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A Cup of Cold Water

Sermon by Andrew Plocher
June 14, 2009, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Genesis 18:1-15
Matthew 10:40-42

A cold cup of water given to a child.

Abraham saw them coming. Whether he was excited at the sight of visitors or felt the sinking feeling of exhaustion, he leapt up to offer them food and drink, a place to rest, and to wash their feet. He drew water from the well, had Sarah make fresh bread from their finest flour, and hurried to the field and found a calf to slaughter and prepare for his guests.

Did Abraham know who they were? Did he think they were door-to-door sales people? Homeless pan handlers? Members of the Near East Public Interest Research Group? or did he recognize them as angels? What did he see in them?

For Abraham and Sarah, who the visitors were was not as important as that the visitors were there at the entrance to their tent. They are simply following an ancient law of the desert which required that if a stranger appeared at your tent, you were to welcome them, and share your food, drink and shelter. In the searing heat of the desert, the law of hospitality was a matter of human survival. You welcomed others so that they might welcome you. It is a practice still common among the Bedouins of today.

Abraham and Sarah’s actions are the beginning of biblical hospitality. From their story onward, hospitality to strangers is one of the grand themes of the Bible. When the Hebrews wander in the wilderness, God provides them with manna and water, as a gracious host. When the refugees finally enter the promised land and settle down, hospitality is written into their holy law: "Love the sojourner," says the Book of Deuteronomy, "for you yourselves were once sojourners in the land of Egypt."

In the New Testament the theme continues when Jesus teaches that acts of hospitality are actually the prime indicator of a person's relationship with God: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me." The Book of Hebrews reiterates His teaching, referring all the way back to the Genesis story of Abraham and Sarah; "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers," it says, "for thereby some have entertained angels unaware."

Clearly, willingness to extend hospitality to strangers is fundamental to the Christian way of life. And it may be that today, in our shrinking global village of limited natural resources, the practice of hospitality to strangers may, again, become a matter of human survival. But what exactly is hospitality? Is it an industry of hotels and restaurants? Coffee hour on a Sunday morning? Welcoming our friends and families into our homes?

In his book, Radical Hospitality, Brother Daniel Homan says: “Hospitality has an inescapable moral dimension to it. It is not a mere social grace; it is a spiritual and ethical issue. It is an issue involving what it means to be human. All of our talk about hospitable openness doesn’t mean anything as long as some people continue to be tossed aside.” p.5 [As quoted in "The Art of Welcome" by Trace Haythorn: http://day1.net]

Hospitality is a spiritual and ethical issue. It doesn’t mean anything as long as some people continue to be tossed aside.

In this day and age churches do a lot of tossing. We don’t mean to, for I believe that our hearts believe that we are welcoming to all those who walk through our doors. We see visitors and we welcome them. But hospitality is harder than that. If we take our cue from Matthew, it’s much harder than that.

In Matthew’s gospel, we hear Jesus speaking about giving a cup of cold water to a child as an act of hospitality. Cold water. For us that may seem simple. There is a drinking fountain downstairs that provides cool water, as does the water cooler in the church office. There are refrigerators with bottled water in them, and at home the tap puts out cool water. It is readily accessible to us. Yet in the context of Jesus’ time, in Abraham and Sarah’s day, cold water was not kept in the house. There was no running water, no tap or drinking fountain. To get cold water they had to go to the well. People would walk miles each way just to get cold water. It required walking to get it, carrying it, and then returning and serving it to the guests. It required hard work.

Today we often relegate hospitality to simpler things. I know that I bustle around my home cleaning it up, making sure the coffee is on if guests are coming over. I might even run out to a bakery for some treats. Yet that is for those who I know. It is for the guests that I am expecting, for people that I want to see. What about for the new faces? The strangers? What is the equivalent of getting cold water, slaughtering a calf, or making fresh bread in this day of plumbing and grocery stores?

Around us churches find new meaning to the arches of their sanctuaries. Some have found themselves host to soup kitchens, others as beds for the homeless, or as refuge from the fear of immigration raids. Sanctuaries, with their stained glass windows and ornate woodwork, their perfect walls and pristine chancels have found people at the entrance of their tent. Their tabernacle, the place where God dwells, has visitors.

As a people of God, as the people of Israel who once wandered in the desert, and as Christians we are accountable to the moral call of hospitality. You see, we have visitors. We do. And that they are children of God, that they are wandering in the desert- that matters to us.

Yet, being the thinking church that we are, we must be asking – who are these visitors? Who is knocking at our door? What do we do next?

A visitor is anyone who comes to our door. Not just the door of the sanctuary, but the door of our community. They may look like us, talk like us, and even do the same things that we do. Yet they may also have differing political views, claim a different sexual orientation than our own, drive a large truck with a gun rack on the back, or live as a vegan or vegetarian. Or they may not look like us. They could be wearing casual clothing instead of a suit and tie or summer dress, or have a different ethnic origin and come from the middle east, Africa, Asia, and countries and cultures near and far. Or they might just talk a lot, rambling vociferously about things that we don’t particularly care for, have a speech impediment, or be shyly silent. They could be recently unemployed, living on a tiny salary, or a millionaire . Or maybe they have cerebral palsy or Parkinson’s, or struggle with mental illness. Have cancer, or HIV, or severe diabetes.

Friends, we are all different, but how we respond to those differences is what brings about hospitality. When we leap up like Abraham, not knowing who the visitors are, knowing only that they are our brothers and sisters in Christ, we begin hospitality.

We can begin within our own community.

By sitting in a different location on a Sunday morning, trying to engage a new or different social group during fellowship after worship. By greeting someone new instead of returning safely to the familiar conversations with friends. By inviting strangers over to dinner so that they are no longer strangers. By asking about someone’s story and listening to them and hearing who they are.

By going out into the world and serving food at Our Brother’s Place, at Broad Street, or to the homeless on the street. Or working with Achievability, Habitat for Humanity, Norristown’s food pantry, or countless other ministries. By coaching at an underprivileged school or tutoring children in need.

Or… by remembering that what we say has implicit subtexts: That when we talk about the country club, dinner at a fine restaurant, or vacation home we isolate those who cannot afford to know that world. That when we talk about friends and colleagues, when we gossip, we often make comments we would not make in their presence – comments that tear them down. That when, in our expertise and love of craft, we unknowingly turn our noses to dissonant voices and amateur arts – to people yearning to find ways to participate with their own passion. That when we feel we need to be of a certain intellectual ilk to belong – to speak a certain cultural language, to read the right periodical, or know the right people, we exclude those who don’t meet the criteria we, ourselves, are struggling to meet.

We desire to belong, just as much as any stranger that wanders through our doors. We desire to know and be known, to be loved and appreciated. We want our jokes to be laughed at, our stories to be listened too, and our interests to be shared. We want our hurts to be cared for, our passions to be fostered.

This listening, this awareness of our own actions, is like a cup of cold water. It is the work that has to be done to welcome others into our tent on top of the hill. As in the day of Abraham and Sarah, it is our own welcome that gives us welcome at the tent of others. It is our struggle to provide a cup of water or too listen without judgment that begins our journey of hospitality.

Our hospitality won’t be easy, but with God’s help, it may be blessed.

True Christian hospitality doesn’t stop at our house or care home, nor does it extend only to our church building. Holy hospitality encompasses all one’s life: hospitable driving, hospitable office work, hospitality toward strangers, hospitality towards those silly neighbors you’ve known for years, hospitality towards creation in all its form, hospitality towards all those for whom Christ died –all the world.

Jesus’ words in Matthew may suggest a radical hospitality of Jesus–that in Christ’s love, all who welcome others are blessed whether they know Christ or not. Matthew isn’t quite clear, but it is clear that we, especially we who believe in Jesus Christ, are left with a mission: to respond to God’s love in Christ by welcoming others. And we must not stop; we must not waiver, or wander, until all are truly welcomed into Christ’s fold.

One Sunday morning, in a church not unlike ours, a visitor came into the sanctuary after worship had begun. Now this visitor was a bit different from those sitting in the congregation. While they had on their Sunday best, this visitor wore the only clothes she owned, scruffy jeans and a t-shirt. She carried all her belongings at her side, in a double plastic bag.

She entered during worship, and the door greeters either were asleep on the job or just unsure what to do, so this woman walked on in. And she didn’t find a seat in the back pews, and as she walked further up the aisle, the greeters in the back began to get a bit nervous.

There were no empty seats on the end of a pew–the old church members liked to make sure they controlled who sat beside them–so there was no place for this woman to sit, and not one member scooted down the pew to welcome to visitor.

So the scrubby visitor walked all the way up the central aisle, after having been offered not one seat. And she shrugged her tired shoulders and just plopped down on the floor, crossed her legs, and sat plumb in the front, in the middle of the aisle.

Now the greeters in the back were scared. What should they do? Should they wait till a hymn to ask her to leave, or just go right on up and remove her immediately?

One of the greeters eventually took charge. A stooped older man himself, he walked slowly down the aisle of the church, many an eye and whisper following his determined path.

And, eventually, when he got to the woman with her worn jeans and grocery sack, he, very slowly, sat down beside her, joining her on the floor in the middle of the aisle. Welcoming her to worship.

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