The Welcome Mat of Our Hearts

Matthew 10: 40-42

Roger Lynn

June 23, 2019

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Woven through all of scripture, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, is the challenge of hospitality. In the book “Practicing Our Faith” Ana Maria Pineda describes hospitality as “the practice of providing a space where the stranger is taken in and known as one who bears gifts.” (p.31) Indeed, a case can be made that hospitality forms one of the key cornerstones of our faith. It is an essential part of what it means to be human. We are relational beings, with a basic need to be welcoming because we have a basic need to be welcomed, to know and to be known. 

It is not without risk, this business of welcoming. Opening our hearts and our homes means exposing ourselves to the possibility of being hurt. There will be people who, out of their own fear or desperation, will take advantage of such openness. There will be people who, because of their own pain, will be unable to recognize or receive what we are offering. It is not without cost, this business of hospitality – in terms of time and energy and money and reputation. Creating a space of safety and welcome requires intentionality and thoughtful planning. For a number of years my brother served as pastor of Creston Christian Church in Creston, Washington, a small town located about an hour west of Spokane. That congregation had a tradition of never locking the doors to the church. Someone might need a place to pray. While my brother was there, the church’s insurance company told them they had to start locking the doors. The church board thought about it and then politely rejected the insurance company’s demand. They lost part of their coverage because of that decision, but hospitality was important to them.

We live in a scary world. There are lots of unknowns lurking in the shadows, to say nothing of the knowns that are waiting for us right out in the open. Hospitality asks a lot of us. And yet, at the same time, it is not complicated at all – a cup of water, a kind word, a warm embrace, a smile, a place to feel safe. Hospitality is not primarily a program that we can learn. It is an attitude of the heart – a way of being. The problem, of course, is that such things rarely stay simple. Once we start down the path of offering hospitality, there is just no telling where that path will lead us. Back in the 80s, when there was a great deal of turmoil and political unrest in Central America, and the US government was not recognizing the refugees who were seeking asylum from that unrest, churches all over the country took matters into their own hands. The “Sanctuary” movement was born. Congregations would sponsor a family (sometimes several families) and offer them sanctuary in their buildings. This was done in defiance of government policy. It was done because people in those churches reached the conclusion that they could not ignore the demands of hospitality. None of those people set out to break the law. None of them set out to start a national movement. They were simply willing to follow their hearts down the path of hospitality.

The text from Matthew’s Gospel which we heard a few moments ago offers an interesting twist to this whole business. It talks about rewards for being hospitable. I confess that when I first read this text I was troubled. It doesn’t seem like matters of the heart require rewards. But then I looked more closely at what was being said. The “reward” that is being offered is the presence of the one who is being welcomed. If you welcome a prophet you get to have the prophet in the midst of you. If you welcome a little child, you get to have the little child in the midst of you. In the very act of giving we receive the reward of community. My friend Amy Martin once wrote a song that contains a marvelous image for hospitality. A woman is being invited to set aside her burdens and return home. And she is promised that “when you get here we’ll take down your hair and we’ll call you by your given name.” (from “Born in the Country” by Amy Martin) Hospitality offers us all the great gift of being truly and deeply known for who we really are. In such knowing we discover that we are not alone in this world. And it is in such knowing that we discover the face in God in the faces of those we welcome. Who is God calling you to welcome? Who is God calling us to welcome?