Abraham’s hospitality: Evensong at Ayot St Peter: 29th July 2007 Gen 8:1-8; Mt 25:31-40, Psalm 145: Revd. Coralie McCluskey

Living beside the A40 trunk road, as it was called 45 years ago, during the Summer months, twice a day a stream of cars heading out of Pembrokeshire for England would pass our farm gate carrying Irish workers to the hop fields of Kent and anywhere else that offered summer work. Paddy, always dropped in to offer his help on our farm helping with haymaking or potato picking. I was terrified of him, he was big, wore a tattered sting vest, ate enormous quantities and I didn’t understand a word he said.

My mother always invited him to join us for meals, as she did all the other farm workers during the harvest period. My sisters and I found it quite difficult at times but if we dared complain she would reply just remember Paddy and others like him have nowhere to stay, no money, they are strangers and at the mercy of every tight fisted employer in this county, hospitality costs us nothing and that’s what would you want if you were in their position?

Paddy returned to work for my parents for many years, my father paid him the going rate and the year he didn’t arrive we knew that he had died and my sisters and I cried buckets. My mother has always welcomed the stranger at the door and assured that we too were well trained.

And so we turn to the story of Abraham entertaining the three visitors who turn out to be angels, messengers from God, the holy trinity! Abraham’s welcome is typical of his culture: unhesitating, unstinting. Even though these men arrive out of nowhere they are immediately welcomed and treated with the best that Abraham's household can muster. This was - and, in many parts of the world, still is - the essence of hospitality. Tending to the needs of the traveller, the stranger, the person whose circumstances mean that he or she is dependent on your care. It is a sacred tie, one that it is sacrilegious to break.

In the story of Abraham, of course, the three strangers bring great blessing. They come with the news that Abraham's wife, Sarah, will give birth to a much longed for son. And throughout the Bible, this subtext is threaded through the hospitality motif. Care for the stranger will bring a blessing. In caring for the stranger, you are caring for God's very self, Jesus sums this up:

"I was an hungred and you gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger and ye took me in ……" (Matt. 25: 35-40)

So hospitality was not just - as it sometimes is today - about inviting friends round, entertaining those we know and like. Neither was it a way of cementing ties between friends and family, nor about forging strategic alliances so that business might go better. In ancient times all strangers depended on someone else's hospitality. Today it is those without resources who depend most on the free provision of food, shelter and protection.

For the people of ancient Israel, understanding themselves as strangers with a responsibility to care for vulnerable strangers, was part of what it meant to be the people of God.  Jesus, who was dependent on the hospitality of others during much of his earthly journey, also served as the gracious host in his words and in his actions. Those who turned to him found welcome and rest and the promise of welcome into the Kingdom. Psalm 145 beautifully portrays our God as a God of hospitality---gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, providing for the need of all with great tenderness.  Is God asking us to imitate this sort of hospitality?
 
I believe Christians are called to be hospitable, because hospitality is ministry and is absolutely essential to the health and vitality of Christian community. Those of us who are not dependent upon hospitality for basic needs know something of the joy of being warmly welcomed, and also the pain of being excluded. Although hospitality has lost much of its ancient significance, memories and feelings associated with it can still be very powerful.

Early Christian writers claimed that transcending ethnic and social differences by sharing meals, homes and worship with persons of different backgrounds was a proof of the truth of the Christian faith. For most of the history of the Christian church hospitality meant a recognition of a person's worth and common humanity. The shared meal is an important way of recognising the equal value and dignity of persons. Yet even today we still struggle to find better ways to respond to homeless people, those with disabilities, immigrants and refugees. We search for more personal ways to respond to youth who are detached and alienated from family, school and church. Discussions about the 'deserving vs. undeserving' poor, whether people will take advantage of generous hospitality, and whether it is too risky to respond to strangers, are as ancient as early Christian texts and as current as discussion on media grabbing chat shows.

So where do we start? We start with the premise that we need each other. In the churches of the Welwyn Team we place importance upon welcoming people, both those we know and those we don't know, we honour each others' needs in times of crisis and pain, we share one another's journey. Hospitality goes even further - it means living life with an attitude of openness, welcome and acceptance toward others. When we can live with those attitudes it brings a new dimension to those around us. Henri Nouwen wrote that one of the gifts we bring to the world as Christians is, “making our lives available to others”, our gender, skin colour or cultural background are not relevant.
 
What made Jesus' life so compelling was the availability of his life. He needed time out and each person ministering or living in community needs their private space as well. Although Jesus didn't have a home of his own, to be in his presence was to be at home. Jesus himself was a stranger his entire life - the real challenge for us tonight is that we know Jesus will continue to be a stranger in this world until each one of us practices the attitude and actions of hospitality that we see reflected in Abraham’s story this evening and in the life of Christ.

Jean Vanier the founder of the L’Arche community writes,

"Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we are not afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share …….. A community which refuses to welcome – whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors – is dying spiritually."