“Who is on the Guest List?”                                                                          Vance L Toivonen

READING                   Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

READING                   Patrick R. Keifert, Welcoming the Stranger

Provision of hospitality to the stranger is full of dynamic conflict. It requires a decentering of our self-centered lives that is most disturbing. It requires risk and wisdom…It means that we must be prepared to have the tables turned, to discover that we are the guests in need of hospitality. Above all, it requires that we not only recognize but also appreciate that reality is plural and that we cannot simply force it into the strictures of the intimate worlds we have created…Hospitality to the stranger…requires the transformation of the self in such a radical manner that this transformation is often referred to as repentance and conversion.

SERMON

We have all been somewhere in our lives where we have felt out of place. Many of us have come from other churches to populate the Hope community. Somehow the pews we were sitting in just didn’t fit anymore. The words that were spoken, and the rituals that were engaged ceased to resonate within us. Some have left Hope church for these very same reasons and moved on to other places.

Social environments also test us, at times. For years I attended a golf outing that was held in a place I just didn’t feel like I belonged. The golfing was fine, and the course was beautiful, but the social gathering that followed surrounded me with folks that were on another page, and I felt uncomfortable over time. So, I stopped attending.

Birds of a feather flock together, the old adage states. We know this is true. We are most comfortable with people who share our particular visions of life. This is so true that entire towns and small communities will evolve into a commonality of thought and vision, become predominantly red or blue, to use the current political idiom.

We have a community here at Hope. We espouse diversity, and yet, how diverse are we, really? We may wish to invite others into this community, but to what end? Is there anything required of these others? Who is on our guest list here at Hope? And is there anyone who is not on our guest list?

How do we relate to the stranger in our midst? Can those of us for whom this is a “homelike,” comfortable environment put ourselves in the shoes of someone for whom this is a strange, and maybe somewhat awkward new environment? Think back to when you were a kid starting a new school. All the new faces, the new architecture, the new smells and sounds. I think about that opening scene in the movie E.T. where this stranger from another planet wanders the forest after being abandoned by the other E.T.s. This extra-terrestrial stranger is scared, alone, and bewildered.

Toward the end of the film the government man has a softer moment with the boy that E.T. met first, the young Elliott. With heartfelt conviction he looks into the boys eyes, smiles and says, “I’m glad he met you first.” E.T. found a home away from home for a time with his friend Elliott, and eventually with Elliott’s little sister Gertie and his big brother Michael. But he still wanted to phone home and get a ride back to his first home.

We are on our respective journeys as we sit here this morning. What will seem like home for us varies. This is a temporary home, a substitute home that can never be our ultimate home. To the extent that each one of us has that experience of meeting someone here that makes us feel more at home in this home away from home, we will celebrate being here in this place.

This will require all of the things that Keifert suggests; a shift from focus on the self to focus on the other. Elliott was a terrific host to E.T. because he understood that he was out of place. He showed him aspects of this new environment, made an effort to make E.T. feel at home, taught E.T. new verbiage, and displayed an enthusiasm toward E.T. that said in word and in action, “I’m glad you are here.”

It requires risk, Keifert reminds us, because we never know where engagement with the stranger will take us. An encounter with the stranger might challenge us, confront us, and seek to transform us. We might see the world differently because of our engagement with the stranger. We might even find out the stranger is the very missing piece of this puzzle we call life, realizing we didn’t have it all together before the stranger came along.

Jesus also suggests that the strangers we need to invite into our midst are not typically on our guest lists. How diverse are we willing to be? Will we go out of our way to invite strangers here that would not be welcome anywhere else? How much of a risk are we willing to take? What if they are so poor they can’t help us with our budget? Or, what if they end up costing us something, these strangers that nobody else wants? This is one of those occasions when asking “What Would Jesus Do?” invites radical transformation in our mindsets. This is often where we lose Jesus altogether, or simply reframe him, sort of photo-shopping out that part Jesus’ image we would rather not retain.

How we invite and welcome the stranger is one of the most important aspects of the community we seek to form here in this place. It will require diligence on our parts, diligence and intentionality. It will require more than a friendly smile and a hand-shake. It will mean going out of our way, leaving the safety and security of our familiar little groups within, and wandering out into the newness and uncertainty of the encounter with the new, and strange, and different. If we take such a risk we may discover very soon that the new, and the strange, and the different is not so new, and strange, and different after all.

The stranger may not feel comfortable in our existing social groups. The stranger may not fit in any of those groups listed in the bulletin each week. What then? How will we welcome the stranger that is seeking to show us new avenues for ministry? Will we go out of our way to spend time with the stranger, even if it means we must also leave the safe confines of our comfortable groups.

One of Jesus’ parables spoke of a shepherd who leaves an entire flock of sheep to seek out the lost one. I do not recall this parable to suggest that the strangers are the lost ones. We may indeed be equally lost. But the story encourages us to risk leaving the familiar in order to track unknown territory and discover that one sheep that needs finding. Who knows but that we might not find ourselves in the process.

Overall, I know that I am called to do a better job of this welcoming. I would ask that we would all devote ourselves to being more conscious of the stranger, and more assertive in making contact with the stranger. Will we wait for the stranger to walk through the doors of Hope Church, or will we travel out of our way to seek out the stranger? Who is on our guest list? Who will we invite into our midst? Jesus makes some suggestions. What do you think?