Text: Hebrews 13:1-6

Since I’ve last been with you, I’ve been in five different hotels.  Some of you travel for a living and experience this all of the time. While I like to travel, I like home too. I’m glad I don’t cross the country and spend more time in hotels than in my own bed.  I feel for those of you who do it every week.

You can tell a lot about a hotel based upon the hospitality.  My first trip was to Greensboro where I was delivering our son Andrew to University of North Carolina - Greensboro. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. It didn’t make me smarter even though that’s what the ads say.   I was greeted well by the night clerk but irritated by two of the guests. I needed to print out a boarding pass for Southwest Airlines; I wanted a high letter because that’s the way you get a good seat.  But the evening I checked in, one of the guests was watching a television show on the lobby computer, hands behind his head, feet on the desk, laughing out loud like he was by himself at home.  He was comfortable in the space but he was oblivious to my needs. I don’t think he even recognized that I was waiting for the computer.

I went to bed with a plan to print out the boarding pass the next morning.  But I had the same experience at breakfast.  A woman was hogging the computer, printing lots of directions and maps.  She must have been planning a cross country trip because she had to ask the desk clerk for more paper.  Again, she was so intent on printing her maps that she was unaware that I was waiting. After 30 minutes I gave up, went back to my room and packed my bag.  As I was leaving, she was gathering up her ream of directions. I printed a boarding pass, a C which meant a middle seat.  The guests made me grumpy even though the room was nice and the clerk congenial. Fellow travelers were the problem.

This was my experience at the next hotel, a fancy Hyatt in La Jolla, California. Last weekend, I spent a couple of days consulting with our church there. A few years ago they had their heart broken and lost ground. But they now have a fine pastor and are growing again.  They wanted outside eyes to look at things and share success stories of our church.  After the first day, the chairman of the board dropped me at a Hyatt.  He couldn’t get near the door because there were four big buses in front of the entrance. Traffic was crazy and the place was a bee hive of people.  He let me off in the middle of the street. As I weaved my way through the buses I realized that the Dallas Cowboys had just been dropped off. They were playing the Chargers.  It was a zoo with football players walking around in a testosterone swagger and autograph seekers pushing helmets and sharpies in their faces.  Nobody noticed or cared about a tired minister wanting to find his room.

I waited in line at the desk to discover there was no reservation.  I didn’t have a room there. I tried every name possible and then finally called the board chair.  There was a pause and then he said a word that I can’t say, followed by, “I dropped you at the wrong hotel.”  I’ll come right back and pick you up.”  I walked out of the lobby and as I did, the doorman asked if I needed a cab.  I said no and then offered, “I’m at the wrong hotel. I’m supposed to be at the Sheraton.”  He said, “Oh it’s just right down the street” and then he added, thumbing toward the crowd, ‘You don’t want to stay here with these people. They’re nuts.”  People affect hospitality.

My host dropped me at the Sheraton where I had another hospitality experience. A clerk was typing on a computer with a young woman standing in front of him. They weren’t talking to each other but I just assumed she was checking in. After about five minutes, another clerk arrives and she assumed the same thing, asking if she can help me. I say yes at which point the young woman exclaims, “I was here first.”  Then she looks at me and says, “Back off.”  “Okay” I said to myself and then thought, “Maybe I don’t want to stay here with these people either. She’s nuts.”

The clerk eventually apologized, upgraded my room and gave me a coupon for half off a dinner.  It was a lovely hotel but my experience of hospitality was colored by an experience with another guest.  That was the theme of the trip. The hotels lived up to their billing but guests were rude and didn’t show hospitality to their fellow travelers. You can have the very best facilities and good staff and still have bad hospitality. Hospitality is formed within community, it depends on people.

There were no Hyatt’s, Sheratons or Holiday Inn Expresses in the first century. There were inns.  You know this because when Jesus is born, “there is no room in the inn.”  I have shared with you in the past when preaching on the birth of Jesus, that even if there was room in the inn, Mary and Joseph might not have stayed there. Urban inns in Bible times were often dangerous places with dishonest innkeepers who charged whatever they could get. Most travelers like Mary and Joseph would seek shelter in cities in katalumas, a spare or upper room in a private house.[1]  Hospitality in the cities depended on people opening their homes to strangers.

There was a network of inns in the ancient near east called caravanserai [2] along what we now call the Silk Road. [3] It gets it name from the lucrative silk trade during the Han Dynasty, 200 years before and after the birth of Jesus.  Along this road were inns, caravanserai, built a day’s walk apart.  They consisted of a quadrangle into which you gained access by a broad, strong gate.  Animals, most often camels, would board on the bottom floor with a number of empty rooms on the second floor.  It was a safe place because of government sponsorship and a commerce tariff to cover the facility and security.  There was a tariff or tax to stay in the caravanserai and as such, they were safe places.  Instant community was formed with strangers. Historians believe that they were important paths for cultural, commercial and technological exchange between traders, merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers, and nomads. In a dialog with fellow travelers, information was shared. Caravanserai were safe places to share your story and grow. . In the city however, people stayed in guest rooms, in the katalumas because they were safer than the inns. 

Imagine the challenge of finding hospitable lodging as a Christian in the latter part of the first century. Two events dramatically threatened the early church and Christian travelers. In 64 AD, a great fire spread through Rome. Some historians believe that Nero set the fire in order create a new urban landscape. However the fire started, Nero blamed the Christians and the first of seven major persecutions of Christians began with the center being in Italy.  Six years later, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem accelerated the spread of Christians through Asia Minor and Southern Europe. Christianity was on the move, a nomad people.  If they didn’t travel by ship, Christians used the caravanserai throughout Asia and into southern Europe and then, upon reaching their destination, sought out other Christians, staying in their guest rooms, their katalumas. But the early Christian community knew that the act of welcoming was inherently a dangerous one. A stranger could be a fellow sojourner or an informer of the Roman Empire. Being hospitable brought with it some risk.

During this frightening time of Nero’s persecution, when the world was filled with fear, anger, and hostility, the author of the book of Hebrews writes, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.”  (Hebrews 13: 2a).   And then, if the image of persecution at the hands of a crazy Emperor wasn’t fresh in their minds,   “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. (Hebrews 13: 3)  We know the author is writing from Italy as he ends his letter, “Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy send you greetings.” (Hebrews 13: 24).

Why do that?  Why open themselves to strangers in a time when a stranger might be an informant and place them and the entire church at risk? The passage suggests that you show hospitality because you might be entertaining angels without knowing it.  How many people think there are angels in worship each weekend?  I can see the announcement now, “People wearing big hats and or sporting wings please sit on the back row.”  The reference isn’t necessarily a literal reference. They didn’t think that every Sunday an angel might show up. Rather it reminds them of their heritage, of Abraham’s experience with strangers, who “looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground.”  (Genesis 18:1-2).  After offering hospitality to these three travelers, he discovers from them that his wife Sarah will give birth to a son.   Later, the visitors are identified as angels, hence the expression, “entertaining angels unaware.” 

The author of Hebrews is saying, “we’ve been welcoming strangers since Abraham” and the Jewish Christians that he was writing too---that’s why the book is called Hebrews—would nod and remember the story. Because they were Jewish Christians, this would also remind them of the many laws about strangers. There are dozens of them in the Old Testament, laws like “You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9) Show hospitality to strangers because you were once a stranger. You’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt. You were a stranger in a strange land.  The Old Testament law even requires an offering, above and beyond a tithe of ten percent “to support the strangers, the orphans, and the widows.  (Exodus 26:12) You think we ask for a lot of things around here but think if we asked for a “stranger offering.” It’s biblical.

It could be that such logic doesn’t really hold up for you. Maybe you’ve not been a stranger in a strange land and you don’t understand that a stranger offering is important. I suspect there were lots of new Christians who weren’t Jewish, who didn’t know the stories and didn’t feel compelled to be hospitable on “Jewish grounds.”  But they still practiced radical hospitality because they had been a stranger in a strange land – it meant something to them. They had been in a strange land, on their own, lost and then God sent Jesus to be a friend. Paul writes about it this way.  “Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens … strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2: 12-13). We were estranged from God. We didn’t know God; we weren’t in relationship with Him. We were wandering, lost, with no way to get home. 

So God sent Jesus to break down the barriers that were between and offer a guest room in God’s home.  So Paul adds: “So Jesus came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; … you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”  (Ephesians 2: 17a, 19)  Because you were once a stranger to God and now are a friend, you welcome strangers, offering them the same hospitality that God has offered you in Jesus Christ.

Christian hospitality isn’t a program or some Martha Stewart exercise in making the place look nice. It’s not a welcome center as important as a welcome center is for first time visitors. It’s not wearing your name tag as absolutely essential as it is to help us learn and remember names. Hospitality isn’t shaking a hand and going back into your worship shell. It is discovering who it is that God has offered into your circle.  Hospitality is welcoming the stranger just as God has welcomed you, engaging those around you in a meaningful way, sharing stories about life and community that create the possibility for growth. Hospitality is a core Christian value which creates a safe place for strangers to become friends, to become part of the body of Christ, whether for one service or for a lifetime together.

People affect hospitality.  You are people. No one is exempt. As is the case of my bad hospitality experience, people affected my experience of hospitality. You can have the best staff and the best facilities and still have bad hospitality if the people in your place are rude or clueless or not interested in anyone but themselves. Sometimes, I think we are pretty good at it; other times, I’m not sure. As my traveling experiences suggest, it doesn’t take much to color your experience.  All it needs is someone to offer to back off. 

At the center of being a Christian is hospitality. Just as God welcomes you home through the love of Jesus Christ, we welcome the stranger into our community.  We are fellow travelers in a strange and dangerous world.  We need a safe place where we can share our story with fellow travelers, not to change them but to be changed by them. Stories shared and heard make the quilt of our community more beautiful. That’s what a safe place can do. 

In a safe place, you can share the hurts and challenges of being human and receive support. In a safe place you can share your dream and find partners in hope.  In a safe place you explore new ideas and different perspectives and grow, change and become part of the wide and diverse family of God.  It is why in Romans, Paul says:  “Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” (Romans 12: 13)  In First Peter, Peter says, ‘’Be hospitable to one another without complaining.”  (1 Peter 4).  They join the books of Hebrews and many challenges through scripture to say, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.” (Hebrews 13:2a)  Hospitality draws from the deepest taproots of ancient community where it was considered an essential virtue for a person of faith.    

So how are you doing with this? Is it one of your virtues?  It’s an important question because you can tell a lot about a congregation based upon its hospitality. You don’t get a pass because you aren’t a people person. You don’t get let off the hook because you just want to worship and not be bothered. You can’t just breeze in here late and bug out early and embrace this virtue.   When was the last time you really felt welcomed? When was the last time you offered true hospitality? Let’s face it, there’s a lot of rude behavior out there. You’ve experienced it, maybe here, certainly out there, like during my recent trip.   

There was one notable exception during those recent trips.  I found myself on an extended layover due to a flight delay, sitting in a bar in Chicago watching the Phillies play the Cardinals.  I sat on the end of a long row of stools with my fellow travels and their carry-on luggage.  I think more stools had luggage on them than people.  A weary looking traveler walked up and looked for a place to sit but all the stools were occupied.  I offered to move over and hold my small carry-on on my lap so that he too could sit down and watch the game. Grateful for the seat, he offered, in a very strange accent, to buy me a drink.  I said, “No, that’s not necessary. I’m just watching the game.”  He looked at me and said, “What are you, some kind of Christian?”  I smiled and said, ‘You got it.  I’m some kind of a Christian”

“Well I’m not,” he said.  I’m a Scottish Bubba, agnostic physicist.” “What’s a Scottish Bubba?”  “I’m from Scotland but live in Austin, Texas, south of the river in Bubbaville. As a physicist, I don’t find any comfort in religion.” “What does a Scottish Bubba physicist do?  I’m an Electronics & Integrated Solutions Engineering Fellow working on Sensor Systems for BAE Systems contracted out to the Department of Defense.”  “Right. What do you really do?”  “I make infrared optics on weapons better.  I am working on the Abrams tank right now.”  But then of course he asks, “What do you do?”  “I’m a minister.”  He looks at me and says, “You’re not some kind of Christian. You’re a pastor. I don’t have any problems with that. In fact, I’ve got a story for you that you can preach.”

He told it to me; it was a good story about his daughter marrying a pastor but not as good as meeting a stranger, a fellow traveler, sharing stories and an hour of life. That’s what preaches. We exchanged business cards. Life will probably never bring us back together. But for one hour, we created a safe place and practiced hospitality. My life is richer for it. Thank you, Allister.

“Do not neglect to show hospitality.” It is a Christian virtue.  In a dangerous world, it makes safe places where stories can be shared and the love of God experienced.  Practice hospitality; it will make your life richer.