The Heart of Hospitality

Luke 10:38-41

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club's decoration, and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where club initiations were held. About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

This is a classic parable (by Howard Clinebell in his 1966 book on pastoral counseling) about how focus on vital goals can first grow fuzzy, and then be lost altogether. In recent years institutions of all kinds, not just the church, have discovered they need constant focus on mission. They need to put in words why they exist, and then they need to make every effort to keep first things first.

It can be comical at times when secondary things are cared for and primary things forgotten. Victor Borge told about . . . . . .a couple going on vacation, standing in line waiting to check their bags at the airline counter.

The husband said to the wife, "I wish we had brought the piano."

The wife said, "Why? We've got sixteen bags already!"

The husband said, "Yes, I know— but the tickets are on the piano!"

I asked members of a study group if they knew stories of people who took care of everything but the one most important thing. I got this story from Rev. John S. Korcsmar, C.S.C., a Roman Catholic priest in Austin, Texas.

This is really a true story. At Sacred Heart Parish (Can Street, New Orleans) in the late 1960's they were beginning to do baptisms at Mass. The parents were instructed. The paperwork was done.

Since they were doing baptisms at Mass for the first time and were afraid that the people would be late, the parents were reminded several times to be on time.

Well, the parents were on time, and they hurried and forgot: yes, you guessed it: the baby to be baptized was left at home!

(One of the wits of the group asked if they then had to throw out the baptismal water without the baby.)

Every action, every relationship, every institution has a basic focus, or should have if it hopes to succeed in its reason for existence. It doesn't help to have the sunscreen if you don't have the tickets to the beach. It doesn't help to have the water ready if there is no one to baptize.

Both institutions and individuals need to remember constantly the first reason they exist. A family must have a parent or parents who love and discipline and children who love and grow. A school must have a teacher who can teach and a pupil who wants to learn. A church exists for God, exists to love Him with heart, soul, mind and strength. If all there is to a church are the trappings— the lessons and the potluck dinners and the walks for hunger— then we have blurred the focus. Like Martha in the story we are careful, and troubled about secondary things.

Jesus said, "Martha, Martha— you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful!" Don't forget the center! It isn't that the other things are not good, or important, or even vital. But they must serve and not dominate the central purpose.

This chapter (Luke 10) tells us that the focus of our lives is to be LOVE; first the love of God, and because of that love, love for our neighbor. The very heart of the meaning of love, revealed here, is hospitality.

Hospitality is a wonderful, powerful word! ["Get him a plate ... pull up a chair ... come to the table!" Inclusive!] It gives a definition to "love, " a word which can be vague. It is the mother-word of other important words such as hospital, and hospice. Hospitality means moving over and giving someone else a share of your life. Not just out of the surplus, but right out of what you are using yourself.

This sort of hospitality ( toward others ) is illustrated in the story of the Good Samaritan. A man is beaten and left helpless alongside the road; a priest came by and had no space in his life to share with anyone; the same with a religious Levite. Then came a social pariah with every excuse for looking the other way— but this man made space in his day, and in his pocketbook, and in his plans. It was with his story Jesus gives definition to the word 'hospitality.'

Today's lesson, which immediately follows the story of the good Samaritan, is also about hospitality. Only this time it is about making space for Jesus. Jesus reminded his kind hostess, Martha, that hospitality has love as its focus. "One thing is all that is necessary," said Jesus. Is it possible to sharpen OUR focus on making Jesus "at home" in our lives?

How can we bring hospitality to Jesus?

Think of His needs, even before our own. The Lord's Prayer is our pattern; before we pray "Give us ... forgive us ... lead us..." We are taught to pray "Thy name ... Thy kingdom ... Thy will!" Yes, we cannot exist apart from what Jesus does in/for us. But as our Guest, we seek to put Him first. His NEED is that we love Him more than the gifts He brings.
When I was studying pastoral care many years ago I read about the "McLandress Coefficient;" Herschel McLandress was a professor of psychiatric measurement at Harvard Medical School, and he developed a way to measure a person's degree of self-absorption. In spoken and written material he measured the use of "I," "me," and "my" and the "Coefficient" was the longest span of time a person can remain diverted from himself. Eleanor Roosevelt was supposed to have a McLandress coefficient of two hours; John F. Kennedy's was twenty-nine minutes, and Elizabeth Taylor's was three minutes. The reason I don't make Jesus more at home at times is because I need to talk about me, when maybe he wants to talk about something else. How is your McLandress Coefficient?
Make Him truly "at home" in all our work and play. By making Jesus "at home" I mean simply that we take him with us wherever we are, whatever we are doing. Whether it is called "practicing the Presence" or what Thomas Kelly calls "continuously renewed immediacy," our faith intends for us to be at home in God, and for God to be at home with us. (John 15) This is both reality and every challenging goal.
Continually come back to basics with Jesus: in all the many things that we do, make sure we do that "one thing (that) is needful!" If we get elected to the General Board and forget that Jesus is waiting to talk with us out in the living room we may be straining our "hospitality."

Conclusion

Thank God for Martha— for those who give us pots and pans and who put flowers on the table. Thank God for Mary who reminds us that Jesus is what our faith is all about.

Jesus wasn't telling Martha He didn't appreciate her hospitality. But he was telling her "Martha, we don't always have to have a banquet! A hot dog is fine— just come on in and let me see your face! Come in and let me know I'm welcome here!"

If LOVE is defined as HOSPITALITY, then the ultimate hospitality is the fact that God has opened his heart, has made room in his life for you and me.

["Get her a plate ... pull him up a chair .. come up to the table!"] and welcomes us into his home- not as transient guests, but as members of his family.

#193 - Thou didst leave...