Sermon preached by the Reverend Louise Kalemkerian

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

14^th Sunday after Pentecost - September 2, 2007

In the name of our welcoming, embracing, hospitable God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Many years ago, my husband and I and our two daughters, who were little then, were traveling on Interstate 287 in New Jersey. We were running out of gas, and got off at an exit in Morristown. And you can be sure there was more than a little conversation about whose fault it was that the gas tank was so low! When we got off at the exit, we obviously turned the wrong way, because we ran out before we found a gas station. We were stuck, in an area we didn’t know, it was dusk and we didn’t even know in which direction to go to look

Since the car stopped dead in the middle of the road, the girls and I got out of the car and stood by the side of the road. We obviously looked pretty forlorn. The kids were cranky and hungry. Joseph was about to start walking back toward the highway, when a car pulled up and asked what was the problem. This nice young couple then took Joseph to a gas station, and brought him back with a can of gas.

This is not an experience I recall often, but as I was reading today’s lessons, it came back to me. It was a real life experience of people showing hospitality to strangers, one of the admonitions in today’s epistle.

Hospitality is at the heart of the Gospel. Over and over again Jesus reaches out to others in hospitality, in healing, in feeding, in inviting, as a sign of his openness and welcome and love for all persons. Hospitality is something we work on all the time at St. Paul’s. We see hospitality and welcome as a big part of our responsibility as the Body of Christ in this community. Sometimes it challenges and stretches us. It’s easy to be hospitable to people we agree with, people we understand, people who can pay us back. It’s a lot harder to do so with strangers, those who think differently from us. Among other things, hospitality is the way we meet Christ, who came to the world as a stranger, an outsider; the way we encounter God, who always remains a mystery.

The letter to the Hebrews, our lesson today, is a letter to a community under siege, and offers ways to put faith to work in the world. It includes the call to hospitality, invoking the story of Abraham in Genesis, in which strangers were welcomed and fed, only to discover that he and Sarah had entertained angels without realizing. In the Torah the command to welcome the stranger occurs 36 times, more than any other specific command.

The reading from the gospel today, part of Jesus’ teaching as he traveled with his disciples toward Jerusalem and his passion, offers the metaphor of a banquet. It calls for hospitality not only to those with whom we agree, or those who can do something for us in return. Jesus tells us that hospitality is to be extended to those with no way of paying it back. The promise of divine blessing comes to those who offer hospitality without motive or agenda. Can you think of a time when you have done that? Can you think of a time when someone has done that for you? It is so rare. But when it happens, it provides a vision of God’s unconditional love, a glimmer of grace, a gift without thought of what we get back.

How do we practice hospitality as individuals, as a church, and particularly in this divided and divisive moment in our history? Who is the stranger you’ll meet this week, the person with whom you disagree, whom you’ll be called to welcome? Who is God sending into your life to help you grow in this way – in your office, your neighborhood, your pew? Whom do you know who simply needs an attentive ear, who stands in need of the great act of hospitality: the gift of listening?

And so I want to talk to you about an opportunity for hospitality to persons who can never pay us back. About offering hospitality to strangers on the other side of the Atlantic. About extending ourselves to others whom we will probably never meet, but who are nonetheless faces of Jesus.

Every Tuesday evening a group of parishioners gathers for prayer and sharing. Out of that conversation and prayer came a request for help from one of the group members, Elizabeth Roberts, a former school principal in Liberia. Elizabeth asked that we gather and send clothes to children in Liberia.

Elizabeth told how many children, particularly in Buchanan, her hometown, were unable to attend school, because they didn’t have clothes to wear. Elizabeth told how the children had lost parents, parents had lost their homes, and the community broke down., because of two civil wars since 1989. Moved by her story, the Tuesday evening group decided to embrace the project, and from that evening in May we have come to today. Prayer suddenly became action.

Liberia, a country on the west coast of Africa, was founded by former slaves who repatriated from the US in the early 1800s. It is the first country to gain independence in Africa, and its flag and system of government are patterned on our own. The civil wars and devastation have wrought havoc; Elizabeth lost her husband, and was forced to flee her homeland for the United States in 1993.

And this morning I come to you asking for your support for this project. I am asking you for summer weight clothes, new and gently used, for children and adults, which will be collected and sent to Liberia. As you rearrange your closets and put away summer clothes, we ask that you remember the people of Liberia. The wish list for requested items is in today’s bulletin.

And I am also asking you for financial support to help us ship the clothes. The clothes will be collected here at St. Paul’s beginning September 23^rd, and will be shipped out about October 5. They’ll be packed in 55 gallon barrels, picked up by the shipper, and dispatched by container ship to Liberia. It is our plan to ship 10 barrels. They’re expected to arrive in early November, after the end of the rainy season. They’ll be distributed through St. John’s Episcopal Church in Buchanan, Elizabeth’s hometown. A barrel has already been placed in Chittim Howell and more will be in the undercroft, the parish hall beneath the church, to receive your donations. On September 23^rd we’ll have a special presentation at the coffee hour, as well as offer some Liberian treats to savor. And I want to thank you in advance for your generosity.

I want to note that while this project is an outgrowth of the Tuesday evening prayer group, the Outreach Committee shares in our enthusiasm for it. I am pleased to tell you also that a portion of the proceeds of the Cabaret Night in October, will go toward the shipping costs of this project. So please support the Cabaret!

I believe our sharing of ourselves is an extension of our table fellowship, the fellowship of the banquet Jesus raises in today’s Gospel. This metaphor of invitation is especially appropriate for us as a church – as we seek to welcome all people to the table to come as they are to receive the grace found here. Is there any place where we, in our common life, or in our individual lives, draw limits on hospitality, on our willingness to meet the stranger? I think Jesus is asking us that question today.

And I am reminded of the words of the great Spanish saint, Teresa of Avila, who wrote, Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion looks out to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which he is to bless now.

May this become our prayer, today and every day.