HONOR AND BLESSING

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 14:7-14

When I was in college, I met and became friends with a young woman named Judy. Judy was a lively young woman from New Hampshire studying to be an elementary school teacher. She was also a bit quirky. In the fall, she could almost always be found dressed in a turtleneck and a pair of overalls with holes in the knees. She usually wore a pair of beat-up Keds in which she had worn a hole or two by the way she power-walked the pavement around campus. Judy had a wicked sense of humor and a style that rivaled Lucille Ball’s best comedic behavior – both of which led me to bond with her instantly. In fact, “wicked” was one of her favorite words. “It’s wicked cold today.” “Last night’s party was wicked fun!” “We’re gonna have a wicked good time, by God.” The two of us became great friends and could surely find ways to spice up campus life, without getting ourselves into too much trouble – a good thing given that her father was the Director of Development for the college. We shared many fun and challenging times throughout our college years. Yet, in spite of our close friendship, it was the friendship I developed with Judy’s parents, especially her mom, which proved to be the most lasting and meaningful in the years following college.

I met Judy’s family during my freshman year over Thanksgiving break. Her parents, Betsy and Alan, often invited students who weren’t able to go home for the short break to come to their home and join their family for Thanksgiving meal and other family traditions. Betsy was a great cook, preparing everything, including rolls, from scratch all the while engaging her guests in lively conversation. She could whip up a feast for twenty-five people with seemingly little effort, while laughing, loving and enjoying those who gathered round her kitchen counter. (Quite a contradiction to what I would have experienced in my household if my mom was hosting a dinner for twenty-five!)

In subsequent years, I learned that Thanksgiving wasn’t the only occasion that Betsy and Alan invited people, other than family and friends, to “come to the table.” On many nights of the week, folks who Betsy or Alan met throughout the course of their day and who didn’t have a place to go for dinner were invited to share with a meal with their family. But it was Betsy, mostly, who reached out to others who lingered at table savoring in the conversation, long after the meal was finished. Their household was constantly buzzing with new faces, the sound of different voices, languages and accents, and many stories of those who lived quite differently from their own. When their five children were finally launched from home, they freely housed many people who needed a place to live temporarily for one reason or another. Their home became a place of respite and renewal for folks on the journey of life.

Betsy was one of the most Christ-like people I have ever met. She opened her heart and her home to others with genuine joy and delight. She never expressed judgment or condemnation about another’s life or their choices in life. Although, on occasion Betsy might make a suggestion about how a certain decision or change in behavior might prove beneficial to someone. She openly engaged and welcomed the people she encountered along the way and graciously extended an invitation to share a meal at table with her family. She embodied Christ’s spirit of love and grace, and embraced others with abundant hospitality, though her family was of quite modest means. Her life, her family’s life, brought blessing and honor to those who needed it most, and, in turn, their lives were honored and blessed by how they openly shared themselves and their gifts.

Betsy lived by Christ’s teaching and example, especially the one given in today’s gospel reading. Jesus says, “When you give a luncheon or 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.”

Most of us are not comfortable living our lives so openly. We are quite pleased to be of service to others, but under certain conditions. We want to help and be of service and give to others when it is convenient, when it suits us, when we can afford to do so. Moreover, we are often pleased to help others where they are, but we don’t necessarily want to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind into our circles to feast at our table. We don’t really want to have to re-arrange our furniture in our homes to accommodate them. We don’t really want to have to re-arrange our lives to make room for those in need. We want to give and share, but often on our terms, not always what is necessary and when it is most needed. And yet, what do Jesus’ words challenge us to do?

When my daughter, Anna-Marie, was in high school, she interned at Peabody Manor, when it was still housed over on Fifth Street. Anna had to re-arrange her life, so that several times a week she could visit one of our members residing at Peabody. The woman she visited was quite elderly and rarely in the best of spirits. In fact, she was down right cranky and rather ornery when Anna first started visiting. “Oh, it’s you again,” she’d remark. “Come to keep an old woman company, I suppose,” she’d say. But Anna-Marie persisted with her visits and the two of them became friends. At Thanksgiving, Anna decided her friend should come for dinner. I was thrilled, but little did I know what it would mean to host her friend. It took four of us to carry her in her wheelchair into the house. We had to completely re-arrange our dining room furniture to accommodate her. Then it took both Anna and me to help her go to the bathroom, a task that became a feat while trying to lift and transfer her to the toilet in a small one-person facility located underneath our stairs. It was an exhausting few hours, but a time of great joy as I absorbed just how much this meal and time together meant to this elderly woman and to my daughter. All were honored and blessed by our time of sharing.

In the Living the Questions series which we’ve been using all year in various small groups, there’s a section called The Prophetic Jesus. Mel White, a religious leader for an organization called Soul Force, recalls an interview with Mahatma Gandhi who said that when he first read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel his heart stopped. And he woke up the next morning determined to put Jesus’ teachings into practice. Some years ago in an interview he was asked the question, “What’s the difference between you and most Christians?” Gandhi quietly responded, “I think He meant it.” I think Jesus meant what he said when he told us to love our enemies. I think he meant it when he told us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, give to the poor, and heal the afflicted. I think he meant it when he told us to bind up the brokenhearted and to let the imprisoned and oppressed go free. I think he meant it.

Daniel Ehrlander drew this cartoon of a man kneeling beside his bed praying to Jesus. Jesus is standing behind him and alongside Jesus are the blind, the poor, and the outcast. The bubble above the man’s head reads, “Jesus, why is it that every time I pray for you to come into my heart, you bring all your friends with you?”

The poor, the outcast, the oppressed, the downtrodden are not only who Jesus ministers to, but they are his friends – he dines with them, he socializes and basically hangs out with them, he shares everyday life with them – they are his friends, with whom he is delighted to share himself and his gifts. Jesus doesn’t draw different circles, one for family and friends, and one for others. All are welcomed into his circle, all are welcomed at his table to share in abundance that God has provided whenever they are hungry, whenever they need comfort and solace, whenever they need to be nourished and strengthened. Ministry means whenever it is necessary and to give whatever is needed.

In our Mission and Outreach ministries, we too have been challenged to think differently about ministry and about our partnerships. We have needed a change in heart. We’ve learned that being in ministry with our partners is both giving and receiving. Surely, we are called by Jesus to partner with our friends here in the community and in the wider world to feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked, lift up and embrace the outcast, lift up the downtrodden, and set at liberty those who are imprisoned and oppressed. But we have also to learn from our partners, to linger at table with them, to hear their stories, to share in the wealth of experience they have to offer us, and to see the risen Christ through their eyes and their lives. Hear now a bit about each of our partnerships.

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Our Mission Partners have helped us extend our missional reach. We don’t work for but with our partners. Each of these mission partnerships has much to teach us about living our faith as we share gifts, service and hospitality with each other.

We listened to our Kenya partners explain how a solar water purification system would help them to build peaceful relations. Precious, pure water would be shared among several ethnic groups and become literally a mission of life-giving generosity. They help us reflect on forgiveness and reconciliation in the truest sense.

Habitat for Humanity, whether in Appleton or Creel, Mexico, draws peoples of various faith traditions and various fortunes together to help a family build a home, a home that will be the basis of a more secure and independent life, a starting point for hospitality in their own right. This year 14 homes will be built in the Fox Cities, one of which will be the 100^th home for our affiliate. As part of our seventh work trip to Creel, our members will be working this week on 2 homes and visiting some of the other 12 homes we have worked on over the years. As we work side by side with these new homeowners – in both Appleton and Creel – we are richly blessed and inspired by their courage and commitment amidst many challenges in life … and learn new carpentry skills besides!

Our partners at LEAVEN meet the urgent short-term needs of many local individuals and families. We join other churches in the faith community in this mission to help keep the heat and lights on, the rent paid, and the medicine available for folks who otherwise couldn’t quite make ends meet. In other words, the people served by LEAVEN can remain in their homes and continue to be productive members of our community. Working at LEAVEN, we are reminded of the richness that hope can bring to someone, and we feel the comfort of being able to bring that hope to oftentimes overwhelming circumstances.

Our partners at the Emergency Shelter provide food and temporary housing for individuals and families in crisis. The Emergency Shelter has also provided an opportunity for our congregation, most especially our youth, to learn the joys of hospitality and service each time they make a lasagna dinner or serve a Sunday breakfast.

E.S.T.H.E.R. draws us out into the local faith community to advocate for issues of social justice. Initiatives in education, access to health care and affordable housing, and solutions to difficulties raised by immigration are among the concerns that are presently being addressed.

It has allowed us to meet “the faces behind the stories” so that they are no longer abstract faces, but rather ourselves in different circumstances. Our voices together offer opportunities to shape a more just world, as our faith would have us do.

Our partners at Back Bay have given us opportunities to share in their efforts to provide affordable housing and to attend to emergency needs of the poorest of the poor. Every year we return from our trips to Biloxi enriched by those we meet, more aware of the economic disparities of the area, and more bonded in friendship with those we have travelled with.

Samaritan Counseling Center was our very first partner in the history of this church. We had the opportunity to practice Christian hospitality when we provided Samaritan with its first space. Now in its own center, Samaritan provides confidential, professional counseling for individuals, couples, and families in a spiritual, faith-based context.

Sermon preached by Reverend Jane Anderson at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on April 6, 2008.