Caring for our Guests

John 14
6th Sunday of Easter

I told you last week I was going to Washington DC but something came up so I stayed home. So I was able to go to the CHUM assembly on Thursday night. We saw the Habitat play, written and directed by a young woman named Rachel Ann Johnson. It contains interweaving stories and words from several homeless people in Duluth as well as some of the people who serve them.

At one point one of the men said, “They say home is where the heart is. I don’t know.” At the end of the play he says, “Heart is where the home is.”

I’ve been perplexed by that statement, can’t quite figure it out.

David Tryggestaad stood up to give the benediction and spoke for a bit about the scriptures for this Sunday. All of us clergy were thinking about these words of Jesus, “We will come and make a home in them”, those who love Jesus. David said that this word “home” is the same as when Jesus says, in the same speech, that his father’s house has many rooms and Jesus goes to make a room ready for us there. Jesus, the man without a home, says, right before his death, that he would be home in us.

The NT text for today also is about home, in a way. Paul was an itinerant preacher, moving from one community to another to start churches. He went to Philippi to look for people who would work with him and found women at the river, a place where the women would gather to pray. Lydia was not a Jew but worshipped God, and she listened to him and invited him to her home. Thus began the church that received the letter Paul wrote to the Philippians.
We’ve been thinking, here at Hope, about what it means to be home, to welcome others into this community, to be open to our guests. The leadership a few months ago, when we looked at our vision statement, made two important statements about this: we want to grow – which means we want to share what we have with others; and, we will do this by caring for our guests.

We’ve begun doing this in many ways: Igniting Ministry training, advertising, welcome table, new pew pads, applying for a Welcoming Congregation certificate. We’ve begun to recognize that we can’t take it for granted that people feel welcome here, and we are making a clear statement that we want to welcome people here.

There are several reasons to do this: first, we recognize that we have something wonderful to share here.

Secondly, we recognize that we have something to receive from our guests. I asked Rachel Ann how she felt about the play after working all these stories into this piece of art. She said it was her relationship with those she wrote about, and her relationship with the cast and those who saw the play, that was important. She is very young but already she has realized that when we welcome someone, when we open our hearts to them, we receive something.

Thirdly, there is something about welcoming the other that allows us to receive Jesus. Lydia welcomed Paul and received Christ. Jesus talks about being present when a few of us are together. He spoke time and time again about welcoming the stranger, and today’s text says when we love Jesus and follow his words he makes his home with us.
Now you might think this means we just put Jesus in a little cot in the corner, like a homeless man in the shelter. But you know how Jesus is…he will want a table, so he can host dinner parties. He will want room, so people can visit. Someone will cut a hole in the roof, more than likely. Unsavory sorts will find their way in. Jesus will want a party.

The homeless man was right. Heart is where the home is. At least if Jesus is there.

Caring for One Another

John 13:31-35
5th Sunday of Easter, May 6, 2007

A woman described driving into an unfamiliar town on a rainy Saturday morning. “I stopped at a red light and noticed some kind of protest happening on the street corner – a group of people wearing sandwich boards with huge lettering. Some signs said, “Stop Abortion,” while others read, “Pro-choice” – both interspersed with harsher messages. These passionately opposing individuals stood amidst one another, laughing and talking and drinking steaming coffee in the cold rain. Nearby, two people wearing opposing signs embraced.”

Think that is impossible? Haven’t been to many church meetings, have you? Church is an amazing place in that here people can disagree, argue even, and still work together and care about one another.

I heard Diana Butler Bass a few months ago; I’m going to Washington DC to hear her again this week. She writes about thriving neighborhood churches and the kinds of things they are doing that are working. She describes one particular church in Cincinnati, the Redeemer Episcopal congregation: “Reverend Bruce Freeman explained, “We may not look terribly diverse, but we’re a 50/50 church.” Half Republican, half Democrat. He shared this with me in October 2004. I had been in Ohio only a few days, but long enough to know that the airwaves were full of political attack ads…Leading the church through the fractious Ohio election – in the racially divided city of Cincinnati – was not easy. Redeemer decided not to ignore the tensions. They offered a multiweek adult education course on religion and politics. Speakers came to the church to discuss controversial issues from a variety of viewpoints. “It was a real challenge,” Bruce confessed, “but people listened to one another and treated each other with respect. We believe that arguing can be productive, and we are committed to conversation and discussion.”

We lost one of our long-time trustees about ten days ago. Lorna was passionate about her work here at the church – I spoke about it at the memorial service on Wednesday. I’ve heard stories from several people about how they argued with her on trustees and especially on the Building Committee, yet I then heard about how much they cared about her. At church we expect these things go hand in hand.

You see, Jesus told us to love one another. This text takes place immediately after Judas walks out of the room. Immediately. And Jesus says, "Love one another." Jesus didn’t say to think like one another, to dress like one another, to agree with one another. He said, “Love one another.” If we love one another we can handle all the rest.

Church is the place where we can be different and be community. We can be different ages, we can be different classes, we can be different races, we can be from different sides of town. We can even be different political parties. But here we know each other, pray for one another, sing together and work together.

Here college students come and get to know people who are not in college. Donna and Susie are regulars around here and they are graduating this next week. They, and Tom, have been part of the Ripples design team and regulars on Sunday mornings. We have several other college students who make Hope their home while they are here.

About three years ago Hope’s leadership came up with a vision statement: experience a new spirit of hope through worship and caring for all generations. We still think this is an important statement – we minister to all generations: college, the seniors, those at the Pines, the young families at UNS, and the mix of all of us. But recently we revisited the vision statement, and we dropped the word generations because we want to be broader now. We want to say, we care about “All.” So for several weeks now I am going to go over the different parts of our revised vision statement.

So now we’ve added: We want to grow. This may mean growing larger as a congregation and it may mean growing spiritually. And then there are five parts to how we want to grow; I will cover one a week for the next several weeks. The first is: We want to grow by caring for one another. We care for one another through prayer: prayer chain, Sunday mornings, our private prayers, the Covenant groups praying for you. We pray for one another and also for the people in our own lives that we care about, that we ask prayers for. We care by visiting one another in crises, by sending cards, by listening on Sunday mornings and at other church events, by calling. We care over coffee and bars in the fellowship hall after church. A lot happens after church. We care by bringing food to the funeral lunches and by serving the funeral lunches. We care by noticing someone needs helps and trying to find it for them.

We do this not because we are all alike, because we all agree all the time, or even because we like each other. We do this because Jesus asked us to. Because this is what it means to be church. Because this is how we experience the new life Jesus holds out to us:

It is hard to use this text just now, to hear Jesus say he is going away, and know that I am going away soon. I am not Jesus, and you are not my disciples. But as your spiritual leader these last four years I can take a cue from Jesus, and say – I do love you, and you have loved me and taught me much about loving one another. I've watched you go from being two churches to being one, caring about one another, loving one another.

(At this point I got a bit emotional and I can't remember how I ended the sermon at all. Then we had communion, which is really the best way to show how we are connected to one another.)