Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

   As a good native Midwesterner, I must admit a deep fondness for religious kitsch. Trips to my Grandmother’s house as a young child were a gold mine of tiny little angel statues, extremely tacky cross-stitch samplers with Bible verses printed on them, and that ever-present painting of Jesus—you know the one, maybe you even have a copy of it hanging up on your wall at home.

So naturally, while doing sermon prep for this morning, my ears instantly perked up when I read the second verse of our reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews this morning; “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hyacinth can attest that I fell into at least a half-an-hour procrastination spiral simply by plugging “Hebrews 13:2” into Etsy.

Religious kitsch aside, I think verses like Hebrews 13:2 or Isaiah 40:31 (“But those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles…”) stick in our public consciousness or make for good Etsy slogans because they make us feel good. They’re short, pithy sayings that fit on a poster with a tactful bald eagle or a Precious Moments angel, maybe give us a moment of inspiration-- then we can move on. Now, I think there is something really lovely to having scripture in our pockets that we can draw on for strength when times get tough—and yet, I find that so very often faith in the public consciousness gets boiled down to these one-liners. The goal seems to be to portray Christianity as a feel-good, self-help movement, and the Bible as a convenient source for inspirational poster fodder.

The theme of hospitality, which is woven throughout our readings for this morning, however, is about more than just kitschy slogans and cross-stitch samplers, lovely as they may be. Rather, in our Gospel for this morning, Jesus, in addition to some rather practical advice regarding seating oneself at a 1^st century banquet, points to hospitality as much more than inviting folks you like over for a dinner party.

         In Jesus’ day, much like in ours, an invitation to lunch or dinner carries with it an expectation of reciprocity—it’s the same energy as looking at your friend after grabbing coffee or a sandwich and saying, “next time it’s on me.” However, Jesus is warning us to not invite people over for a meal, or include them in your clique just to get free lunch out of it—even if it is a nicer lunch than the one you might have provided them—but rather welcome people who have nothing to offer in return. Invite people to dine with you simply out of a desire to be in community with them.

         Since the COVID-19 pandemic, I have noticed, both in my own interactions with people, and in the broader world, a sharp decline in hospitality. Gone, it seems, are the days when one brought something over to a new neighbor as a housewarming gift, or tried to get to know the people in their apartment complex. Instead, American society has become increasingly insular. We live in an era of broad social distrust; a time where individualism and isolation are valued over community and mutual aid. We’re too busy looking out for ourselves to look out for our neighbors, and we’re far too eager to ask AI chatbots for help rather than reach out to a friend or a loved one.

         This increased isolation and individualism aren’t without their costs—the move away from in-person to online friendships has frequently devastating results in young people, especially young men. This move can drive people into right-wing and extremist rabbit holes, environments and communities which drive people to violence, as we saw this week in Minneapolis and in school shootings throughout our nation. Instead of listening to and learning from our elders, or learning about the great cloud of witnesses who have come before us, we instead turn to unfeeling and uncaring algorithms which scrape the internet for data and cobble together the answer we want to hear. Instead of leaning into our God-given gifts of discernment and self-reflection, we rely on ChatGPT to think for us, forgetting that convenience gained is a skill lost, and that human creativity and curiosity is a gift given to us by the Divine, a hallmark of God’s very being in us, and a sign of the Holy Spirit moving in our lives. As a result of all of these things, we have crafted a society that is more isolated than we ever have been, and far more brazen with our cruelty. The neighbor we don’t know is easier to spout hatred towards than the face of a friend.

         Yet, we do not have to give in to the pandemic of isolation and selfishness which threatens to overwhelm us. We do not have to take the path of least resistance, giving in to the whims and desires of the world. Instead, God is calling us to a deeper and far more difficult way of living—a way of life grounded first and foremost in seeing God’s face in all people, and seeking God in them through love, curiosity, and hospitality. In our Gospel and our Epistle for this morning, we are being shown a different way of being—a world where we seek out people not because of who they are, or what they can get for us, but a world where we seek to know people simply because in doing so, we learn more about the God who is Love.

         Worshiping a God who humbled Himself to join in our humanity means that we worship a God who knows the very intimate realities of human existence. Being made in the image of God means that the natural human desire to connect one with another is reflective of God’s desire to know us, to connect with us, to be in relationship with us. We are called to go outside our comfort zones not because it’s good for us, or because it’s a self-help panacea, but because it is precisely where God is found—in the border between our comfort and our discomfort, in the outcasts of society, and in the depths of human existence.

We are called to love and care one for another, not just when it is easy, but most particularly when it is hard; we are called to tend to one another, in our despair and fear, in our isolation and insulation, because in doing so we tend to the very being of God in Christ. Our society tells us that the individual is the most important unit of society, that what I want, I should get, no matter the cost. We are brainwashed into thinking that others are disposable, a means to an end, denying others of their humanity by seeing them as pieces in the game of life wherein we are the main character.

But my friends, that is a path down a deep, dark road of despair. That is a path which leads to bitterness, anger, and fear. It is a path that leads to violence against innocent school children. It is a path that leads to the forcible disappearance of black and brown people from the streets of this nation; and it is a path that leads to a nation and a people devoid of mercy for the poor, the helpless, the needy, and the stranger. It is not, no matter what the world tells you, a path that leads to self-fulfillment or happiness. It is not the silver bullet that will bring back safe communities, or the America we once knew. It is not going to make our relationships, our community, or our country great again.

The only thing—the only thing—that will heal our broken and wounded souls, that will patch together our damaged relationships, is caring for each other in community. It means checking in on your neighbors and helping them when they are in need. It looks like community picnics, and walking your neighbor’s dog when they’re out of town. It looks like the dozens and dozens of small things we can do every day to turn back from the path of darkness and isolation. It looks like reaching out to, caring for, and loving people on the edges of our society, not to make ourselves feel good,or to get a good grade in being a Christian.

We don’t have to earn our salvation or work off our debt to the world, because we are already saved. We do these things because the grace of God and the Holy Spirit which lives and moves in and among us is still working on our hearts, turning them from hearts of stone and into hearts of living flesh. We do these things because in doing so we are following in the path of Christ, living into our call as Christians to love one another as Christ loved us from before the foundation of the world. “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Amen.