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Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
No matter where they go in the Middle East, and for hundreds of years westerners have traveled to some surprising, decidedly out of the way places, virtually everyone who journeys to the Arab world comes away with the same impression, one best articulated by a recent visitor to Syria, of all places, a country that has been on the U.S. Government’s roster of state sponsors of terrorism since the list first started in 1974. Despite that dubious distinction, writes one long time traveler, “Syrian hospitality has to be experienced to be believed. ‘Ahlan,” the Arabic word for ‘welcome,’ is constantly on everybody’s lips.”
But don’t just take one man’s word for it. According to the Lonely Planet travel guide series, which targets a younger demographic, “Contrary to what the U.S. State Department may wish the world to think, Syria is not populated by terrorists, zealots and other bogeymen. In fact, Syrians are among the most friendly and hospitable people in the world.”
Hospitable, the word comes from the Latin, “Of a guest.” And there are few places in the world in which guests are treated more hospitably than in the Mideast, particularly when it comes to eating.
“Arabic food and Arab hospitality can be somewhat of an overwhelming experience to first timers,” another visitor says. Her advice to anyone invited to a good old-fashioned family meal is simply to wear loose fitting clothes. “Arabic food is flavorful, diverse and plentiful,” she notes, “but above all it will be offered to you relentlessly by your hosts.” The woman says that she has never been invited to an Arab home where she has not been coerced into eating above and beyond what she is capable.
We should all suffer such hardships, forced to consume hors d’oeuvres of olives, nuts, raisins, or hummus, a dip made of garbanzo beans, sesame seed paste, lemon juice and garlic, scooped up by warmed slices of pita bread. Along with that, if you’re lucky, you may be served baba ghanoush, a succulent eggplant dish seasoned with cumin and cloves. (I just love the names of Middle Eastern food!) If the occasion is a special one, the appetizers and salads are followed by a stuffed lamb, a dish so exquisite that T.E. Lawrence – “Lawrence of Arabia” – devoted several ecstatic, almost R rated pages to describing it in his memoirs.
But you’re still not finished; there’s dessert, something like baklava, made of filo dough and crushed pistachios or walnuts, layered up and drenched in syrup of sugar and lemon juice, sometimes dripping with honey. It takes time to make and it’s messy to eat, but it’s worth it. Not for nothing is baklava known as a dessert of passion. Meals typically end with the blessing, “Two healths to you,” signifying the importance of plentiful and healthy eating.
“Great cooking, variety and abundance of food, and an insistence on good eating is found throughout the Arab world and in most Arab households,” says another writer who adds that “For Arabs, hospitality lies at the heart of who they are…Hospitality is among the most highly admired of virtues…Whether one’s guests are relatives, friends, neighbors or relative strangers, they are welcomed into the home and to the dinner table with much the same kindness and generosity.”
Indeed, he adds, “The importance of hospitality to guests is something a visitor to an Arab home must understand.” For the guest, nothing is too good, nothing is too bothersome, and nothing is too difficult. Such hospitality is heavily dependent on the necessity that an abundant table should be set at all times.
“The guest is a guest of God,” says the well known Arab proverb, one that roots their understanding of hospitality in their understanding of theology. “God comes to us in the person of a guest,” says another proverb. The model, of course, is Abraham, patriarch to Muslims as he is to Jews and Christians. Abraham, who welcomed the three mysterious strangers who came to him in the desert; Abraham, who practiced what has been called “sacred hospitality.” Abraham, who in welcoming strangers, welcomed God himself.
Of course, the ancient near east world of Abraham and Sarah – and Martha and Mary for that matter – was not much different from the way that part of the world is today. Then, as now, demonstrations of hospitality were hardly a cause for celebration; they were taken for granted.
There were no restaurants in biblical days and, given the climate, terrain and day to day struggle for survival, travel for pleasure was virtually unheard of. You only ventured from your home if you had to. And when you did, you never knew when you would be dependent on someone else for a meal or a place to stay. Hospitable treatment was not the exception; it was the rule.
So, in some ways, what Abraham did when he saw three men standing before him by the Oaks of Mamre – which is now part of present day Israel – was not that unusual. There is no indication that he recognized the presence of the Lord in the three men. The first verse, that of the narrator’s says, “The Lord appeared to Abraham…” but immediately the second verse, offering Abraham’s point of view, says, “(Abraham) looked up and saw three men standing near him.” In fact, biblical interpreters say that it is unclear whether Abraham ever recognizes the presence of God at any point in this story.
What he saw were guests, and to those guests he displayed hospitality that has to be experienced to be believed. In fact, he practically begs them to allow him to wait on them. “If I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.” Moving quickly for an old man – everything he does here he does quickly – he runs to meet his guests; he hastens into the tent to tell Sarah to make the cakes. Having his wife and not the servants perform this task demonstrates Abraham’s over the top hospitality and indicates to us the special nature of his visitors.
The old man then runs to the herd and picks out a calf himself and gave it to the servant, “who hastened to prepare it.” Again we see how these men are treated as honored guests. Back then meat, even for a wealthy man like Abraham, was reserved for special occasions and a calf would feed dozens of people, not just three visitors and an old couple. (Remember what the prodigal son got for his dinner when he finally decided to return home? Everyone, even the servants, enjoyed that fatted calf.) After the feast is served, Abraham, acting more like a waiter than a host, “stood by them under the tree while they ate.”
In Mary and my few ventures to those restaurants which require a second mortgage in order to pay the bill – and they are not Middle Eastern places - I have noticed that I seldom notice the waiters. Good wait staff never hovers; they remain in the background, unobtrusive yet always making sure that glasses are filled and plates are cleared away; always keyed in to the need of the guest. If you have to pour your own wine, as I did on our last expensive dining excursion, something is wrong; a star could be lost, or a tip could be reduced.
Abraham’s haste would take away from his tip; good waiters do not race from place to place. Impeccable service is efficient but never rushed; unobtrusive, the effort never noticed, only the results, kind of like grace.
Abraham, as host and as servant, exhibited a graceful welcome to three strangers and afterwards is promised that “in due season” Sarah will conceive a son, a promise Abraham did not believe when God made it in the previous chapter of Genesis: “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?” And one which Sarah herself will not believe when she overhears it being made again later in this chapter. “Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’”
Now, some argue that Abraham went out of his way to display over the top hospitality because he thought the three men were bringing news of just how God was going to make good on his earlier promise and, like someone trying to close an important deal at the Ritz Carlton Cafe, wanted to make sure the divine emissaries were properly wined and dined.
But I don’t think God works that way; I don’t think grace works that way. God would never go back on his promises because the bread wasn’t warmed or someone had to pour his own wine or even if an old couple questioned the veracity of those promises.
All God requires, it seems to me, is an attitude of hospitality; openness to God’s presence, a welcome to his word. And we exhibit that hospitality in so many ways.
Martha, today, partly emulates Abraham, racing about, making sure the glasses are filled and the plates are taken away; extending hospitality but never receiving grace; never stopping to listen to what Jesus has to say; going so far as to tell her guest what he should do: “Tell her to help me.”
Hospitality, like grace, is a question of balance, knowing when to hover and help, knowing when to linger and listen. Last week, Jesus told a lawyer who knew the words of the Scripture and the Law by heart but did not know its grace in his heart to emulate the Samaritan and serve the needs of the stranger: “Go and do likewise.” Now, Jesus is with a woman who is so busy going and doing that she hasn’t the time to allow the grace of the Word to penetrate her mind.
There is need of only one thing, Jesus told us last week and he tells us today: the Word of God. But in each instance of our lives, we must decide when to hear the word and when to do the word. In each instance of our lives, we need to find a way to be hospitable to God’s holy presence.
Hospitality is not difficult, I think, it just requires a little effort, a little openness to the grace of God which flows through our hearts and minds; a little effort yields an over the top result.
I read of a woman who showed up 45 minutes late for worship at a small Episcopal parish out east; she had the wrong start time. “Not only was a lovely usher still stationed at the open door that late in the service,” she wrote in a diocesan newspaper, when it came time for communion the usher approached her and whispered, “I’m going up now, and you’re welcome to the table. This really touched me,” she went on. “And I thought, ‘If this is what people of this church are like, I am definitely not going to miss sharing communion with them!”
Forty-five minutes late and she’s still escorted to the best table in the house, made welcome and encouraged to take her fill of the bread and wine, shown sacred hospitality, as if she were a traveler showing up in a Middle Eastern household encouraged to take her fill of hummus and falafel. A stranger made welcome to the abundant feast.
I know it’s the case here, and I wish it were true in all of our churches; that all visitors, no matter where they come from, would return to their homes and say that Christian hospitality just has to be experienced to be believed. Perhaps we can make the world a more welcoming, less terrorized place, one guest at a time.