Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Sermon from August 29, 2004

“Entertaining Angels”

Rev. Thomas Ratmeyer

Scriptures:

Hebrews 13:1-8;15-16

If you went to the grocery store in the magazine section, and you saw the rare copy of the Christian magazine called “The Christian Century” with the headline “Five Secrets for Effective Ministry” or maybe “Five Virtues for Successful Congregations”.    Would you pick it up and drop off a copy at church?  I certainly would be interested.  In any case, this is not a magazine-generated sermon.  I did my work myself.  Our scripture is a series of admonitions, a series of words of warning and advice.  There’s a temptation in Scriptures like that to pick one or two parts that fit right now, or that are a little more comfortable, and to avoid the Bermuda Triangle that are the other one or two parts. You could preach a wonderful sermon on just the hospitality verse.  It’s beautiful:  “Some have entertained angels without knowing it.” 

But I chose to not follow that particular temptation, and, instead, look at the whole Scripture because I was trying to discern what kind of themes were there to these admonitions and whether that made any sense to me.  I found five.  The first is Hospitality.  The second is Solidarity.  The third is Commitment.  The fourth is Contentment.  The fifth is Worship.  As I thought about those themes, I wondered if that may not be five building blocks of successful ministry, and if, therefore, we should not look at all of them.

It starts with Hospitality in Verse 2:  “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” 

Our Conference Minister Davida Crabtree preached on that theme in her conference address at the annual meeting.  Hospitality seems a no-brainer.  We want people to come.  We want to spread the words.  We want to have our doors open.  However, hospitality is so much a no-brainer that maybe we should be intentional and thinking about it after all.  What is the difference between “friendly” and “hospitable”?  A friendly one invites another in.  The hospitable sits down with him or her and spends some time talking.  The friendly one will explain what our church is all about.  The hospitable will listen and ask this person what he/she is all about and what he/she is looking for.  Are we as welcoming as we think?  Is somebody missing at the table? 

I remember a story about entertaining angels.  Abraham and Sarah had three visitors.  During the encounter, Sarah learned that at the astonishing age of ninety-some years, she would give birth to a son.  When she heard that, it was so scary and so seemingly ridiculous that she laughed to herself because laughing is sometimes how we respond to things when we are afraid.  She laughed to herself because the promise of God that knocked on the door in the form of three angels did not fit her preconceived notions about what is possible.  Are visitors teaching us something about the promise of God that we don’t know yet is possible?

Hospitality is a core value of our tradition; not just the Christian but the Judaeo tradition as well.  It says in Leviticus:  “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt:  I am the Lord your God.”  My own status, incidentally, has shifted from a “Visiting Alien” to a “Permanent Resident Alien” and I’m grateful for that.  But from that I know what it is to be received with a welcome and I hope that I can always manage to translate that into my own welcome to those who come as aliens. 

Jesus says in Matthew words that I have spoken at the beginning of the service:  “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.  Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”  Faith is not complete unless it reaches out to the next person.  Our welcome to the stranger,  including the strange one, is the first and most fundamental expression of what we believe and who we think we are.

Solidarity is number 2.  Verse 3:  “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.”

  Can we read that verse this week and not think about Abu-Ghraib?  I don’t think so.  This was the week when two reports were released about what happened in that prison in Iraq.  Here’s my concern:  We get so caught up in the definitions; we’re fine-tuning the definitions of “abuse” versus “torture”.  We’re fine-tuning whether somebody was “guilty” or just “responsible” and how that translates up the chain of command.  I’m worried that we get lost in that categorizing, and, in the end, have the illusion that we’ve done something when, in reality, I don’t think the problem is solved.  So I’m asking you—does the Christian community, not the community of policy-makers, but the Christian community, have a special responsibility toward prisoners, and does that responsibility extend to prisoners of war or prisoners detained in the context of the war on terror?  Some prisoners are outside the protection of the Geneva Convention.  Are there any prisoners outside of the Christian responsibility to reach out to them?

Look within our own country.  We have an intellectual debate about prisons.  The prison industry is one of the fastest growing industries in our country, if not in our state.  We imprison a significantly higher percentage of our population than any other developed country.  We think about effective ways of deterring people from committing crimes.  We wonder about the chances of rehabilitation.  We might think about the racial and socio-economic make-up of the prison population.  Are people of color committing disproportionate amounts of crime, or are we locking up poor people of color because law enforcement of the judicial system have a socio-economic and racial bias?  Are we just perpetuating the problem because prisons perpetuate criminal behavior?  When do we stop talking intelligently and start acting in solidarity? 

Again, my question is:  Do we, as Christians, have a particular responsibility in this?  What about those imprisoned, not by walls, but by circumstance—  those who are born not just into hunger but into starvation; those who are born to parents with a drug addiction?  What are we doing for those whose life in prison before they even make their first choice?  I want to point out that our congregation did provide gifts for mothers in prison to give to their children last winter.  I hope we can do more of that, and we can think more creatively about that.

It is written in Matthew:  “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘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.”  “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  We are all created in the image of God.  We are all members of the family.

Our next building block—Commitment.  “Let marriage by held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.” 

This is about commitment.  This is not about who we are in relationship with, but how we are in relationships.  The congregation is the setting where we make commitments before God.  The congregation should be the place where we support one another in honoring those commitments.  Marriage is not the only commitment we make before God.  We get baptized.  That is a commitment where the parents commit to raising a child in the faith, and the congregation commits, at every baptism, to support the journey of this child or individual.  When we become members, we make a commitment before God.  Congregations are commitment-centered communities.  The role of the congregation is that of a moral support group; if you will, we are an ethics “think tank”.  Yes, even liberal faith communities have morals!

Let’s talk about Contentment, the next building block.  Verse 5:  “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’” 

Don’t get caught up in money, it says; not even in money as a way to alleviate your fears.  If God is with you, who can be against you?  That is not a phrase, by the way.  It is a growing realization that can affect every bit of your life.  The congregation teaches me to wake up every morning and say, “Thank you, God!”  But what kind of contentment are we talking about?  Is that a passive “Everything is fine.  I don’t have to do anything.” contentment?  No, it’s not.  How can the congregation be content in gratitude and trust in God while at the same time being thirsting for justice?  How can we be deeply grateful and continually challenging ourselves?  Maybe it is because of that deepest sense of contentment that we cannot help but challenge ourselves and the world.  If God is for me, how can I not work for God’s righteousness in the world?  Our congregation is one of the settings in which we help each other grow spiritually, until we actually believe and live in the belief that “nothing … will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.”

The last virtue, Verses 15 and 16:  Worship.  “Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.  Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Our words and our deeds become sacrifice to God, sacrifice in the liturgical sense of the burnt offering.  How beautiful, to think about what we say and do every day not just as the necessary consequence of our faith (walking the walk, if you talk the talk), but as acts of worship in and of themselves.  This is our life becoming an act of worship, and, therefore, virtuous.

You may ask, if our life becomes worship, would we then not have to worship anymore as a congregation?  Would we not need a special time set apart for worship on Sunday morning because all we say and do is praise to God?  I don’t think so.  I’d be out of a job. 

Faith is a communal experience.  We need to share it.  We learn from one another.  We act toward one another in certain ways because of our faith.  We pray and care for each other.  We carry each other’s burdens.  We listen to each other.  We even criticize each other in Christian love.  Let us continue in worship,  Sunday morning’s and otherwise.

May God’s blessing be with us as continue on this journey of faith together.  In the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.