From the Rector

Dear Friends,

In this issued focused on the important ministry of hospitality, I reprint for you my sermon of August 29, 2004 on this subject, referred to, as you will see, in the following excellent article by our Co-chairs of Hospitality, Barbara Day and Mary Schoenfeld.

- Stephen

"Hospitality" can be one of those weasel words for us. It can refer to something as cheap and as self-serving as a room at a convention with free drinks designed to solicit your business or your vote - a so-called "hospitality suite." Or it can mean a profound experience of preparing for others, and so in a real sense for ourselves, a welcoming space for encounters with God. When the author of The Letter to the Hebrews solemnly exhorts us to show hospitality even to strangers, it is more than an enjoinder to smile and be nice. It is an encouragement to honor the divine image in others and to make more tangible for them God's gracious love at work around them and in our world.

When members of the Altar Guild come on Friday to care for our sacred spaces and on Saturday to arrange the flowers and then again on Sunday to prepare for and clean up after our sacramental worship, they are showing hospitality. When parish volunteers opened our doors for two weeks this summer to the shelter residents, providing a clean and cool space and a listening ear and food each morning, they were practicing hospitality. When Loaves and Fishes plans and implements the Parish Barbecue to welcome students among us and to provide us all the nourishment of a festive meal, they are exhibiting hospitality. When the Building and Grounds Committee helps provide beautiful and welcoming outdoor spaces or maintains the air-conditioning or renovates the parlor in brighter, more vibrant colors, they are demonstrating hospitality. When parents of our teenagers prepare and serve a meal on Sunday evenings to our EYC, helping them to find a place among us, they are providing hospitality. When Parish Visitors go out to call on those who cannot physically come and be with us, especially when they are able to bring them the consecrated bread and wine from our sacred meal together, they are displaying hospitality. When Church School teachers dedicate themselves each week to providing a nurturing environment where the Christian faith can be not only taught but caught, they are embodying hospitality. When parishioners team together to host a reception after a funeral, providing a gracious space where family and all who mourn can strengthen and support one another, they are modeling hospitality.

You see, genuine hospitality lies at the heart of the ministry God calls us to do. More than simply good manners or repaying social obligation (as Jesus notes in today's Gospel) or putting a good face on things, true hospitality, which requires our time, our money, and our openness to others, embodies and expresses God's love for all and makes it known in concrete ways.

It is not that only well taken care of people can be attentive to God's presence in their lives. As Tammy Lee noted in a remarkable sermon six weeks ago, quoting Mary Anderson, "It is not that God cannot be found or heard in barren or inhospitable circumstances....God is not limited but we are....God can speak in any situation but we frail creatures that we are.... cannot often hear....unless our creature comforts are attended to." We all know that is true for us. When we feel most welcomed, most cared for, most attended to in terms of our human needs at any particular time, then our hearts are most open and receptive and God's life-giving presence is a more tangible reality than it was before.

As we begin this new school year, when students and newcomers arrive, when the full scope of the parish's liturgical, educational, pastoral, and outreach ministries open up, when the energy of new beginnings fills us and lifts us up and calls us to new and deeper responses, let us heed the Divine invitation to be hosts, to invite all who hunger for God, whether or not they can repay, to welcome, to nourish, to sustain. Let us not ignore or dismiss this great calling. In the words of today's scripture, "Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

Hebrews 13:1-8

Luke 14:1, 7-14

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