to bring not peace, but a sword. This context alone should alert us that this welcoming thing can’t be anything soft and mushy.
Second, Jesus names three groups of people we should be willing to host: prophets, righteous persons, and little ones.
Little ones are not children, but people new in their faith and discipleship, marginalized people, and poor people who can’t give anything in return.
Righteous persons are people motivated by God’s desire for justice, by God’s righteousness. They work for justice, often at risk to their own life or well-being.
Prophets in scripture are not so much about predicting the future as they are about stating God’s comments on what is going on now. They speak the word of God into the current situation and call for more faithfulness to God’s rules.
Bringing any of these people into your house is not a prospect that delights. These people challenge us in our way of life. They can make us uncomfortable. They wake us up. They force us to rethink what we have always thought. They bring us to readjust our preconceived notions, like we did for Mr. Ach.
One commentator wrote about the silos of agreement we build for ourselves. We choose our Facebook friends and Twitter feeds and blogs and news channels according to what we already believe. We hang out with likeminded people. We join book clubs that pick books we like. Life is easier and calmer and more comfortable that way.
Letting in a prophet or a righteous person or a poor person could make our silos of agreement collapse. Their prophetic word could rattle us. Their poverty could confront us and question our way of life.
In the 18th century, pastor and social reformer John Wesley wrote:
"One great reason why the rich in general have so little sympathy for the poor is because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is that one part of the world does not know what the other suffers. Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it--and then plead their voluntary ignorance as an excuse for their hardness of heart."
These words were written more than two centuries ago, but they are just as true now as they were back then. Many white people like me had an inkling that things were not going well for black and brown people. However, we stayed in our silos of agreement. We didn’t want to know too much about racism and discrimination with all their injustices.
Or we studied it in college classes and shook our heads; “Isn’t it too bad?’ we would say, and move on. One church member sent me an article titled “When Black People Are in Pain, White People Just Join Book Clubs”. She got me there. I have read books and articles and bemoaned the situation with like-minded friends, all in the comfort of my patio or theirs.
Recently, prophets and righteous persons and little ones have broken into our silos with power, with shocking footage of violence against black people, with an ever louder call to action that we can no longer ignore. There is hard work ahead of us. No wonder we hesitated for so long before, if not welcoming, at least recognizing the prophets and righteous people and little ones in our midst.
There is one more reason we tried to avoid it: Our personal feelings of guilt and shame. Let me explain what I mean by sharing a story:
When I first came to the U.S., I worked as a hospital chaplain. One of my units was labor and delivery. One day, I was called to minister to a family where a baby had just been born with life-threatening problems. It was not certain the little boy was going to live. Understandably, the family was upset and worried and very tense.
Also, the family was Jewish. And here was I, fresh off the boat, so to speak, with a still rather strong German accent. The baby’s grandfather heard that, and all his tension and fear and worry and anger at his powerlessness unloaded itself in a tirade about the Germans and what they had done to the Jews. I remember him yelling at me for 30 minutes, but maybe it wasn’t really that long, it just felt that way.
I stood there and listened and cringed inwardly. But all I could say was, “You are right. Yes, it was terrible. Absolutely, that was evil.” Because it was. What the Nazis did to the Jews was horrible. What my forefathers did was unspeakably horrendous. I myself did not do this, but my people did. So all I could do was listen to this man’s pain and anguish and anger, and admit that my people bear an incredible amount of guilt and shame.
My gut feeling is that we white people stayed in our silos of agreement so long because we did not want to expose ourselves to this kind of outburst. We did not want to hear out loud about the terrible things our forebears committed. We did not want to have to absorb the guilt and shame of their deeds.
Jesus calls us to welcome prophets who speak God’s word to power, righteous people who challenge unjust systems, and little ones who tell us of the way racism has caused them pain. By his call for radical hospitality, Jesus is making us leave our silos and grapple with the reality of the unequal treatment of races in this country.
The writer and theologian Henri Nouwen describes hospitality as receiving the other on his or her own terms, responding to the dignity of each person. He writes: "Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines."
In that kind of safe space, new things can come to life. Healing can begin.
That’s what I experienced in that situation in the hospital. After the grandfather had unloaded on me and I had admitted the guilt of my people, I walked away for a little while. Then I went back, and it was then that the grandfather was able to share his fear and worry about his little grandson with me. Then I was invited into the room to be with the family, to read a psalm, to offer prayer, to make God’s presence felt.
That is the kind of healing I would love to see in this country and, I am audacious enough to claim, that God wants to see taking place. Jesus calls us to get out of our silos, to listen to the prophets and righteous people and little ones, to endure their anger and admit the guilt of previous generations and the shame we feel about it. Jesus demands that we welcome one another with respect for everyone’s dignity and create safe spaces where the things can be said that need to be said before healing can come.
Three years ago, in response to the racial unrest and the Black Lives Matter movement, the Lutheran bishop of Metro DC invited three black theologians to a zoom panel discussion. I was moved and inspired by what Professor Dr. Ray said. He stated that we can forgive our ancestors for what they have done, but we cannot excuse it. We can’t blame their actions on the times or the economy or whatever. Rather, we have to name it as the evil it was. Once that truth has been spoken, we can begin the healing process and the creation of a more just and joyful society.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa used the same approach when healing the nation after years of Apartheid. They spoke the truth, revealed the atrocities and injustices committed, and then were able to reconcile and move into a better future.
Jesus’ call to be a welcoming people sounded so sweet when we first read it this morning. However, the challenge this welcome presents is a challenge indeed. It demands for us to listen to the word of God as spoken to us by today’s prophets and righteous persons and little ones; the word of God that will dismantle our silos and confront us with the reality of racism; the word of God that asks us to admit the guilt and shame we feel so that those feelings no longer hinder us from engaging in the struggle for improvement of this nation.
Yes, the challenge of this kind of welcome is great. But the promise is just as great. This is what Jesus says today: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” By welcoming those who bring us God’s word, we welcome Jesus. We welcome God. The Holy Spirit is in the situation, ready to bless our conversation, our awakening to new truths, our desire to understand, our wish for guidance.
The spirit of God is blessing the process. The power of God is with us as we strive for a more just, more joyful, more faithful tomorrow. The blessings of God are upon us as we create a world where even God’s little ones are cherished and safe, and where we all enjoy true peace and harmony. Thanks be to God. Amen.