Welcome Here! 2010:11

I preached for the final time this summer at St. Andrew's United Church in Cairo this morning with Hans and my sister, Jen, in attendance! This has been a wonderful opportunity that I've been so grateful for this summer. I share with you my final sermon. My reading of this text - Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 - has been profoundly shaped by the hospitality that I have experienced in Egypt.

I’ve discovered that my students at the seminary love the movie The Sound of Music. So sometimes at dinner we’ll play the music from the movie. They all seem to love the song Do, Re, Mi. In the movie, the young woman who is serving as a nanny to 7 children wants to teach them to sing. And so this song becomes her way of teaching.

Let’s start at the very beginning,
a very good place to start.
When you read you begin with A, B, C
When you sing you begin with Do, Re, Mi.

And so on, until at the end the children can sing in perfect harmony.

In today’s gospel Jesus is starting at the beginning as well. Last week we heard that he turned his face to Jerusalem and today he appoints 70 to go before him to prepare his way, to announce the coming of the kingdom to God and to begin bringing this kingdom to people here and now. This is the beginning of the end for Jesus and it seems right that for this important work Jesus will provide his missionaries with some necessary training and preparation. In Luke’s gospel the kingdom of God is to be known through good news preached to the poor, release of the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and freedom for the oppressed. If Jesus is going to release his missionaries to prepare his way and begin this kingdom work, I expect that the instruction he gives will relate to healing, exorcisms, unbinding, preaching. I don’t know about you but I’m ready for a how-to manual for the beginning of this missionary journey.

I’m reminded of the summer after my first year in seminary when I was required to work as a hospital chaplain. The first day of the summer my supervisor threw me alone onto the floor of the hospital and said, “okay, be a chaplain.” I didn’t have a clue what to do. What was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to do? Where was I supposed to go? There was no map, no instruction manual, nothing.

If Jesus really wanted to be useful he would have given his missionaries and us a nice how-to manual on how to do the mission that he sends us on.

Step 1 – Pray
Step 2 – Find hungry people, feed them.
Step 3 – Find sick and hurting people, listen to them, pray for them, if possible heal them
Step 4 – Listen for strange spirits, if found, cast out (use pigs if necessary)
And so on and so on . . .

As always, however, Jesus defies our expectations. We want a how-to manual for mission complete with step-by-step instructions. Instead Jesus opts for guidance in hospitality – seeking it, extending it, and receiving it.

"Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals and greet no one on the road" – Jesus invites us to embrace our lives and our ministry with empty hands and with a singular focus. It seems a foolish proposition until we realize that living our lives with empty hands puts us in a position to be on the lookout for the hospitality of others. If we have no water or no bottle to fill, no sandwich and no money to buy one, we are forced to live at the mercy of those who are compassionate enough see our need and to share what they have. Empty hands put us in the position of seeking the hospitality of others.

Again Jesus speaks: "Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house! And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.” In addition to seeking hospitality from those we meet along the journey, Jesus invites us to extend hospitality in the form of sharing our peace with those we visit. Peace that is shared provides a fruitful ground for relationship and sharing. And rejected peace is simply an opportunity to move on to a more receptive place.

Finally: “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide . . . Do not move about from house to house . . . Eat what is set before you . . .” We seek hospitality. We extend hospitality in the form of our peace and finally we are invited to receive hospitality . . . in whatever form it comes. This is the one that’s hard for me. I’m a picky eater. I need a decent pillow to get a good night’s rest. And yet Jesus’ words are abundantly clear – receive the hospitality that is extended to you whether it comes in the form of Egyptian ful or fine wine.

In all of this Luke tells us Jesus is present – whoever listens to you, listens to me, and whoever rejects you, rejects me and the one who sent me.

When I think mission I think proclaiming, telling, sharing. I think of an awful lot of talking and if I’m really on my game I'll think about some careful listening. But it’s clear from today’s gospel that the heart of mission for those who prepare the way for Jesus is quite simply hospitality – seeking it, extending it, receiving it.

It’s completely shocking . . . and it makes complete sense. In seeking, extending and receiving hospitality we open our lives to our neighbors in new ways that have the power to change not just ourselves, but the whole world. When we practice the kind of missional hospitality that Jesus describes in today’s gospel, the evil kingdoms that would destroy this world begin to be toppled. And the foundation of God’s kingdom on earth – a kingdom marked by justice, by mutual sharing, by healing and wholeness – is built one cup of tea at a time.

I experience hospitality the ways Jesus describes it again and again in my travels throughout Egypt. Never moreso than two years ago when Hans and I spent a week with the family of one of my students in Upper Egypt. Over the course of that week, we were loved and cared for in ways that I've only ever experienced with family and the closest of friends. At the end of the week, my new friend Hala said to me, "We will never forget you and your visit here. You have changed our lives by visiting us."


Read through the pages of Luke’s gospel and you will see Jesus seated at tables again and again and again. And around those tables Jesus offers forgiveness and mercy to the most unsuspecting folks. It makes perfect sense that Jesus would send his followers into the world to practice the kind of hospitality that he himself seeks, extends and receives.

This is the kind of hospitality we will experience today as we gather around this table. Here we meet Jesus and receive the forgiveness and mercy in bread and wine that he offers to us.

And this is the kind of hospitality that we will experience as we gather around the tables after worship. In our conversations and our sharing the Spirit is at work preparing the way for Christ. Over coffee and tea, the Spirit is building, reinforcing and strengthening the foundations of God’s kingdom on earth here and now.

Thanks be to God!