Prop 17c.07                                                    September 2, 2007

Hebrews exhorts us to – philoxenox – we translate it, “entertain strangers”

      – it literally means, “befriend the alien, the foreigner,
              the one who isn’t one of us, isn’t like us,
                        isn’t our kind of people.”
Jesus says,

      “When you give a banquet, do not invite your friends . . .
              or your relatives or . . . neighbors . . .
      Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”

He says we should invite the afflicted.
Just so, in Hebrews, the verse that says “befriend the alien”
    is followed by:

    “Remember those who are in prison as if you were in prison.
     Remember those who are being tortured as if you were being tortured.”

Why should we do these things?
The author of Hebrews says it’s because, often as not,
       the afflicted and the strangers are angels.

When he speaks of “entertaining angels,”
       he reminds us of Abraham who played host to angels
              without knowing it at the oaks of Mamre,
       of Lot who protected the angels from a mob in Sodom,
       of the innkeeper who provided the stable where Jesus was born,
       of Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus,
                who asked a stranger to stay for dinner
                never guessing he was the Risen Christ.

Recognizing angels can be tricky.
We may think of angels like Michael Landon, Roma Downey,
       Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life – maybe even Cameron Diaz.
We may think of them as fairy godmothers sent by God
       to help us out with our problems.
So maybe the strangers and the afflicted will help us out some way.
It happens.
But, in Scripture, angels aren’t fairy godmothers.

They are messengers

        – messengers from the heart of God
                 telling us how God feels, how things are with God.
So how is it going for God?
We speak of the majesty and power of God,
        so God must be doing “pretty well, thank you.”
But is that the case?
Scripture often describes God as hurt and alienated.
Scripture speaks of the loneliness of an abandoned God.

Hosea sometimes compares God to a man
       abandoned by his wife;
       other times to a parent
               abandoned by her child.
God cries out,

       “My heart within me is overwhelmed;
               fever grips my inmost being.”
Theologian Andrew Sung Park says,
       God’s pain comes from God’s perfect empathy,
       God’s complete identification, with the afflicted,
               the outcast, and the lonely.

When we call the crucified Jesus “God,”
       that’s the clearest way of saying God has become one
              with those who are misunderstood, rejected, humiliated,
                      tortured and killed.
God is there in the concentration camp and on the slave block.
Christ was crucified in Matthew Shepherd and the 3,343 people
       lynched in America between 1880 and 1930.
If the State of Georgia proceeds with executing Troy Davis,
       Christ will be there too.
Christ is there in the neo-natal ICU and at the Rescue Mission.

Christian spirituality is, pure and simple, looking for Jesus.
The problem is we so often look the wrong direction.
We look for Jesus in the blessings,
        the times when things work out for us,
                 when our problems are solved.

But Jesus didn’t say,

                 “You were hungry and I fed you;
                 you were thirsty and I gave you drink;
                 you were a stranger and I took you in;
                 you were naked and I clothed you;
                 you were in prison and I visited you.”
No. He said,

       “I was hungry . . . I was thirsty . . . I was a stranger . . .
                I was naked . . . I was in prison.”

When we are in trouble, it’s right and good we should turn to God
      for help and sustaining grace.
But we must also remember our suffering is a taste of God’s suffering.
And we heal the broken heart of God
      by befriending each other.

Salvation is a mutual process, a mutual reconciliation, a healing
      that makes all of us whole, including God,
      because as long as any of us is broken, we’re all broken.
In Judaism, this spiritual practice is called tikkun olam,
      healing the broken world.
It means acts of mercy and hospitality,
      but also working for social justice.

When we “befriend the alien,” we are befriending God.
When we remember the imprisoned and the tortured,
      we are remembering God.

Dr. Maynard Smith recalls his adolescence
      in the 1930's as pure misery.
His parents lost all their money in bank failures,
      then lost their farm in the drought of ‘34.
Then his mother died.
Dr. Smith says,

      “I went to school with the smell of a dairy barn in my clothes.
      I felt different. I looked different. I was different.
      I was teased and (given a humiliating nick name).”

One day the shop teacher accused him of something he hadn’t done.
The teacher made him drop his pants and bend over a desk,
      then beat him with a board inviting the class to laugh at him.
A week later, the Superintendent called him to the office,
      apologized, and told him the teacher would not be back next year.

Dr. Smith says, “What was important – so very important to me

      – was that this man . . . took notice of me, cared . . .
      This . . . marked a sea change in my life. . .
      Did this man ever know what he had done for me? I don’t know.”

He also remembers how he was such a social reject
      he never dreamed of going to his Church Youth Group
              until one day a boy he knew only by name invited him.

Eventually Dr. Smith graduated from Princeton,
      and became a leading Presbyterian minister.
But it took that Superintendent, the Youth Group,
      and others along the way to get him there.

Preaching on today’s lesson from Hebrews, Maynard Smith said,

      “Who is that who lives in the cries of a hungry child,
              in a neighbor’s face, in a wife’s hurt eyes? . . .
      Since the Emmaus road we can’t take chances.”

If we are looking for God in other people,
      we may or may not find God in their virtues;
      but we can always find God in their suffering.

We are not so sure of finding God not in the piety
              of religious people,
      as in the refugee camps of the Sudan,
              in our own prisons, especially on death row,
              and in each other whenever and however
                     affliction strikes.

In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day reflects
     on her life spent running hospitality houses for the poor.

     “We were just sitting there talking when lines of people
              began to form saying we need bread. . .

     If there were six small loaves and a few fishes,
              we had to divide them . . .
     We cannot love God unless we love each other,
              and to love we must know each other.

     We know him in the breaking of bread,
             and we know each other in the breaking of bread,
             and we are not alone anymore.
     Heaven is a banquet. Life is a banquet too,
             even with a crust where there is companionship . . .
     We have all known the long loneliness
             and we have learned the only solution is love. . .”

We practice befriending the alien
      right here at St. Francis by inviting people
             from the edge of the community closer to it’s heart.
We do that by offering them the chance
      to serve others through Pastoral Care and Fellowship.
We practice hospitality for persons with AIDS at Diversity House,
    and for the homeless at Loaves & Fishes Ministries and Weekend Lunch.
The Millennium Development Goals and Haitian Hope
      are part of it.
When we practice Millard Fuller’s “theology of the hammer,
      and build “the dream house” in the Peach Orchard this Fall,
              that will be befriending the alien.

Then we take that spirit of hospitality

      – formed here, nurtured here, cultivated here –
      into our home life, work life, and social life.
We let that spirit open our hearts
      knowing that anyone and everyone who is hurting
             shows us the heart of God,
      anyone and everyone who is hurting
             is our angel.

                                          Amen.