Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Hebrews 13:1-3, 5-8, 15-16 September 16, 2007

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." So we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

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This last July we had Rev. Dick Ryder scheduled to preach while I was away on vacation. Dick was an interim pastor for this church a few years ago, between the ministries of Archie McRee and Glen Rainsley. He was very much looking forward to being back here in the pulpit and seeing all of you. Unfortunately, at the last minute he was unable to come due to a sudden illness (which, by the way, he is completely over) I've already talked with Dick about getting on the schedule for next year, once he and his wife Susan return north for the summer.

In the process of planning for his leading worship, Dick and Susan invited Pam and I to spend some time at their place near Sebago Lake. One Sunday in August we finally managed to get there. What a beautiful place they have: up on a hillside looking north toward Mount Washington. It was just a quick overnight, but we had the best time. From the moment we stepped out of the car we were warmly welcomed and treated like royalty by these two people we had never met in person. We got the grand tour, terrific meals, lively conversation, and a great night's sleep, and came away knowing we had added a couple of wonderful people to our collection of dear friends.

I share this with you because this is our most recent experience of being treated with great hospitality. It reminded me of how we were wined and dined and cared for when Pam and I first came to Camden and met with the search committee. Of course, being hospitable is clearly in a search committee's best interests. But trust me, I've met with a fair number of these committees over the years, and good hospitality is not universal, even when people are trying to impress you. I'm sure you know that our church is blessed with a wealth of very hospitable people, and that isn't something you can easily fake.

Now obviously, the way we usually think about hospitality (being good hosts and providing a warm welcome) is very much in a church's self interest. When people visit here on Sunday morning, if they find a warm and friendly congregation they are much more likely come back. Do we want to increase the size of our church family? Of course we do. Every church does. Every healthy church anyway. There is a natural attrition we experience due to death and people moving away. If we're don't pay attention to attracting new members, eventually we won't have any. But whenever we become focused on how we go about being hospitable, there is a question we should always keep in mind: "What is our motivation?"

Let me tell you why I ask. While I was serving my first two churches in the Berkshires of northwestern Massachusetts, we embarked on a "church growth" program to bring in some new members. We hadn't been at it for very long though, before I realized that it wasn't going to go anywhere. In the first place, in the small mountain communities of Heath and Rowe, there simply weren't a lot of people around to attract. Those who wanted to be church members already were. But more importantly, I could never seem to get the people in the church past the idea that the whole point of growing was to have more money for our budget and more bodies for our committees. I don't fault them for it. They were just trying to provide for the future of the churches they loved. But the self interest of our growth program was so obvious it would have turned visitors to the church off in a heartbeat, if we'd actually had any visitors that is. I found myself thinking, Why don't we just hang a big banner on our wall that proclaims, "All are welcome - to help us pay our bills."

Now here in Camden, we're not in a budget crisis, for the moment, so we're not operating out of the same kind of institutional anxiety as the folks were in Heath and Rowe. But we still need to think about motivation. Clearly, we both want and need to be a welcoming church community. But where hospitality is concerned, it is not enough to know what to do. We need to know why we do what we do.

The way we usually think about hospitality is mostly in line with what's called "the hospitality industry." Restaurants, hotels, spas and cruise lines all compete with one another to offer the most appealing hospitality they can as a way of attracting the most paying customers. As the Motel 6 chain used to say, "We'll leave the lights on for you." That sounds like a hospitable thing to say doesn't it. But at the end of the day, you do realize that it is your money that pays for the lights they leave burning all night. They have a product to offer, and the more attractive they make their product the more likely we are to want to buy it. In business, that makes perfect sense, and there's certainly nothing wrong with business. The question is, do we really want to think of the church that way?

In "Christianity For the Rest of Us," the author talks about churches that have adopted this kind of business model for their growth strategies. "Occasionally," she writes, "I have attended churches with 'hospitality programs' or 'welcome committees' where friendliness seems little more than a phony act to get newcomers to join the church…. In some churches 'hospitality' appears to be a code word for promotion, with the church as the primary product. Hospitality is an instrument used for another end: to sign people up as pledging members."

As I've said, this is certainly one way to think about hospitality. But it is not the only way. Jesus, you'll recall, invites us to treat everyone in the world like a neighbor. He tells the story of "The Good Samaritan," who found a man beaten and lying in the road and went out of his way to care for him without receiving anything in return; apart, I suppose, from the satisfaction of having done it. When we think about hospitality in the church, we truly are in the realm of a higher calling. We're encouraged to see Jesus in everyone we serve. I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty, naked, sick or in prison and you cared for me. When did all this happen? Whenever you did it to one of the least of these, you did it unto Jesus.

Hospitality, in the Christian sense, is service to others for the sake of others and for the sake of God, not so much for ourselves. It is disinterested, in the sense that it makes no distinctions between those who are worthy and those who aren't, those who dress appropriately and those who don't bother to shave. Hospitality is an extravagant welcome extended to all, without stopping to consider whether they are the right color, the right social class, the right nationality or the right sexual orientation. Hospitality operates out of a love for all those whom God loves simply because it is our calling, and not because we stand to benefit. Even though, in the end, we do benefit. We can't help it. If we simply go about the business of actually being the loving and caring Christian community we are called to be, there will be those who want to be a part of what we're doing. It is inevitable.

However, there's one caveat here. The hospitality we're talking about is not simply a matter of being nice to people who wander in here on Sunday morning. I certainly hope we are. I hope we will all go out of our way to make visitors feel welcome. But as hospitality goes, that's sort of passive isn't it; we wait here in our beautiful church building and hope people will come to us so we can make them feel welcome. There's nothing wrong with that. It's very important. But is it enough? To me, if we start thinking about hospitality as a calling, as part of our vital mission, it seems to require a more active approach.

Vital hospitality happens when a church community actively seeks out people to be hospitable to. And I'm not talking about going out on the streets of Camden and evangelizing. I don't think this is about who is saved and who isn't. Personally, I think that's God's problem. Our problem, our calling, our mission, is to look at the world with eyes of compassion, so that we might discover where we can be of service and then go do it. Our hospitality can not be truly vital so long as it remains within the walls of our church.

And we know this. We have been very generous over the years with our time and money in setting up programs that address the needs out in the world. Our Board of Outreach supports all kinds of local and worldwide programs. We have the SOS room, Heavenly Threads and the Shields Mission. We were instrumental in starting the food pantry, 63 Washington and the Community School. We've been involved in Serrv for years. Our youth groups regularly go on mission trips out in the world. Recently we've begun knitting prayer shawls and providing soup lunches. And the list goes on. Truly, this is a congregation that can be justly proud of the many ways we care for the needs of others.

But let me push you on this just a little. If vital hospitality is a matter of being actively and directly involved in ministries of caring, I'd ask you to think about just how vital your own hospitality is. I'm not presuming anything here. I know full well that many of you spend considerable time giving and volunteering in various ways. And I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty. There have to be some reasonable limits on how we spend our time so we don't burn ourselves out. Even so, we all know how easy it is to allow our established programs to do our caring for us. We all know how easy it is to make contributions in ways that keep the real needs of the people at arms length.

Let me give you an example that's been on my mind lately. How do you feel about the young people that hang out in the park? I know a little bit about some of these folks, mostly because my son James has spent a good bit of time with them. We've had a few show up at our house for parties and occasionally found them sleeping on our couches or on the floor when we've come down for breakfast. Last April we came home from Italy to discover that one of them had stolen some things from us. But I don't want to stereotype anyone because those people we've met are quite individual. Mostly they're just hanging out with friends and passing the time in various harmless ways. But some are homeless, some have problems with addiction, some have been in trouble with the police, there have been at least two or three deaths from suicide or overdose among this group in the time since I arrived here. I've had a desire to do something for them ever since I came to Camden, but I don't know what. This is not an easy crowd. They don't respond well to "do-gooders." According to James, among this circle of people, there is virtually no respect for the church at all. Which means that for the most part, this is a group of people that it's easy to turn a blind eye to. Why should we try to help those who hold us in disdain?

And yet, I can't help feeling that it is with people like this that the rubber of vital hospitality really meets the road. I'm sure we would try to be friendly to them if they ever did come to church, but would we go out of our way, out of our building, in order to be hospitable? It's easy to be friendly and caring to people who are like us; those who appreciate our efforts, those who make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Easier anyway. But if we are truly to measure how vital our hospitality is, we will always have to consider how self interested it is, and how much it costs us personally, not just financially.

As Christian people, we have already been given our marching orders. "Do not neglect to show hospitality," we are told. "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." In as much as you have done it to the "least of these," you have done it unto Christ. It is not for me to judge the depth or quality of anyone's caring apart from my own. But this morning, I do want to leave you with a couple of questions to think about. How vital is your own hospitality? And, beyond simply attracting new members, how vital is the hospitality of our church? Think about it.

Amen