Butterscotch Lady or Hat Man: Radical Hospitality
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church Romans 15:7 Rev. Marianne Niesen February 21, 2010
Today is the first Sunday of Lent. We are now beginning our time of preparation for the celebration of the greatest of all Christian feasts - Easter. It was on Easter that a small group of bewildered, bedraggled friends of an executed criminal began to grasp some amazing news. The one they thought dead was alive. And with that news came renewed hope that - contrary to how it looked - following him, living as he had shown them would bring them life as well. It would take those early disciples several weeks - even months - to fully comprehend what it meant. Still Easter marked the birth of new hope that would transform the lives of those who dared believe and follow the example of the one they called the Christ. In a sense, then, Lent each year is our spring training, re-tooling us for the season of sharing the transforming faith of Easter..
So, this year, to help us ‘train’ for Easter, we are spending some time as a church community exploring the ideas in a book written by one of the bishops in our church, Bishop Robert Schnase. In the book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, Bishop Schnase identifies five characteristics that are consistently and persistently practiced in congregations that are vibrant, fruitful and growing - that is, congregations that are ‘living’ Easter, that ‘get’ what Easter means. My hope is that as we explore each one of these characteristics, we will grasp how we can better share the good news. I believe God has given this church unique gifts and a particular responsibility. And, while we do a good job here at St. Paul’s, there is always room to grow. Lent is especially suited for this kind of study. To help us do this by more than simply hearing me talk about it, we have devotional books for everyone to use throughout Lent. Called Cultivating Fruitfulness, the book takes each of those characteristics and provides a daily reading, short reflection and a suggested daily activity for each one. There is also a discussion group on Sunday mornings at 9:45 in the Library for those who want to explore the themes with others. But, whether you participate in that or not, I urge every one to take and use a book throughout Lent. Consider it your opportunity to be part of the adventure that Jesus began 2000 years ago . . .
Today’s scripture reading from the Book of Romans introduces the first characteristic for our Lenten journey. From this longest, most theologically developed of Paul’s letters, I have chosen just one verse that sums it all up. Paul writes: welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. Or from the Message: So reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory. Jesus did it, now you do it!
Paul understood that hospitality is fundamental to Christianity. It is a practice that needs constant practice. For the Christian, hospitality is not just the custom of being nice to people (although that isn’t a bad place to start). And it is not the practice of evangelizing people - ‘converting them’ so they can be saved. For far too many Christian communities, saving people from hell has been a main reason for offering hospitality. But I believe that misses the mark. The hospitality that really changes lives is daily, deliberate practice of treating people as Jesus treated them. His love was expansive. From what we read in Scripture, whether the person he encountered was poor, outcast, an insider or outsider, a woman, a child, sick, possessed, ordinary, gifted, sinner or saint - he treated them all as beloved children of God. In a world as divided as is ours, he met strangers and welcomed them as friends. As he did that, people were fed, healed, empowered and challenged to become the heaven-on-earth community God means us to be - and wants us to have. In other words, genuine hospitality - the welcome of Christ - in and of itself, has the power to transform life as we know it.
This is not a popular concept in this world of ours. More than ever, we are a divided world. We are divided along economic, cultural, religious and political lines. We are fearful of the stranger and suspicious of those who are different. And, as I mentioned earlier, too often Christian hospitality has been to welcome people in and make them like us rather than to welcome them as they are with the love and acceptance of Christ. Period. Bishop Schnase suggests that offering basic hospitality is important but radical hospitality is really the challenge for committed Christians and vital churches. Radical hospitality begins with the notion that we must work at changing our hearts rather than targeting theirs. Radical hospitality offers the love of Christ rather than the judgment of dogma and doctrine. As Bishop Schnase writes: Radical hospitality stretches us, challenges us and pulls out of us our utmost creativity and hard work to offer the welcome of Christ. It is to welcome the stranger as a stranger, with no strings attached.
In a sermon on this topic, Melissa Bailey-Kirk in Chesterfield, Missouri, told this story.
A teenage boy entered the sanctuary of a church. It was the church to which his parents and kid brother belonged. In fact, they were there every time the doors opened! They were there too much. As he slumped down in the chair that was as far away from the altar as possible and pulled his ball cap low on his forehead, he dropped his head into his hands and settled in for a nap. He didn’t know why he was there. He could sleep more comfortably in his bed. He didn’t want to be there. Church was a drag - a religious institution focused on its own survival and uninterested in people like him. Just as he was moving into pre-sleep, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into the face of a woman he did not know. Great, he thought, I must be in her seat. She can have it. I’m going home.But she didn’t ask him to move. She simply placed a bag of butterscotch in hishand and said, “I’m glad you are here this morning. I brought this for you because I’veheard you really like butterscotch. Me too. There aren’t many of us around.” He didn’t open that bag of butterscotch for a long time. In fact he hung it on the wall of his bedroom right beside his heavy metal posters, his guitar, and his poems of emptiness and longing. A reminder of grace. A sign of radical hospitality.
Years later, just out of his teens, that same young man entered a different church. He was feeling pretty good about being there. (Maybe it was the memory of the butterscotch!) He wasn’t there for the sermon or music. In fact if he had timed it just right, he would miss most of that. He was there because someone he loved asked him to come for a special day. He had awakened early that morning, showered, put on his jeans and a T-shirt, and pulled back his long hair, anchoring it with a ball cap. As he stood in the foyer, waiting for the service to end so that he could greet his loved one, he heard someone speak to him. “Young man,” He turned and extended his hand in greeting. He was surprised when his hand was ignored. He was speechless when the person continued. “Young man, you either need to take off your hat or leave the building.”
Strangers were welcome in that church but there were conditions. The preacher then said: “The truth of our own humanity is that each of us has the capacity to be the butterscotch lady or the hat man. We have within us the ability to be radically hospitable to those for whom church - Christianity - is a foreign and strange land, even when their values or thoughts about church are different from our own. We also have with us the ability to withhold hospitality in order to protect what we falsely imagine to be ‘our own’ - our own church, our own class, our own space, our own truth.”
Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you. Those few words of Paul pack a far more potent punch than we sometimes realize. This kind of welcome is about far more than greeters or coffee. It is about how willing we are to put aside our own often well- thought-out expectations and understandings of how things should be and how they should be and simply act with love, with respect. And in a world where suspicion abounds, wouldn’t it be wonderful if people found in this church the love and acceptance of Christ?
When Lyle and I visited the Methodist Church in John Wesley’s home town of Epworth, England four years ago, we met a woman after the service who made it a point to come over to greet us. It is a small community and, while they get a lot of visitors, they don’t get many in February. The woman invited us to stay for ‘tea’ which is wheeled out and served in the front of the sanctuary. In the course of the conversation, I asked if she had always been a member of this church. She smiled. “Oh, no. I came from (I don’t remember where). When I came to Epworth, I was in a bad way. I was divorced, very poor, a single Mom. I came here looking for friends. When I came they were nice to me, offered me tea, helped me with my kids. So I stayed. It’s a good place.” Then she paused and said something I’ll never forget. “Don’t you know . . . first comes the belongin’, then, comes the believin’.”
Several years ago, I saw a brief film clip that I thought would be wonderful to share this morning. I thought we had it but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I contacted my friend Margaret Novak up in Chester for help. She had served on the Board of United Methodist Communications and I thought she might at least know the title. She did - and she went further, she contacted UMCom asking if anyone there could find it. That was on Monday. By Wednesday I had heard nothing so I emailed UMCom myself and copied Margaret. She was surprised that I had no response and said she’d make a call. On Friday, still nothing. So I started my sermon without it. At 10 a.m. on Friday, Margaret called. They found it! Someone will be calling you!. At noon, I got a call from the production manager at United Methodist Communications. They had been working on my request all week - just hadn’t let us know! They had located the clip but had to transfer it from video to an electronic form so they could get it to me for use today. By 1 p.m on Friday, I had the link and downloaded it. Now that is the United Methodist connection at work. And that is radical hospitality. There are people in Nashville who don’t know you or me who went the extra mile to find this 2 minute clip for us.
Roger Swanson, a former United Methodist Board of Discipleship staff member, tells the story. It is actually his story of an event in his childhood.
(For those who are reading the sermon, this is the summary: The afternoon was hot, and two boys - brothers - were looking for a cool place to hang out. They jimmied the lock on the back door of the church and entered the empty sanctuary. As sunlight filtered in through the stained glass, the boys walked through the sanctuary and down a staircase. They moved quickly, knowing exactly where they were going. Once in the cool basement of the church, they began shooting pool. Their game was halted abruptly when the pastor stepped out of the shadows. You boys, he said, have been trying harder than anyone else to get into the church. He reached into his pocket, then pulled out his hand. He held a key. "Here," he said, "come any time you want." That episode changed the lives of the two brothers and their parents. Their mother eventually became a treasurer of the church, and the father became a trustee. The youngest of the boys, Roger Swanson, became a pastor. "It's still, today, for me, the best image of Christ that I have," said Swanson.)
Radical hospitality changes lives. It transforms those offering it and the lives of those receiving it. We here at St. Paul’s know that. By and large, here in Helena, we are known as a church of radical, inclusive hospitality. We’ve even taken hits for it. The question is - how can we do it better? As a community and individually. How can each one of us become that ‘best image of Christ’ in our community? Because, it really is true - as my Epworth friend observed - first comes the belongin’. It may just be the greatest, most redemptive gift we offer.
