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It has been said that there once
was a man who lost so badly in Las Vegas that he didn’t even
have a quarter to open the coin-operated restroom door. He
asked around until someone loaned him a quarter, but upon
entering the restroom, he found that the previous occupant
had left the restroom door open. So of course he gambled the
quarter! But legend has it that from that single coin, he
won back the money he lost, saving his house, his business
and his marriage. Having learned his lesson, he hightailed
it back home, vowing never to gamble again.
Years later, this man, now a
successful executive, hired a private detective to find the
person who helped when he was most desperate. The detective
did track down the one who had loaned him the quarter, but
our reformed gambler was not satisfied. He wanted to find
the man, he said, who had left the door open.
The difference between a handout
and an open door, between charity and hospitality, sometimes
makes all the difference in the world. Don’t believe me? Ask
Abraham and Sarah.
Pastor Jack talked about good
old Father Abraham and Mother Sarah last week. He said that
Abraham and Sarah would stand and look out at the hills and
say to anyone who asked, “Look at those hills. One day those
hills will be full of my descendants”—a pretty lofty claim
for a couple who been card-carrying members of the AARP for
some time and who had yet to be visited by the stork. But
God had promised a son and so, despite the evidence, they
believed. Month after month. Year after year. Decade after
decade they waited. Nothing. Nothing at all.
As today’s story opens, we might
be wondering if maybe, just maybe, for the first time, Abe
and Sarah were starting to wonder if God was ever going to
make good on the promise of a child—the promise of a legacy,
the promise of the future. But, hey, you can’t blame them.
By now the man is 99 years old. Even in a day of Viagra,
this is a little farfetched. Abraham was spending most of
his days dozing. Sometimes his old eyes would roll open and
he’d watch the oak trees floating in the heat waves.
Sometimes he’d reach for a water skin sweating and cooling
in the wind. But most times he would just close his eyes and
he would dream.
And so it happened one afternoon
that, opening a lazy eye, Abraham saw not trees, but people,
standing by the tent—three men staring down at him.
Strangers!
When confronted by strangers, we
have at least three choices: privacy, charity or
hospitality. We can choose privacy—keeping to ourselves,
letting the strangers pass on by. We can choose
charity—giving something, anything really, spare change, a
glass of water, maybe even a donation to their kid’s school
or scout troop, and then kindly sending them on their
way. We can offer hospitality—inviting them in, making room
in our hearts and room in our homes for strangers to be
received and welcomed.
When Abraham opened his eyes
that afternoon and saw the strangers coming towards him, he
could have put his hand up, given a handout, or welcomed
them with hands open. The story says that Abraham opened his
hands, his doors, his home and his heart to these weary
travelers. He jumped up and bowed down to ground and said,
“Stay awhile. Rest awhile. Let me get some water for your
feet. Some bread for your belly. And some pillows for your
head.”
As the strangers made themselves
comfortable, Abe went to Sarah’s side of the tent and asked
her to make flat cakes out of barley meal. He himself ran
down to the herds and selected the choicest calf for
cooking. Abe then roused his family from their afternoon
naps and caused a general commotion throughout the
encampment. Finally he returned to his guests and spread
goatskins underneath an oak tree and laid out cakes and meat
and curds and milk—a feast prepared for the strangers in
their midst.
That is when the entire story
changes. This single act of hospitality alters the lives of
Abraham and Sarah forever. Let us not forget the mindset of
our biblical mother and father. It had been nearly thirty
years since God had dared to whisper the promise of a son
and a legacy beyond their living years. And truth be told,
even thirty years ago—when they both were in their
sixties—this promise, this wild promise from their God,
seemed a long shot at best. But now, on the edge of the
century mark, this dream of a son was no longer a dream, but
a long-gone dream. Were they holding out any hope? Oh, maybe
a little, but come on, this was pretty much how life was
going to be—the same as it always was.
But you see, the thing about
allowing strangers to enter our lives is that strangers
don’t see everything the way we do. Strangers aren’t limited
by our experiences. Strangers don’t know where we have been.
They ask really tough questions like, “Why do we do it that
way?” or “Have you thought of doing it this way?” And
strangers hardly ever say, “We’ve never done it that way
before,” because they don’t know how we’ve done it before.
Newcomers can see possibilities
where we only see the “same old, same old.” Strangers can
walk in and say to a ninety-year-old couple (or to a
five-year-old contemporary worship community), “Hey, God has
got some unexpected things on the horizon for you.” And
that’s exactly what happened to Abraham and Sarah when they
chose hospitality: they came to realize that they had been
entertaining angels.
After the dinner was over, the
strangers said, “Where is your wife? Where is Sarah?”
“In the tent,” Abraham said.
“When I return this way in the
spring, your wife will be nursing a son.”
Abraham felt the hairs on the
back of his neck begin to tingle. Suddenly this wasn’t
merely dinner conversation. It was intimate and dangerous.
Did these strangers know something they didn’t? Did the
visitors in their midst see something they did not, or could
not, see? Did these newcomers sense the movement of God in a
way they had ruled out?
Listening in the other room,
Sarah laughed. She couldn’t hold it in. A baby. Now, after
all these years. She laughed out loud. She laughed because
of the ridiculousness of the visitors’ claims. She laughed
because these newcomers dared to speak of something they no
longer thought possible. She laughed because the strangers
in their midst saw joy where they saw only impossibility.
She laughed because these angels knew something about God
that they had long since forgotten.
Friends, Sunday Night Alive
needs more newcomers in our midst. We need visitors,
travelers, seekers and searchers to walk through our doors
and say to us, “Is anything impossible for the Lord?”
Amazing things can happen when we get serious about
hospitality. When we make sure that strangers in our midst
are welcomed as angels, God’s messengers among us, the
promise of a new future full of new possibilities will be
opened up to us. Don’t believe me? Ask Abe and Sarah and
little baby Isaac. And if you don’t believe them, then ask
Jon, Shelli, Jon, Jack and Allie. Shelli writes:
As corporate nomads, Jon and I
have attended numerous churches across the country. From the
20,000 member Saddleback Church in Orange County, California
to the small Methodist churches of rural Alabama, we have
been a part of a number of congregations. However, none have
touched our lives like the members of this church.
In January of this year, Jon and
I learned that our lives would be changed forever. Not only
had we been relocated from the comforts of sunny southern
California to Detroit, Michigan in the middle of winter, but
we learned that we were expecting triplets. Imagine me…a CPA
in the middle of the busy season, expecting triplets, and
moving to Michigan. I had no idea how we were going to get
through it. But fortunately, God had a much bigger plan for
Jon and me that was just beginning to unfold.
Growing up in the Methodist
church, our first instinct upon moving to Birmingham was to
find a church family. That’s when God led us to this
church. In our short time here, we have been abundantly
blessed by the numerous ministries offered by this church.
On June 1, I was put on bed rest
in Beaumont Hospital for preterm labor. Because we knew
that the babies and I needed the prayers and support of so
many people, I called Pastor Lynn Hasley, whom I had met
briefly at a Sunday Night Alive service, and asked for
prayers from our new church family. Immediately, the church
responded. Lynn visited me in my hospital room the very next
day and from there, a special relationship was formed and we
began to see how extraordinary this congregation is. God had
provided for us once again.
Over the past three months, we
have seen God’s gracious work through the Caring Ministries
of this church firsthand. At Beaumont, we were visited by
various members of the church’s staff, the Stephen
Ministers, and Duke intern Kara Eidson. During my 43-day
Beaumont “vacation,” hardly a day went by without someone
from the church either calling or stopping by. I can’t begin
to tell you how exciting it is to have visitors while in the
hospital, especially ones who comfort you in saying, “We
prayed for you today.”
A special prayer was lifted for
our family when we were touched by yet another group in the
church, the Shawl Ministry. Through this group, I was
presented with a beautiful handmade shawl that had been held
in prayer especially for us. It’s a gift that I will
treasure forever.
Pastor Lynn also introduced me
to Mary Feldmaier, whose contact with the GRIP and growth
groups of the church has been an abundance of support. Mary,
along with Heather Hubert, have coordinated meals for our
family every other day since the babies were born and have
also scheduled volunteers to assist me with feedings. These
groups and volunteers have been a wonderful resource and
have provided a wealth of information for this new mom!
As you can see, we have been
blessed in so many ways by the services this church provides
not only to its members, but to visitors. That’s what has
impressed me the most…we’re not yet members of this church.
We were only visitors when I first met Pastor Lynn, but we
have been welcomed as part of the church family. The
prayers and support that we have been given have been
tremendous as evidenced by the three healthy babies that we
have with us today. It has been amazing to share the birth
of these babies with such a wonderful group of people.
Jack, Jon and Allie are truly miracles from God and are
privileged to have such a wonderful church family to grow up
with. Who knows where the corporate road may take us, but we
praise God for bringing us here when He did.
Some say that hospitality is a
lost art in our day. Episcopal priest and pastoral counselor
Dr. Jill McNish contends that, “We live in a time when it
sometimes seems that everyone is presumed to be a terrorist
until proven otherwise with multiple forms of
identification.” Many of us can drive into our attached
garages with their automatic door-closers, retreat into the
safety of our locked homes, and have no interaction with our
neighbors. Hebrews tells us to welcome the stranger, but we
teach our children never to talk to one. Along with our
crowded calendars, the frantic pace at which we live our
lives virtually ensures that spontaneous acts of hospitality
never happen. In light of all this, it seems imperative that
the church, at least, should be one place where hospitality
is practiced.
Abraham models true hospitality.
Notice that this event was neither planned nor convenient.
The guests arrive unannounced, at the worst possible time of
day, when the kitchen is shut down and nothing is readily
available. And note how Abraham serves with humility. He is
secure in who he is. Having been blessed by God, he is free
to serve others as if they are divine. He treats these men
as if, for this one moment, they are the center of his
universe. He draws his whole family in and sets his
household into operation. And finally, notice his
generosity. He handpicks the best of what he has and gives
meticulous care to its preparation and presentation. This is
not the fast food lane. This is the kind of fare served at
the wedding of a prized daughter, and here it is given away
to strangers.
But what is even more important
is the very thing that Abraham doesn’t realize. In treating
strangers like God, he is, in fact, entertaining angels. In
return, God will turn the tables on him and serve him. This
is why the writer of the Letter of the Hebrews exhorts the
early Christians to be hospitable to strangers. Such
hospitality could welcome God right into the very center of
our lives. The early Christians used this kind of
hospitality as their primary method of evangelism.
Here we are at the beginning of
a new ministry year, and I am here to tell you that I
believe that God has Sunday Night Alive poised for a really
exciting year, a year of growth both in size and depth. But
I have to admit that I used to think that in order to become
a growing ministry, in order for us to move from a good
ministry to a great ministry, we had to be slick and crafty.
Make better signs. Make a cooler website. Run full color
ads. Play louder music. Have better graphics. Show movie
clips. I thought we had to add more stuff. But now I
understand that God is calling us to be a place of
hospitality—a place that is welcoming and warm, friendly and
caring, a place where strangers can become friends and
friends can become family.
If Sunday Night Alive is going
to be known for anything, I want us to be known as a place
where every single person who walks through our door is
recognized, welcomed, invited, listened to, cared for and
connected—a place that takes special notice of its visitors
and makes sure they are welcomed. And it begins here
tonight, right after the service, as Chef Mike and Blake
bring forth a meal prepared with tender loving care.
So let me say this to those of
you who are visiting us tonight: We are really glad you are
here. You are vitally important to us because you are a
messenger from God. You bring us a fresh perspective, a new
way of looking at things. You will remind us that nothing is
impossible for the Lord. If you are visiting, let me again
extend an invitation to join us after the service for
dinner. Let us welcome you as Abraham and Sarah welcomed
their angelic visitors. Be our guest tonight and stay as
long as you like. Make this your home if you are so
inclined.
And to those of you who call
this community, or this church, your home, let me issue you
this challenge: More than anything else, let us be attentive
to the angels, the visitors, the travelers, the seekers and
the newcomers in our midst. When you eat dinner tonight and
in the weeks to come, seek out new people, people you don’t
know, learn new names, listen to each other’s stories, and
make plans to see each other outside of the walls of this
building.
Friends, I want to ask every
person in this room tonight to be an active part of our
ministry of hospitality. This is where it all begins. When
you sign up to help with a meal, you are not just filling in
some line on a chart. Instead, you are making sure there is
bread to break while strangers become friends. When you sign
up to welcome folks at the door or to be an usher, when you
seek out visitors, look for new faces, make connections or
make new friends, you are participating in the most vital
part of our life together, growing the Body of Christ. You
are opening the doors of the church, making room for others
to receive the same blessings God has so richly offered to
you.
As we begin this new ministry
year, may the first two lines of the 13th chapter
of Hebrews be our guide: “Keep on loving each other as
brothers and sisters. Do not forget to entertain strangers,
for by doing so, some people have entertained angels without
knowing it.” I believe there are angels among us. Maybe
you’re sitting next to one right now!
Notes: The story of the
reformed gambler came from an article entitled “Remembering
Thurgood Marshall,” printed in the April 15, 2004 edition of
the Harvard Gazette. In the article, a long-time
friend of Marshall, Maratha Minnow, related the story as
being one of the late justice’s favorite stories. She
concluded that for Justice Marshall, it was never about
handouts. “Just leave the door open.”
I am always thankful to Rick
Wangerin’s novel, The Book of God, for the narrative
retelling of the Abraham and Sarah account.
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