Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
September 2, 2007
Proverbs 25:6–7
Psalm 112
Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Lectionary 22
Proper 17
Year C
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
As I see it, the church, in its ideal state, properly understood, is not a noun, but a verb. The church in all its glory embodies Jesus in its active work of --witnessing, proclaiming, listening, gathering, inviting, welcoming, repenting, forgiving, reconciling, washing, eating, and drinking.
Defining the church, describing what it is that the church does, is a fairly daunting assignment. Typically we say we go to church. Typically we say Christ the King is my church, and we add that they are generally a friendly bunch. Or, typically we think of this space where we assemble to worship as the church.
Martin Luther, the great sixteenth century reformer, was embroiled in a furious debate as to what constituted the church. Luther dismissed many proposals about what the church is, because those in the debate tied the ordering of the church to particular organizational principles, such as congregational, Presbyterian, or episcopal. Luther was not against order, but he was against saying that to be truly church and to deliver the gospel the church can only have a particular order. And he definitely opposed those who located the church’s center either in Rome on in the pope.
In this conversation, at this time, Luther was brilliant. See if you agree, as Luther defined the church with choice language like this:
Therefore, by what sign may I recognize the church? For some visible sign must be given by which we may congregate together to hear the word of God. I reply that the necessary sign is what we also have, namely, baptism, the bread, and, mostly importantly the gospel. These three are the symbols, tokens, and characteristics of Christians. Where you see baptism and the bread and the gospel—in any place whatsoever, with any persons whatsoever—you may have no doubts that the church exists here.
--p 27, Christian Assembly
Most people say they arrive at the church out of habit, convenience, or for fellowship. What Luther describes goes against the grain of common parlance. Are you able to say I found the church because here it so winsomely and beautifully presents the three characteristics of Christians, baptism, the bread, and the gospel with anybody and everybody? If you are, I’d like to hear more about it!
And yet, I’m sure you have stories to tell, as I do. And if you do, I’d like to hear more about it!
I can say that Christ the King’s Chapel School, with its new director Dee Dee Thurber, is preparing to welcome children. Each child has been prayed for. The rooms have been cleaned and rearranged, and decorated to make Christ the King a second home for two, three, and four-year olds. The Seeds resource they use will tell the gospel story from each week, and we will do our best to allow the intersection of Chapel School and Christ the King to be a sign that the church is a verb, active and vital.
In our weekly Sunday gatherings throughout the summer and into the fall, as we have been traveling in Luke’s compelling gospel, Jesus demonstrates that the ways of God’s kingdom promote healing and hospitality to who otherwise feel uninvited or by society’s standards are unwelcome. The kingdom, like the church in Luther’s definition, is active and vital.
In today’s gospel, Jesus’ table manners were being scrutinized as always. Like the good rabbi he was, he was able to turn the situation into a teaching moment by turning the students on their heads! The Middle Eastern culture lived and died with the polarizing values of honor and shame. At this dinner party, knowing where to sit was key. To be asked to move to the back of the room, or to sit in the cheap seats, when grabbing a place you don’t deserve, would bring shame upon you and your clan. And when you throw a party and invite those who will enhance your reputation, those most like you or those with money, power, and fame, it will bring honor to you and your family.
Jesus speaks about transformative hospitality, where those sitting at the lowest position are invited to come higher, and where those not likely to on the guest list are welcome to your meals.
What does this say about the church but that we do not sit inside and wait for those outside to come in, but that instead we turn ourselves inside out to invite, to welcome, to witness, to gather, to listen, to reconcile, to forgive, to wash, and to eat and drink? The church is not just a place to come to, but an activity borne of the Spirit that resembles a party! And in that activity, with the ever-widening arms of welcome, Christ in our midst turns strangers into friends, enemies into guests, and a gathering of a motley crew into a taste of the kingdom of heaven.
Henri Nouwen, foremost writer on spirituality, describes the impact of transformative spirituality. In his classic primer on the spiritual life called Reaching Out, this is how he sees the gift of hospitality:
At first the word “hospitality” might evoke the image of soft sweet kindness, tea parties, bland conversations and a general atmosphere of coziness. Probably this has its good reasons since in our culture the concept of hospitality has lost much of its power and is often used in circles where we are more prone to expect a watered down piety than a serious search for an authentic Christian spirituality. But still, if there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality. It is one of the richest biblical terms that can deepen and broaden our insight to our fellow human beings. Old and New Testament stories not only show how serious our obligation is to welcome the stranger in our home, but they also tell us that guests are carrying precious gifts with them, which they are eager to reveal to a receptive host. When Abraham received three strangers at Mamre and offered them water, bread and a fine tender calf, they revealed themselves to him as the Lord announcing that Sarah his wife would give birth to a son (Genesis 18:1-15). When the widow of Zarephath offered food and shelter to Elijah, he revealed himself as a man of God offering her an abundance of oil and meal and raising her son from the dead (I Kings 17:9-24). When the two travelers to Emmaus invited the stranger, who had joined them on the road to stay with them for the night, he made himself known in the breaking of the bread as their Lord and Saviour (Luke 24:13-35).
When hostility is converted into hospitality then fearful strangers can become guests revealing to their hosts the promise they are carrying with them. Then, in fact, the distinction between host and guest proves to be artificial and evaporates in the recognition of the new found unity.
Thus the biblical stories help us to realize not just that hospitality is an important virtue, but even more that in the context of hospitality guest and host can reveal their most precious gifts and bring new life to each other.
--Reaching Out, pp. 46-47
Here in this place, Jesus is both host and guest. As host, Christ Jesus through us invites the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. All are welcome to church. In those who are strangers whom are our guests, they reveal themselves to be angels or even Christ himself, as he says “as often as you did it to the least of these, you have done it to me.”
Keep that in mind as we welcome the children and families of our Chapel School, and as we seek to welcome and be welcomed in the places we find ourselves this week and in the weeks to come.
As we continue to be the church today and into tomorrow, let the table that we set with bread and wine be the feast of the kingdom, offering Christ crucified and risen, himself the host and the guest. And let our activity today and into the fall be a winsome, beautiful, vital, and welcome sign that together, we are the church.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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