Hospitality of the Heart

Eight Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 18:1-10a; Luke 10:38-42



Rev.Caroline Murphy

July 18, 2010

It's a hot summer day, the kind of day when the sun beats down relentlessly, and all you can even think of doing is to seek whatever relief you can find, in the shade of a leafy tree or behind the flaps of your tent. Thankfully, Abraham and Sarah have found a place to set up camp by a stand of oaks, a cluster of great sturdy trees, their branches arching into the sky and forming broad canopies of cool, refreshing shade. It is the very hottest time of this hot summer day, and Abraham has just sat down in the shade, when all of a sudden he looks up and sees three strangers standing nearby, just a little ways down the road. They seem to have appeared out of nowhere. Perhaps he has dozed off in the hot sun, for surely he should have seen them coming. No matter; the important thing now is to welcome them. After all, this is a lonely area, and these travelers are surely weary of the hot, dusty road they have been walking along. So Abraham springs up from his seat, fully alert now, and runs down the road to meet his guests – for that is how he is already thinking of these three men: not as strangers, but as honored guests.
Words of welcome come tumbling out of his mouth. "Please stay for a while – it will do me the greatest honor if you will. You must be feeling awfully tired on such a hot day; why don't you let me bring you some nice, cool water so that you can wash your feet? And here, come take a little rest in the shade of this oak tree. How about a bit of bread, too? Surely you must be hungry." No sooner do the strangers accept his offer of hospitality than he and Sarah and their servant set about preparing all sorts of delectable food for their guests – not just a bit of bread but hot cakes made of the finest wheat, fresh milk and curds. They even prepare a tender young calf, something they would normally do only on a feast day – a wedding, or the circumcision of a newborn son (should a son ever be born to them, an idea whose promise seems to be fading with every passing day). But this surprise visit is itself a feast, and Abraham seems to take supreme pleasure simply in standing beside his guests in the green, leafy shade, and watching them enjoy it all.
Hospitality – the giving and receiving of refreshing water; of good, nourishing food; of shade on a hot day; of words and gestures that are meant make a person feel welcome – hospitality is such a life-giving gift. The Bible is full of stories about hospitality. For centuries, people like us have loved to tell this story about Abraham and Sarah and the three strangers by the oaks of Mamre, or the story of the widow who prepared the last bit of grain and oil she had into bread for the prophet Elijah to eat, or the story of how Jesus and his disciples overcame seemingly impossible odds to feed a great crowd of people who had come to listen to him preach.
But it's not only in the Bible that hospitality matters. It matters in all sorts of human relationships that you and I may experience. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the hospitality that you all have already shown me in my first two weeks here as your new pastor. The refurbishing of the pastor's study, the enthusiastic press release that went out to at least four local newspapers, all the amazing work done on the parsonage, from the new floors and fixtures to the repainting of every single room in the house, right down to the hanging baskets of flowers and even the special toilet paper holder someone thought to get – all these things have made me feel truly welcome among you. Not to mention all the encouraging words and smiles! There are so many ways you have been helping me feel comfortable and at home here. Your hospitality is a true gift.
The three strangers who suddenly appear by the oaks of Mamre turn out to be no ordinary visitors but divine messengers, heavenly beings who have come to Abraham's tent not by happenstance but for the express purpose of reiterating God's covenantal promise to them – the promise that they will indeed become the ancestors of a multitude of nations, more numerous than the stars they can count twinkling against the backdrop of the vast night sky. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews, thinking back to this story, would later remind the early followers of Christ not to neglect to show hospitality to strangers – for in doing so, he says, "some have entertained angels unawares" (Heb. 13:2, KJV).
When Abraham jumped up and ran to greet those three strangers, he had no way of knowing that they would turn out to be angels. He welcomed them not because he expected something from them in return. Hospitality, if it is to be genuine, needs to be offered for its own sake, not in the expectation of receiving a "return on your investment." And yet the act of hospitality is often a blessing, for givers and receivers alike. Jesus even says at one point, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (according to Paul in Acts 20:35). Note that he does not say, "It is more virtuous, more pious, more like to get you brownie points in heaven" but simply "more blessed." And the angels to whom Abraham and Sarah show such generous hospitality do not bestow a new blessing on them, in promising them a son, but they give them a new, living connection with the blessing that is already there for them.
So . . . if hospitality is such a blessing, for all concerned, what is this other story doing in our lectionary readings this morning, this brief but rather baffling story of Mary and Martha? Isn't Martha doing exactly what Abraham and Sarah had done before her – scurrying about, doing everything she possibly can to make her guest comfortable? Isn't the traveling rabbi named Jesus just as hot and dusty from his wanderings, just as hungry and thirsty and tired, as the strangers who approached the oaks at Mamre had been? And hasn't Jesus just told a story about getting up and doing things rather than just thinking about them? Wasn't the whole point of the parable about the Good Samaritan that we should put our faith into action? "Don't just memorize a Bible verse about your loving neighbor," Jesus had essentially said; "go out and do it!" And here is Martha, following in the footsteps of Abraham, trying to set before her guest the best that her household can offer, and meanwhile her sister . . . well, her sister is just sitting around, not lifting a finger to help. Isn't that often the way? Some people are working their fingers to the bone while others sit back, not seeming even to notice. Shocking though it may be to imagine, sometimes this has even been known to come about in churches – the discomfiting sense that a small group of people are carrying a heavy load while others just aren't quite doing their part.
It's easy to sympathize with Martha. She is in a position that will sound all too familiar to anyone who has ever felt that they've been asked to do too much of the grunt work – in a family, in a church, in a workplace, in a relationship. In other words, for somewhere between 98 and 99 percent of us! Furthermore, she's been doing the very thing that God seems to desire: offering hospitality, trying to make a weary sojourner feel welcome in her home. Can you really blame her for venting some of her frustration? "Why won't my sister get off her duff and come help me? Can't she see that there's a lot to be done here? It's not fair of her to leave it all to me!"
I actually believe that Jesus is sympathetic to Martha. I hear him speaking to her in a fond and soothing tone. "Martha, Martha." Or as my mother might have said, "Martha, honey." But he doesn't stop with mere sympathy. Jesus knows and loves Martha well enough to nudge her into a deeper and truer awareness. "Martha dear, you are distracted by many things." The problem is not what Martha has been doing but how she has been going about doing it. Martha's sister Mary, he tells her, has chosen the better part. It may sound as if he is saying that Mary's decision to sit at his feet and listen to him was a better choice, a loftier pursuit than baking bread or setting the table – and Jesus probably does want to remind Martha that listening to attentively, which might sound like a rather non-active kind of activity, is indeed worthwhile. But I don't believe he is dismissing the value of the tasks that Martha has been working on. The "better part," the better aspect, of Mary's choice may simply be the way she has been giving it her undivided attention, the way she has listened with mindfulness and focus. Martha, by contrast, has allowed herself to become distracted – not only by her many tasks but the rising resentment that has crept into her heart. She has gotten all hot and bothered, not simply by trying to figure out whether the bread and the meat will get done at the same time but by looking over her shoulder at her seemingly idle sister. Meanwhile, Mary has been practicing a more subtle form of hospitality, one that Martha has lost sight of in her anxiety about getting all those tasks done. Mary has been offering Jesus the hospitality of her heart.
In a little while, after the conclusion of this service, we will gather outside in the shade near the entrance of this tent of ours, this church we call home, or that we may be thinking of calling home. We will share a few things to eat and to drink, we will exchange a story or two, and we'll give one another a measure of refreshment and encouragement for the road ahead. Newcomers and old-timers alike will, I hope, feel the kind of welcome that comes not so much from elaborate preparations as from a hospitality of the heart, a hospitality which brings blessings to us all. None need be a stranger here – for whether or not we're aware of it, each of us is an angel of sorts, a messenger bearing a sacred promise of blessing. Amen.

The phrase "hospitality of the heart" comes from the meditation prompts offered by Suzanne Guthrie for this Sunday at her website "At the Edge of the Enclosure," www.edgeofenclosure.org.

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