“FROM HOSTILITY TO HOSPITALITY”

Scripture: Mark 14:1-25

INTRODUCTION

As most members of this church are aware, I spend part of my time up at Chautauqua Lake in New York State every summer preparing the preaching and worship calendar for the upcoming year. So last July, in between fishing, playing golf and attending worship services and lectures each morning, mixed together with going to symphony concerts and doing most of my reading every evening, last July I began to envision the sermon series for this Lenten Season focused on the theme “From Here to Eternity: the Stages of Life, Death and Resurrection.”

Of course I had no way of knowing back then what would be happening in the world here and now. But I am enough of a Calvinist and a Presbyterian to believe that I was supposed to preach, led to deliver this sermon today – “From Hostility to Hospitality.” For surely in the midst of the war in Iraq, surrounded by the ongoing crisis of conflict in the Middle East, we as Christians know that God’s will for all of His children on earth is to live together in peace.

That hope and aspiration was confirmed for me this past week as Barbara and I joined many others at the Woodruff Arts Center to celebrate with former president Jimmy Carter and his family in recognition of his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize last October in Oslo, Norway. It was a grand occasion, with glorious music and words of inspiration by Arthur Blank, Doug Daft, Coretta Scott King and Andy Young, leading up to the final message from President Carter himself. As he looked out over the audience, Jimmy Carter said, “This is an ironic night…The Carter Center has done everything we could to find a peaceful resolution to the Iraq crisis, and we were not successful. So we support our troops and pray that the casualties for both our troops and innocent Iraqi civilians will be minimal. We are hoping for a quick resolution.”

By the time we all got home that Wednesday evening, the war had already begun. So our sermon this morning, “From Hostility to Hospitality,” is an appropriate one, as we in the name of Jesus Christ continue to pray for peace and to work toward reconciliation among all of the races, religions and nations on this earth.

The actual title for our sermon comes from a book by the late Henri Nouwen which I read many years ago. It’s called “Reaching Out” and in the middle section, Fr. Nouwen describes how we human beings can move “from hostility to hospitality” in all of our relationships. Listen:

“In our world full of strangers…we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found…Our society seems to be increasingly full of fearful, defensive, aggressive people, anxiously clinging to their property and inclined to look (around) with suspicion, expecting an enemy to suddenly appear, intrude and do harm. Our vocation (as Christians) is to convert the ‘hostis,’ the enemy, into the ‘hospes,’ the guest, and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.” (From “Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life” by Fr. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1975, page 46).

That was Jesus’ vocation, you know, and the 14^th chapter of the gospel of Mark shows us how He did it. Two days before the Passover Feast, Mark says that some of the religious leaders were plotting against Jesus and threatening to do Him in. It’s possible that some of them were there at the home of a man named Simon in Bethany who invited Jesus to dinner.

As they were sitting at the table, a woman took an alabaster jar of precious oil, broke it open and poured the contents over Jesus’ head. A few nay-sayers spoke up with self-righteous indignation, objecting to the waste of this expensive ointment, which they said could have been sold and given to the poor.

Mark tells us that when they reproached her, Jesus confronted them, saying Leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing to me…by anointing my body before burial (Mark 14:1-9 – paraphrase).

You see, Jesus was no stranger to hostility. It hammered away at Him, fueled and fed by anger, resentment, bitterness and sin. And when that happens to us, He knows what we feel and He has shown us how to deal with it.

It begins with confrontation, with caring enough to confront those who have hurt us or someone else, and in the process, are actually hurting themselves. Mark says that as “they reproached the woman, Jesus told them to let her alone.” He knew that what she had done was good, and so he stood up for her as He backed them down.

Confrontation. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, described it as speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). But sometimes it seems that we leave the love out. That’s what happened to Winston Churchill and Lady Astor, former friends who grew to dislike each other so much that they could barely sit in the same room together. One night at a dinner party, she looked at him and said, “If I were your wife, I would poison your tea.” To which he replied, “And if I were your husband, I would drink it.”

That kind of confrontation is negative and destructive, and it’s the exact opposite of speaking the truth in love. To confront someone as Jesus did long ago, we need to let them know that we care enough to get things out into the open so that God can help us move from anger to acceptance, from resentment to resolution, from hostility to hospitality.

At a session meeting one night in another Presbyterian church, the pastor asked one of the elders to lead in prayer. The elder paused for a moment, and then said: “Before I pray, I first need to make a confession. For a long time now, I’ve been angry with someone around this table, and tonight, I have decided to ask his forgiveness.” He stood up and started to walk toward the person he was talking about, who also got up and said, “To be honest, I have felt the same way about you. I’m sorry and I hope this will be a new beginning for both of us.”

With joy in their hearts, they embraced each other, and then all of the elders prayed together. At the end of the meeting, the clerk of session said to the pastor: “What shall I put in the minutes?” And the pastor, with tears in her eyes, replied, “Write down that they loved one another.”

II.

How do we move from hostility to hospitality? First, by caring enough to confront and speaking the truth in love. Second, by loving enough to forgive, so that we can learn to live together in unity. And finally, we’ve got to be committed enough to do at least one thing that will advance the hope of peace.

Jesus Christ, at the Last Supper with His disciples and friends, broke bread and shared the cup with them, saying This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And before they left the room, He looked at them with hope in His eyes and said My peace I leave with you (Mark 14:17-25; John 14:27).

Jesus knew that His physical life on this earth was just about done. So He gave to those whom He loved the most a sacrament, a ritual, to remind them of Him when He was gone. We call it The Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, The Eucharist, and that sacrament binds us together as Christians and sustains us in faith still today. It was and is the gift of Christ’s presence.

But let us always remember and never forget that our Lord left us with another gift, the gift of His peace – and He expects us to share it with the whole world.

Across America today, there are many people, including a lot of Christians, who believe that the war with Iraq, though violent and destructive now, will ultimately lead to the removal of a dictator and to the establishment of a democracy in the future. Our President believes that, together with his cabinet and military leaders who have mounted the offensive.

But there are many others in this country, including a lot of Christians, who do not agree with the attack on Iraq and are deeply concerned about the lack of support from a number of our allies and the backlash we have already seen from demonstrations here and in other nations, especially those who are predominantly Muslim. A member of this church expressed his heartfelt reservations to me about this war three weeks ago after I had preached a sermon about it. We talked for a few minutes and agreed to keep the conversation going in the days ahead.

The truth is, and I am sad to say it, that the United States, which was united following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, is not of one mind about this war. And there are patriotic citizens, including faithful Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and adherents of other religions, who are on different sides of the fence. That is the reality of our democracy, and that embodies the freedom that we treasure and are committed to defend in this country.

CONCLUSION

So what are we to do in the midst of this divisive, difficult, painful, complicated time? Erma Bombeck, rest her soul, decided that she would ask the wives and the mothers of America for their suggestions about how we could end all wars. “The best suggestion,” said Erma Bombeck, “came from Barb in Biloxi whose son graduated from high school and joined the Marine Corps. When he came home on leave, he wasn’t in the house five minutes before he and his younger brother were already at each other. Barb from Biloxi wrote to Erma Bombeck that she grabbed a large wooden spoon out of a drawer in the kitchen, jumped in between them and gave them ‘the look,’ the look that would have gotten her 30 years in prison. They separated, then cooled off and Barb suggested to Erma that the only way to end wars would be to draft experienced mothers, arm them with wooden spoons and ‘the look’ and send them to the front.”

Well, it helps to have a sense of humor in difficult days like these! But the question remains, what are we as Christians to do at this moment in our nation’s history. How can we move from hostility to hospitality?

If we really believe that Jesus Christ has already given us and the whole world His gift of peace, then the time has come to get down on our knees and pray for the safety and security of all soldiers and civilians who are in harm’s way – not just to talk about it, but to do it faithfully and fervently, until this conflict is resolved.

And whatever you and I can do beyond that – to be peacemakers in our homes and faith communities and cities, to send our money to world relief agencies that provide food and shelter and healthcare to the victims of this conflict in the Middle East, and to reach out and join hands with people who are different than ourselves, yet belong to God’s great family on earth – that is what He calls all of us to do, right here, right now in the name of Jesus Christ, whose peace passes all understanding and whose love will never, ever let us go.

It was Edward Everett Hale, former chaplain of the U. S. Senate, who once said:

“I am only one, but still I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something,

And what I can do, I ought to do,

And what I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.

Christian friends and fellow citizens: those words, spoken many years ago, still apply to each and every one of us here today.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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