Radical Hospitality...Not Today

There will be no official blog post today...

The author's day is filled preparing for a hospitable meal for the congregation she serves.

Today's hospitality is brought to you by casseroles, pound cakes, rolls, and roasted veggies.

Service tomorrow at noon...

All are invited.

Radical Hospitality...Faithful

Eddie Ray Routh was found guilty this week in the death of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. Littlefield's mother was quoted saying how grateful she was for the verdict and how God had been faithful to them by providing a guilty verdict.

I know God was faithful in this process, but I disagree with Mrs. Littlefield about how. God is not in the retribution or punishment business, as much as we would like that...especially when God's punishment is directed at our enemies, those who have harmed us or those we love. We, of course, don't imagine that God punishes us for misbehavior. God's grace is ours...

The radical hospitality of God means that God's faithfulness is sure--for Mrs. Littlefield and for Eddie Ray Routh and his family. God's love, mercy, and forgiveness are offered to all sides.

We don't have to decide whether or not we can live with that. That's God's reality.

It's good news. It just may be that we can't always hear it.

Radical Hospitality...Failure

The need for radical hospitality sneaks up on you some days. A woman demanded food for her family in a hotel room with "literally nothing to eat" for her and her children "and a winter storm moving in."

No excuses here...description. End of workday...4:50 p.m. Worked on a sermon that refused to come together, wrote Sunday school curriculum, and baked desserts for the fundraiser dinner on Sunday. For some strange reason, the cakes poured out of their pans, leaving a huge mess in the ovens, a stink in the kitchen, and then what was left in the pan burned on one side.

Weather closing in means I don't see my husband a second weekend in a row. Other small irritants got under my skin. The phone rings...

The family is 45 minutes away from the church. I suggested several avenues for assistance. She argued that it was too late for anything. Every possibility I thought of, she had a reason it wouldn't work. There was no food at the church...it had already been sent to the shelter. They had no way to cook in a hotel room. She spent several minutes yelling at me, then hung up with the conclusion that "no church wanted to help them."

Hospitality fail. Not only had I failed to come up with an option that might work, I was angry with her. I'm traveling this Lenten journey of radical hospitality, exploring its dimensions, trying to answer its call, challenging others to do the same, and not only could I not solve her problem, I was pissed off.

Sunday's sermon is on the feeding of the 5000. I needed that stretch of green grass, some disciples to work the crowd, one loaf of bread and the power of God. It felt a bit like I was slogging through the wilderness while everyone else enjoyed the miracle.

I hope there was a picnic somewhere for that family.

I am grateful that the hospitality of God never fails.

Today, I'll try again.

Radical Hospitality...Coffee

Maybe this is drivel.

Maybe it is the most profound though I've ever had.

Maybe it's 6 am and cold and more snow is on the way.

Hospitality today would have been someone bringing me coffee.

It's the little things that change the world.

Here's a cup for you.

Radical Hospitality...Use Your Words

I've been ranting about this for years...but don't have the degree in neuroscience or the ability to read a brain scan to prove it. But now, a guy is proving it, so I feel somewhat vindicated. Though I also feel like a hand-on-the-hip-duhhhhh. However, that would be inhospitable...

Our language shapes who we are. As people of God, do you go to "church" or do you go to "worship." I went to church as a kid, but my husband-the-preacher challenged that. Our family went to "worship." It changes the inevitable middle school conversation about not wanting to go to church. It's a harder argument to make that you just don't feel like worshipping God. (Please note, I didn't say they wouldn't make the argument...it's just harder.) I can attest to the change in me as I "worship" instead of "going."

Are you doing a job or answering a call? Are you running a church or partnering in ministry?

Thinking about our fundamental call to hospitality and the radical hospitality of God in which we are invited to participate, I think we are challenged to be aware of our language. Language that stereotypes groups of people, violent language focused at other people, language that reflects that a person is unworthy in any way undermines radical hospitality.

The difficulty of this is astounding. We are so steeped in language that twists our relationships, rips us apart, that we often aren't even aware. I loved the sitcom MASH in the seventies. Watching it now, I am horrified at the way women were portrayed and treated. The most competent nurse is "Hot Lips." I've probably just proved my point.

Perhaps we are called to be more aware of how we use our words...

For a blogger, that's a disconcerting thought.

Radical Hospitality...Critique

I think I'm learning that God's holy, radical hospitality includes openness to correction. We humans can be mighty wrong while insisting we are mighty right. We see it in ourselves again and again as we look through history.

I wonder if perhaps radical hospitality is openness to correction in the today.

We've been taught that hospitality is inviting others to enter our world...and it is. When people don't like our world, we congratulate ourselves on having invited them...we stay comfortable because really, we can't do anything about the refusal of our hospitality.

I'm thinking the call to radical hospitality is the genuine openness to critique of my world. Perhaps embracing the critique would enable us to live in covenant relationship with each other, building a way of life that brings health and wholeness for all.

Practicing hospitality as an invitation to critique is frightening. We are all able to critique. It's a skill mastered well and early. In fact, we've made it part of the weave of our society. If the warp are the long threads of the fabric of life the threads of family and friends, of faith and fun, all that make up the pattern of our days, then the weft of our lives is criticism. The thread that binds us together seems, far too often, to be incessant criticism.

So what would make criticism constructive, instead of the constant, destructive force it seems to be today? I wonder if it might be a return to the idea of "common good." God's term is shalom. When all people are able to live in peace and wholeness, that is God's idea of common good. Our criticism seems to be more about our personal preferences or a way to get what is best for us or our group...even at significant cost for others.

What if the weft of our lives was the weaving of critique that brought about what was good for the other? what was good for the all?

What a beautiful fabric we might weave...

Radical Hospitality...God's Gift of God

Techicality...Sundays are "in" Lent and not "of" Lent. They are interruptions of worship and praise in the center of our reflective, penitential preparation. Or, perhaps, they are the anchors that keep us grounded in what is truly real...preventing us from wallowing in self-pity or hopelessness at our intractable sinful selves. But what better way to celebrate Sunday than to look at God's hospitality. And where better to start than God's gift of Godself to us. I love the way Peterson translates this one in The Message.

The Life-Light

1 1-2 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
    God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
    in readiness for God from day one.

3-5 Everything was created through him;
    nothing—not one thing!—
    came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
    and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
    the darkness couldn’t put it out.

6-8 There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

9-13 The Life-Light was the real thing:
    Every person entering Life
    he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
    the world was there through him,
    and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
    but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
    who believed he was who he claimed
    and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
    their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
    not blood-begotten,
    not flesh-begotten,
    not sex-begotten.

14 The Word became flesh and blood,
    and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
    the one-of-a-kind glory,
    like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
    true from start to finish.

15 John pointed him out and called, “This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.”

16-18 We all live off his generous bounty,
        gift after gift after gift.
    We got the basics from Moses,
        and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
    This endless knowing and understanding—
        all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
    No one has ever seen God,
        not so much as a glimpse.
    This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
        who exists at the very heart of the Father,
        has made him plain as day.

Amen...

Radical Hospitality...Don't Let Go

"Jihadist" is a word that sends us cowering. The words of God's radical hospitality often do the same. These words are like Pavlovian triggers, sparking cascades of good excuses that bury the idea of hospitality before we even realize what we've done.

What happens to a young man who leaves his home country, goes to Syria, trains as a jihadist, then returns home to wreck havoc? In Denmark... radical hospitality. (Read the article here.) Young men who return from their trek through radicalization in Syria return to find themselves enveloped by a community who have decided to treat "onetime fighters not as criminals or potential criminals or potential terrorists but as wayward youths who deserve a second chance." They are assigned mentors, educated, supported and clung to so tightly that it becomes extraordinarily difficult to live into the indoctrinated reality that chooses violence as solution.

Imagine the radical hospitality of not letting go. A child struggling to read in school enveloped so tightly by his or her community that reading becomes the connection to love and acceptance instead of the stigma that separates them from success. Our response to the teen who insists on antisocial behavior would be to mingle the mean right out of them.

Most challenging to not letting go in this culture might be the refusal to absorb the constant media messages of "other," "less-than," "at-fault," or any other message that pulls us apart.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great..." (Luke 6:32-35a)

Let's don't give each other up for Lent.

Radical Hospitality: Breaking the Rules...

I think we are hard-wired to be inhospitable...closed off to those we don't know or those different
from us. It probably comes from a safety/survival need. You stay in clan groups so you are safe, protected, Being hospitable to European explorers wiped out many native populations in this country. Stranger danger was real.

We make rules to protect ourselves...or that we think protect us...from "other" danger. Deep in the South we wanna know "who yo people ahh." If we can find a connection, someone we know that you know, you are safe. If we don't know your people?  Well someone will, honey...just mosey along and keep looking.

We function under rules we are not even aware of. Does the stranger look like me? talk like me? live like me? Does the stranger act like they want to be friends with me? One of my favorite church Catch-22 stories went like this:

Do you know the person sitting at the other end of your pew?

No. Well, I've seen them for a few months.

Why don't you introduce yourself and learn their names?

Because if they wanted me to know their names, they would have told me already. 

Is radical hospitality a willingness to break the rules? Richard Rohr comments that forgiveness is rule-breaking. He says:

...every time God forgives, God is breaking God's own rules, and saying relationship with YOU matters more than God being right! 

Perhaps our new rule of hospitality is that we constantly break our rules of comfort and security in order to say that the relationship with THEM is more important than us being safe.

Radical forgiveness.

Radical hospitality.

Fundamental change in our life together, no doubt.

Lent 2015: God's Radical Hospitality...

Radical...defined:
Change or action relating or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.

Radical...enacted by God:

...then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Gen. 2:7)

 "As for me, this is my covenant with you...I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you." (Gen. 17:7)

 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. (Deut. 7:6-8)

O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away...Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there... (Psalm 139: 1-2, 7-8)

How can I give you up, Ephraim? (names understood as the collective people of God) How can I hand you over, O Israel?...My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:8-9)

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David...Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant... (Luke 1:68-69, 72)

Radical...commanded by God

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And [Jesus] said to [the lawyer], "You have given the right answer; do this and you will live." (Luke 10:27-28)

Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. (Matt. 25:34-35)

Can we be radically hospitable?

Would our obedience affect the fundamental nature of life together?

 

Ash Wednesday At Home Worship...

This is a long post, but you have two options going through it, one for families with younger children, and one for adults. May you feel God's presence and forgiveness as you celebrate Ash Wednesday together.

Light a candle if you wish, or gather together around an open Bible or a cup and plate…or any combination of the above. If you’ve been home for a couple days with kids, let them decide and prepare the “worship space.”

Opening prayer:

Gracious God, your steadfast love endures forever. We gather in penitence. We gather in confidence. We trust that we belong to you. Restore us, O God, to the abundant life of trust and gratitude that enables us to serve our neighbor and proclaim the truth that your love and forgiveness will never fail. Amen.

Scripture readings: (If your children are very young, just read the Psalm.)
Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 51: 1-17

You can read the scriptures one at a time, then pause and talk about what they mean and use that as your meditation, OR you can read the brief meditation that follows the focus points.

Scripture focus:

• We find in Isaiah the expectation that Israel had that if they “worshipped perfectly” they could get God’s attention regardless of how they lived their lives. God’s prophet, Isaiah, reminded the people that God’s first priority is how God’s people care for others. Worship must be done in a context of serving and respecting others. 
• Psalm 51 explores the “penitent” heart. (Teach your children the word “penitent.” Humility and the recognition that we are not perfect allows God to work in us. This expresses itself in our ability to say “I’m sorry” when we are wrong and to listen carefully and respectfully to others’ point of view. We may not be as right as we think we are.) 

Meditation:

Imagine the following conversations:

“Honey, I know I shouldn’t have had an affair, but I was doing the best I could at the time. So, I wasn’t technically wrong to break our marriage vows."

“He hit me first as I was getting off the swing. So I hit him back. I can’t be in trouble if I didn't start it."

We are Christians. Clearly, therefore, God is on our side and so whatever decision we make will be the right decision.

Do they make you squirm just a bit? I remember squirming decades ago when a story of congregants refusing entrance to blacks was recounted as a justified protection to keep the congregation intact. After all, if blacks had been allowed in the doors, the congregation might have split.

The 1960’s show MASH is available on Netflix and I loved it when it was on. Decided to pull it up and watch some episodes. By the second episode, I was squirming at the rampant sexism. Did we really do that? Why didn’t someone say something?

Could it be, perhaps, because we didn’t want to admit we might be wrong? Could it be that we invested a lot in ignoring the fact that we are not perfect and make mistakes. Could it be that we hate with every fiber of our being to admit we are a sinful people. We cannot escape it, we cannot eliminate it, and often we cannot even see that we are doing it.

Our holy scripture is unique in its “self-critical” tradition. One-third of the Old Testament is prophetic writing, the prophets of Israel criticizing the behaviors of the people and institutions of Israel. Richard Rohr states it pretty bluntly in his daily devotional reading on Tuesday:

The biblical tradition hopes to reveal that whenever the prophetic function is lacking in any group or religion such a group will very soon be self-serving, self-maintaining, self- perpetuating and self-promoting. When the prophets are kicked out of any group, it’s a very short time until that group is circling the wagons around itself, and all sense of mission and message is lost.

We are never right or perfect or sinless all the time. Our refusal to be wrong puts us in the same boat as those condemned by Isaiah or those whose proud hearts are hardened against God’s love. In recent weeks we have justified the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Jim Crowe by saying we were doing the best we knew how to do at the time, therefore we were not wrong or sinful. That made me squirm.

Nowhere in scripture does God allow the justification of sin with “but if you were doing the best you knew how at the time…then you are fine.” Instead, God reminds us again and again with prophetic voices that we are sinful creatures.

This culture resists any admission of guilt, weakness, or being wrong. Contrast that with the joy of a “heart that is broken and crushed” in Psalm 51. The biblical “heart” is the center of emotions, understanding, and wisdom. It also represents the idea of commitment to a particular course of action and the discernment of good and evil. A broken and crushed heart is one that is open to God’s way and willing to obey God’s command. A hard heart is the refusal to admit any fault, any other way than one’s own, any concern beyond one’s self interest.

Who are we on this Ash Wednesday…and every other day of our human lives? We are sinful people. The Psalmist says, “Because I know my wrongdoings, my sin is always right in front of me. I’ve sinned against you—you alone. I’ve committed evil in your sight. That’s why you are justified when you render your verdict, completely correct when you issue your judgement.”

The broken and crushed heart is ready to be cleaned…a heart cleansed by God is one that steps closer to understanding what is good and acting to bring about that goodness.

If we buy the culture’s insistence that we are never wrong, that our opinion is our opinion, that we do the best we can at any given moment and cannot be judged for that--then living as a penitent people will certainly make us squirm. But squirmy or not, we are called to repentance. Participating in this ritual of imposition of ashes reminds us again of that we are sinful, human beings. It also reminds us that God is God and God’s steadfast love for us and all creation endures forever. Amen.

Litany of Penitence #1  (for families worshipping with younger children)

Holy and merciful God, we confess we have sinned.
We do the wrong things for the wrong reasons or we don’t do what we know we should do.
You love your creation. You created human beings and said that your creation was good.
We decide who is good and who is bad. We don’t like people because they look or act different than we do. We want our own mistakes to be forgiven, but we don’t want to forgive other people when they do bad things.
You ask us to be obedient disciples, loving you and our neighbor
We don’t always like to be obedient, especially when it is hard or makes us different than our friends. We too often prefer to spend time doing things that we like to do instead of serving others.
Forgive us, O God, for all the things we do wrong. Have mercy on us according to your steadfast love.
Clean up our hearts, O God. Bring us joy in obeying and serving you.
Amen.

Litany of Penitence #2  (for adults)
Holy and merciful God, we confess to you and to one another, and to the whole
communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinned by our own fault in
thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not
loved our neighbors as ourselves. Have mercy on us, O God.
Creator God, you love your creation and creatures; you made us all one and pronounced
us “good.”
Yet, we judge one another as “bad.” We permit where we were born to divide us
from each other. We separate ourselves by color, gender, economic status, or faith
and call it right and good. We refuse to see our own faults while finding every fault
in others. Have mercy on us, O God.
Forgive us Lord as we pretend not to understand our call to journey with you through the
cross and beyond.
We are reluctant to journey with Christ for we do not want to suffer. We are not
eager to re-live the pain and agony Christ faced on our behalf or even because of
our behavior. We do not want to identify with Christ’s suffering or our human
limitations. Have mercy on us, O God.
We cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?" when it is we who have walked
away from you.
We are frustrated with our slow decline, with your apparent absence, with the
sense that nothing we try works to bring people to you. Forgive our shallow
attention to your ways. Forgive our inability to be obedient disciples when things
don’t go well. Have mercy on us, O God.Have mercy on us, God, according to your steadfast love.
Wipe away our wrongdoings according to your great mercy.
Restore the joy of your salvation to us and sustain us with your willing spirit.
Create a clean heart for us, God. Put a new, faithful spirit deep inside us. Amen.


MAKE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS IN OIL ON YOUR FOREHEADS OR OBSERVE A MOMENT OF SILENT CONFESSION
Say the Lord’s Prayer together.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

Charge and Benediction:
May the God of peace make you holy in every way and keep your whole being— spirit, soul, and body— free from every fault at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thess. 5:23)
Amen
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Thanks be to God.