Time for hospitality

In a day of arranged marriages, Abraham had determined that the best thing to do for his son Isaac was to send a servant back to the home area and seek a wife from among the distant relatives there.

It was not a matter of race, but of religion; throughout Israel's history there are problems when a potential spouse does not worship the Lord God.

The servant follows his instructions, goes to Aram-naharim, and prays beside the well that the Lord will reveal to him whom should be chosen.

“May it be the one who offers me a drink from her water-jar,” he prays to the Lord.

A young woman does come, and he asks her, “Please let me sip a little water from your jar.”

“Drink” she replies, “And I will draw water for your camels also.”

After all the watering, the servant gives her a gift, and she responds by offering straw, fodder, and a place to spend the night for the servant and entourage, and then runs to tell the family about the visitor, what has happened, and her offers of hospitality.

The negotiations are brief, and soon Rebecca is on her way to become the wife of Isaac, because of her words and actions of hospitality.

In that region and in those wild times, the offer of hospitality is a very serious matter; it may well be a life-sustaining gesture.

Thirty-some centuries have gone by, and hospitality is still important.

I'm not referring to the hospitality industry of motels and restaurants, but to the way in which we deal with one another on an individual basis.

We know that a person can feel so lonely even in a crowd if all we have are professional interactions.

“May I take your order, please?” ”This way to your room, sir.”

It takes more than that; it takes the gift of oneself.

When one gets to the late senior years, and especially when one is living in a residential facility, and conversation is getting more difficult, how does one show what is in one's heart?

Beulah tried to do that with a candy dish.

Perhaps you saw the one that Dottie, Susie and Kym had on a table in the chapel visitation hour.

That was to remember Beulah's offer of candy to her visitors.

And just one piece wouldn't do: 'Have some more...you need some for in the car, too,” she would tell me.

She made it very hard for me to decline her chocolates, because that was what she could do at that stage of life to be hospitable, a wish and an obligation she had to discharge.

This was not a new thing with her; Dottie has told me about actions in earlier years along the same line.

It is a significant part of who Beulah was, and a part it would be well for us to remember.

She didn't invent this attitude; it comes to us from the early reflections on the nature of God.

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever,” we sang. [Psalm 118:1]

All of those gifts, from the dawn of creation to the final revelation of salvation, are poured out on us.

Day by day they shower on us, whether we deserve them or not.

The question is not whether there are gifts from God, but rather do we recognize those gifts, and how do we use them?

The hymn we sing next points the right way.

We will sing, “Consecrating to your purpose every gift which you impart.” [LBW#423.1]

And among those gifts is hospitality.

It is one of the ways to think about the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

Christ welcomes us in, grants us a place at his table, and gives us what we truly need, forgiveness for the mess we make of things, food for the journey ahead, and enough to share.

We will also sing, “As we worship, grant us vision,

Till your love's revealing light

Dawns upon our quickened sight.” [LBW#423.3]

Show us now how to live now in a way that mirrors how we shall live eternally.

That is a powerfully appropriate prayer about our life of hospitality.

Rebecca used a water-jar. Beulah used a candy dish.

Each of us can settle upon the way that matches the gifts and opportunities that God has granted to us.

Whatever it is for each of us, it will not be something added to life but instead will be of the very essence of who we are.

And it is for all the days of our lives, for the easy ones and the difficult ones also,

when we laugh about funny remembrances of Beulah, and when we grieve her death.

“When our heart are wintry, grieving, or in pain,

Your touch can call us back to life again,

Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been;

Love is come again like wheat arising green.” [LBW#148.3]

Recognizing and receiving God's hospitality, and sharing it;

there is life, there is peace such as the world cannot give. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.