Contact
06/18/23 – Sermon by Chip Roland

SERMON

June 18, 2023
3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7), Matt. 9:35-10:8 (9-23)
Rev. Christopher “Chip” Roland

I grew up in the old First Presbyterian Church in Peoria which has long since merged with Arcadia to become United Presbyterian.  One of the fondest memories of my childhood at Old First was our hanging of the greens.  Before Christmas, the community gathered together to decorate the church, make cookies and just generally have a lot of fun.  After we were finished, we gathered together and one of the adults read us a story.  It was the same story for a number of years, and it made quite an impression on me.  I’m going to tell you about a very truncated version from memory.  I can’t remember who wrote it or where it can be found, I’m probably misremembering it and I give the original author all credit.  Covered my basis?  Good, here we go.

Once in a nondescript town in an uncertain place in an unknown country, there lived an old shoemaker.  His wife had died many years ago and their children had long since moved away, starting their own lives and beginning their own stories.  He was sleeping one night and an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him to not be afraid because that’s the kind of thing you expect an angel to say.  The angel told him to rejoice because it was nearing Christmas and on Christmas Eve the Christ child would visit him.  The man woke up with excitement and began his preparations, as Christmas Eve was only a few days away.  Using all his skill, he fashioned the finest pair of shoes he could for the Christ child.  Reasoning that Christ would surely wish to have a warm set of clothes as well.  December was very cold in this country and, you know, Jesus is from Palestine.  So, the shoemaker went out and bought a fine and warm set of clothes.  Finally, reasoning that the Christ child might be hungry after his long journey to this particular town in this unnamed country he bought a stunning amount of fine food and made a great feast.

Christmas Eve came and as the dusk settled, the shoemaker sat down to wait.  At about six o’clock, there was a knock on his door, and he sprung up to open it.  The shoemaker wasn’t presented with the Christ child but a man shivering in garments too thin for the weather.  He begged the shoemaker for anything warmer, saying, “Sir, if I continue my journey with clothes this thin, I will surely freeze and die.  Having nothing but the clothes he bought for the Christ child and resigned in his heart to only give two rather than three gifts, he gave the traveler the clothes he bought and sent him on his way, warm and safe.

At eight o’clock, there was another knocking on his door and again he rushed to open it.  Again, it was not the Christ child but a family, thin and famished from the road.  “Sir,” the father said.  “We have been traveling for many days with nothing to eat.  If we do not have something soon, we will surely starve before the end of our journey.”  The shoemaker realized that he had incorporated all his remaining food into the Christ child’s feast.  Resigning himself to give but one gift, the shoemaker invited the family in.  At his urging, they consumed their fill and went on their way.

With a single gift left and the night progressing, the shoemaker again sat down to wait.  At ten o’clock, there was another knock on the door, and again the shoemaker rushed and opened the door.  He was confronted with a mother holding her young son.  “Sir,” she said, “My son is without shoes, and I have no money to buy him a pair.”  I hear you are a shoemaker.  Have you a pair you might give to me?  Alas, the only shoes he had to give that could fit the child were the pair he had made for the Christ child.  He almost said no.  Lest you think he was some sort of superhuman, it really was a deep temptation for him to turn this woman and her child away.  But then he thought of a friend of his who ultimately lost a foot to frostbite.  He grabbed the fine pair of shoes and presented it to the mother.

Ten o’clock became midnight and Christmas Eve was over.  Heartbroken the shoemaker went to bed and in his troubled, saddened sleep he again saw the angel.  “You!” the shoemaker shouted, “You told me the Christ child was going to visit me and it didn’t happen and now I have nothing to give him anyway!”  The angel, remaining calm to the shoemaker’s tirade which, frankly, annoyed the shoemaker more responded “The Christ child indeed visited you tonight.  Three times in fact.  For it is written, I was naked, and you clothed me, I was hungry and you fed me.  What you have done to the least of my kin, you have done for me”.  The truth hit the shoemaker like a proverbial piano.  He wept all night wasn’t exactly joy and wasn’t exactly shame for his inability to see the truth that was before him, but it was transformation.  I was the Kingdom of Heaven drawing near.

Abraham probably had no idea God was standing before him beyond maybe an instinctive impulse.  At least at the beginning of this narrative Before I began researching for this sermon if you had asked me what was going on in this narrative I’m sure I would have pointed out Abraham’s impeccable hospitality, but I probably would have assumed that Abraham had some knowledge right of the bat that he was serving YHWH.  After all, we as readers know it.  But the text is clear.  YHWH appeared to Abraham.  Abraham, however, looked up and saw three strangers, three guys standing near him.  When Abraham says lord, what he’s saying is a variant of adon, a Hebrew honorific that is often used as a euphemism for God in the Old Testament in its plural form.  But the easiest to read to me is that Abraham is using it as a title for whoever of the three he deems the leader.  It’s a bit of an irony and tightens the dramatic tension.  Out of meticulous respect for a traveling stranger, Abraham is calling the LORD “lord”.  When the Hebrews refers to God directly, it says YHWH.  This is often distinguished in English translations with lord lower case and LORD all upper case.  Okay, moving on.  Abraham had no reason to expect these travelers could benefit him in any practical way.  From a materialistic perspective, Abraham, surrounded by his people and his worldly wealth, clearly had the advantage.  He treats them as honored guests.  There’s almost a courtly way he manurers around telling them they have no obligation to him.  They can refresh themselves and go on their way without providing labor or service.  These are travelers!  As far as Abraham knows (at this point) they would die of thirst in the wilderness if he hadn’t helped.  No wonder Sarah laughed at the promise to give them a son together.  I mean, wouldn’t you?  It was only in God’s knowledge of Sarah’s laugh that his true nature began to dawn on them.

Abraham’s behavior is in every way the opposite of the brutality of Sodom that God leaves him later in the chapter to punish.  And let’s be clear.  The sin of Sodom was a catastrophic failure of welcome on a mind-numbing scale.  To make it about sexuality does violence to the story and leads to violence against our LGBTQ siblings.   Despite their initial appearance, these travelers were, indeed, God and angelic attendants.  Some of us might be tempted to read the Trinity into it.  But the fact remains, God visited Abraham as a traveler on the road, and Sarah indeed bore a son.

The households that welcomed the disciples of Christ, saw at their doorsteps hungry, poorly provisioned, and poorly financed people.  Could they have anticipated the transformative healing power that they brought with them?  The good and life-changing news about the Kingdom of Heaven.  It’s easy when we read this passage of Matthew to place ourselves in the position of the disciples.  We rightly tend to read the obligations and commands he gave them to be ours as well.  We are all disciples of Jesus after all.  But it occurs the me that we are far more likely to be the spiritual descendants of those who welcomed them in.  There are so many more of them.

So, what can we do with these readings today?  One thing I think of is that we tend to see tales of hospitality as stories of the person showing hospitality themselves, their generosity with their wealth, and their welcome.  These readings turn that assumption on its head.  It is ultimately those who received hospitality that gave the greater gifts.  Perhaps one of the truths of Godly hospitality is a certain humility.  An awareness of the value of the other, the stranger.  If we take seriously that we are all made in the image of God, all who we welcome into our homes come brewing an aspect of that image.

I feel there’s something else percolating in this story of Sarah, Abraham, and God.  When churches consider who they want to attract and who they want to welcome, there’s often a bit of ageism implicit in the mix.  The gold standard for many churches is young families with young kids.  Some churches build the lion’s share of their identity around it.  It’s seen as an investment in the future of the church.  But there are so many ways to provision from the future of the church and older people have a great many gifts to give.  Sarah and Abraham were older people.  It clearly weighed on their hearts that they hadn’t had a child together.  It seemed to impact their relationship.  Sarah implies that at some point they had stopped being intimate together.  But through God and the love for one another, such hope, such new life could be found.  Now, I’m not suggesting you older folks, beloved mothers, and fathers in the faith start literally having kids.  I imagine that’s a relief.  But you give of yourselves so much.  You are valued, loved, and indispensable.

Also, today is Father’s Day.  There is a time, I think, in many fathers’ lives, and mothers of course, where they move from a position of direct authority over their children to a traveler who visits in their children’s lives.  Children of fathers, myself included, tend to assert their independence by claiming they have nothing more to receive from them.  Perhaps for some of us, this is a call to honor our fathers who can no longer ground us but can be welcome advisors, sounding boards, and helpful visitors.

These are some ways we as people and communities can resonate with welcome, knowing that when we welcome the other, the outsider and traveler, we are ultimately welcoming God.

 

 

 

 

© Rev. Christopher ‘Chip’ Roland, 2023, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org | 309.673.8501