“For
whoever welcomes you welcomes me….” May I speak to you in the name of the G-d who
[+] Creates, Redeems and Sustains us? AMEN.
[You
may listen to the sermon as preached at the link below starting at 28:00 into
the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BODn803R7ys&t=2510s
]
Today’s Gospel comes at the end of a series of hard lessons that Matthew has Jesus teaching. Our lectionary has waded through some difficult teachings in Matthew the past few Sundays and I offer my kudos to the preachers and all of you who have wrestled with them. This week’s lesson picks up where last week’s left off in chapter 10 of Matthew but it is much shorter, and much less complicated, a true blessing to the preacher. And it can all be boiled down to one concept – radical hospitality.
Even a Cup of Cold Water….
In
today’s Gospel lesson Jesus tells his listeners that those who welcome his
followers welcome him. He then goes on to specify a series of rewards those who
welcome them may expect. At the end of that list, Jesus notes that “whoever
gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones” will be rewarded.
Jesus uses that phrase “the little ones” repeatedly in the gospels. One of the translations is children and Jesus often engages children in his ministry. But it also references those whom his world saw as insignificant, lacking in any kind of dignity or respectability, the ones overlooked, ignored, forgotten.
Perhaps
more importantly, the fact that the little ones here would be grateful for even
a cup of cold water suggests they may well have lacked food and water. Starvation
of the masses at the bottom of the social pyramid in Jesus world was common.
There is a reason that in Luke’s version of the beatitudes, Jesus specifically
singles out the hungry for attention: Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Jesus is making a point here.
Even small acts of kindness make a huge difference. And we may not even be aware of the difference it has made.
At the Root of the Way of Jesus
This
verse on welcoming strangers illustrates Jesus’ common reference to radical
hospitality. While many of us who live in these tense times of culture wars
have a visceral reaction to the word radical, it comes from the Latin word
radix meaning root. Think radish. Radical hospitality lays at the very root of
the way of Jesus who routinely crosses social boundaries in engaging with
people in his own world that his society says he should not have any contact
with.
His
engagement with the Syro-Phoenician woman is a good example. There he allows a
woman from outside of his Hebrew tradition to call him on his prejudices: “Even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” It is a rare
example of when Jesus repents, turning away from social prejudices confused
with religion, demonstrating a willingness to engage the stranger standing before
him on whose face the image of G-d stares back at him.
In his Good Samaritan parable, it is the outsider, the Samaritan, who does the will of G-d, not the religious officials who scrupulously avoid helping the traveler in need. And it is the hated tax collectors and reviled prostitutes who eat at the table with Jesus, that raises eyebrows among the self-proclaimed righteous.
Jesus Eats with Tax Collectors and Sinners, Sieger Köder
(1925-2013)
It is this radical hospitality that would mark the Jesus movement during his lifetime and long after his death, as this gospel attributed to Matthew, written some 50 years after the crucifixion, reflects. And it is that same radical hospitality to which his followers are called today.
‘Christ the Beggar’ Timothy Schmalz, steps of Santo Spirito Hospital, Vatican City
I
want to emphasize three elements of this reading once again. First, it is a
teaching on welcoming the stranger. Second, as always, Jesus has a special
place in his heart for the little ones. And finally, even the smallest acts of
kindness are important. And with those elements in mind, I want to tell you a
story.
He Led A Difficult Life
Some
of you may remember a man who once attended St. Richards named Howard Charles
Miller. To meet Charles on the street, you might have presumed he was a
homeless man. He wore the cast-off clothing others had given him over the years,
clothes he washed in his tub and dried on the line that were often mildewed and
smelled when he sweated in them. He also was not terribly conscious of his bodily
hygiene. In many ways he was the classic homeless man. Like those of Jesus’ day
seen as outside the bounds of social propriety, he was someone most of us would
have avoided.
Charles had lived a life of poverty, becoming legally blind as a child as a result of excess oxygen in the incubator in which he spent the first several months of his life after being born premature. His Mother proved unable to care for her four children and they ended up in the foster care system of New York City. Charles would pass between eight different foster homes in which he would be physically and sexually abused. Eventually, he would connect with the Seventh Day Adventists Church who would send Charles down to Florida to their school in Forest City. When he graduated, he moved to section 8 housing in various locations around Orlando including the Reeves Terrace housing project that lay just down the street from our first home in Orlando in Orwyn Manor.
But there was much more to Charles than his poverty, his handicap and life of suffering. I met him at the Cathedral downtown where we both sang in the choir. Charles blew his music up on a copy machine so he could see it. And he would practice it at home on the piano someone had given him. He was very musically talented.
The
medication Charles took for his glaucoma had a slight psychotropic effect. And
Charles was not terribly inhibited to begin with. He would say things that made
people wonder if he was crazy. But beneath that façade of poverty and craziness
was a very fine mind, an intensely compassionate heart and an incredibly deep
soul. In all honesty, I think Charles was a genuine old soul. And if there was
anything he loved more than anything else, it was the Episcopal Church.
That’s
where we come into the story.
Canary in the Coal Mine
When
I returned to Central Florida from seminary I knew I’d never be able to
function here under the bishop who had led the charge in the church to keep
priests like me from ever standing behind an Episcopal altar. And so from 1997
to 2013, I simply avoided the church. And I was resigned to that part of my
life being over forever.
In 2012, Charles was evicted from his Reeve’s Terrance apartment because his inability to see had caused the roach population there to explode and infest the entire complex. Charles moved in with a friend in an apartment on Red Bug Lake Road. Charles knew this man from the Society for a Creative Anachronism, a medieval fair group in which he always played Friar Theo. But I knew that Charles would be lonely, isolated from the city whose bus routes he had memorized and criss-crossed with ease.
So
I asked Charles, if I take you to St. Richard’s church, will you go with me? He
readily agreed. And so we began attending the 10:30 service. It would be my
first time regularly attending Episcopal church services in in 16 years.
In
all fairness, I did not know what to expect. Charles was an affront to the
senses on a good day. And his crazy thinking out loud often made people walk
away quickly. But I figured, what the heck, let’s give it a try. And so I began
bringing Charles to church. We would walk up the aisle together, him holding to
my shoulder or me with both hands on his shoulders guiding him ahead to the
altar when it was time for communion. And we would leave the sanctuary to
attend coffee hour afterward, Charles chatting up the people he knew, me
getting him something to drink so he didn’t have to negotiate the table.
After
a few months, I pulled Charles aside. I saw Charles as my canary in the coal
mine. I figured if people treated him well, maybe I could be present there
myself. And so I said, “Charles, how do you like attending St. Richards?”
He said, “Little Brother, I love St. Richards. They are so nice to me.”
I asked if he wanted to continue attending. He said, “Oh, yes, little
Brother. I really like this church.”
Charles’ health declined shortly after that Sunday and he ended up being placed in a nursing home. I visited when I could find him. But the state social services would not keep me apprised of his whereabouts and when he disappeared a few months later, I figured he had died. I found his obituary online. And when I called his social worker, she only said he had requested his remains to be buried at sea. The closest he got was Lake Monroe.
St.
Richards held a memorial service for Charles shortly thereafter. His memorial
brick is in the northeast corner of the brickwork in front of the altar in the
memorial garden. A friend of ours who knew Charles had gone to Lake Monroe and
gathered a bottle of water to pour over the brick when we dedicated it. Charles
is now with us permanently in our memorial garden.
A Place to Offer Their Gifts
So
why did I tell you this story? Two reasons. First, it was the radical
hospitality this parish showed one of the little ones that Jesus loved, Charles
Miller, that brought me back to the Episcopal Church after 16 years of absence.
But more importantly, this same radical hospitality at St. Richards draws people
from all over Central Florida. There are a lot of Charleses and Harrys out
there. How many people have found us on the internet and come to this place?
How many people have finally found a place to offer their gifts and to receive
the gifts of others after months of searching?
Even
small acts of kindness make a huge difference. And we may not even be aware of
the difference it has made.
Indeed, we may take this all for granted. We are nice people, just as Charles said. But the radical hospitality that we demonstrate here is the Way of Jesus in action. It provides those who enter these doors the opportunity to encounter G-d’s grace which does change our lives and has the potential to change the whole world. Today you have heard just two examples of that truth. But I assure you, there are many, many others. They are sitting among us and watching us online as we speak. And some have not yet arrived but they are on their way. For that I am very, very thankful.
I conclude with a prayer I’ve adapted from our Book of Occasional Services. Let us pray:
Holy One, give us eyes to see the deepest needs of people. Give us hearts full of love for our neighbors as well as for the strangers we meet. Help us understand what it means to love others as we love ourselves. May we welcome the outcast and embrace those who come to our door. And may we continue to follow Jesus’ way of radical hospitality in a world where so many are desperate to find a spiritual home. AMEN.
A
sermon preached on Pentecost V, July 2, 2023 at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church,
Winter Park, Florida.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Harry Scott Coverston
2 comments:
Thank you, Harry!
Thank you Fr. Harry, and I thank and praise God for your gifts.
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