We’ve been working on this blog, more or less faithfully, for the better part of a year now. It’s a good discipline for us preachers to be in, and it would be dishonest to say it hasn’t been fun. But it would also be dishonest to say that these posts take only a moment to write.

In the interest of being good and faithful stewards of our service to the congregation, I’m asking you to weigh in on the value of these posts. Not the quality of them (we know they’re uneven, like all of life), but whether it’s at all helpful that they exist. We don’t need affirmation; we need an honest evaluation of the worth of spending time each week in what may or may not be a useful endeavor.

I’d be grateful for your thoughts.

And I’m very grateful for every moment you’ve spent reading.

Brian

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)

Don’t you think you’d know it if you’d “entertained an angel”? You’d think hosting a member of the heavenly host would be somehow obvious.

Then again, if the Bible’s our guide (and when isn’t it?), it’s altogether too likely that we could have an angel to dinner and never have a clue. And that’s probably a good thing.

Sometimes, visits from heavenly beings are good things (think Mary’s good news-bad news-good news message (I’m an angel! You’re pregnant! It’s God’s child!)). More often, they’re terrifying (why do you think angels always say, “Do not be afraid” when they appear?). Sometimes, their presence is a little ambiguous (Jacob wrestled with an angel all night, leaving with a limp–and a blessing). Or they can be pleasant, mellow and unrecognized–unless the messenger decides to make a life-changing promise (think Abraham and Sarah).

How much differently would we act if we knew a guest of ours was an angel? I’m embarrassed to admit the likelihood of my own fawning over an angelic messenger. Who really has the depth of character to be wholly indifferent to a set of bona fide celestial credentials? I don’t know any human that wouldn’t treat an angel differently than an ordinary person.

Do you suppose that’s the point? That the letter to the Hebrews is trying to wake us up to the fact that anyone we meet could be an angel in disguise? And that maybe we should start acting accordingly in our hospitality to strangers–and even to one another?
That’s a tall order, but not an impossible one. This week, at least once a day, I’m going to try to spot an angel in the face of someone I meet. Don’t know how it’ll work out, but I’m curious to see what happens. Care to join me?

Sunday was August 15, the day set aside to honor Mary, Mother of Our Lord in the Lutheran liturgical calendar. We do not venerate Mary nor seek her intercession, but we do honor her faithfulness, her humility, and her openness to God’s will. At First Lutheran, we read not only Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), but the story of the prophetess Deborah (Judges 4 and 5), part of our summer series on prophets.
I have to confess to a little bit of surprise–okay, perverse amusement–at the responses I saw in the pews every time we read the story of Deborah and got to that part in the tale when Jael plays hostess to Sisera, the enemy general (SPOILER ALERT–if you don’t know the story, read it now). The grimaces and head-shaking that occurred as the reader told of the tent peg making its way into the ground by way of Sisera’s skull were pronounced–and unexpected. For a lot of people, it raised anew questions about violence in the Bible.
But what about Mary? Nobody seems overly concerned about the violence to her body (have you ever witnessed a birth?), or the violence done to her soul as she watched the physical violence inflicted on her son. So many of our images of the Madonna show a sweet mother smiling sweetly at a sweet little child–a narrow slice of her life, to be sure. And then there’s that song she sang–God showing the strength of his arm, throwing the mighty from their thrones and sending rich people away hungry and empty? Meekness and mildness didn’t seem to make it into that particular hymn of hers.
I thought of these women–Deborah, Jael and Mary–as I read the most recent issue of the Christian Century, reporting on the National Study of Youth and Religion. That study suggests that our young people are receiving pretty thin gruel at the table of Christian faith. The authors of the study say that our youth are developing a faith they label “MTD”–Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Moralistic because God wants people to do good things, and takes good people to heaven; Therapeutic because the primary goal of life is to be happy and feel good; and Deism because they acknowledge an indistinct god who created everything and generally doesn’t get involved with things unless I need help solving a problem.
This does not sound like the God that Deborah, Jael and Mary knew. And while I don’t think a steady diet of violent Bible stories is a solution (part of what many youth react negatively to in the Church is the sense of violent triumphalism so prevalent in some of its forms), I do think we need to continue to read the whole of the Word, and to be careful about excising those parts that speak with sometimes brutal honesty about the broken world in which we live–a world of blood, sweat and tears; of violence and of compassion, of grief and joy, defeat and victory. Sooner or later, the balm of MTD proves insufficient for the wounds that life inflicts. That’s when the strong medicine of the gospel, and the embrace of a community of people who are only sometimes good, always imperfect but frequently wholly committed to Jesus, can strengthen, heal and replace what the world takes away.
My greatest sadness in reading about MTD is in the realization that, while it might find expression in our youth, it’s being given to them by us in older generations. We’re failing them, each other, and the Gospel we’ve been given. Worse than the shame we must acknowledge and endure is the pain that future generations will know, unnecessarily, if they’re not given the Spirited, liberating, potent Word in all its unfiltered and undiluted purity.
So I say, sing the Madonna’s song of revolution, let the mayhem of Deborah and Jael remind us of what we know but don’t yet understand of God’s presence in our ambiguous human existence, and send MTD to the trash heap of history’s bad ideas.
“. . . the Mighty One has done great things” and will until the end of time.
Read about them, know them, and believe.

This is the unspoken question in Jesus’ story about the man whose neighbor is banging on his door at midnight, begging for some snacks to put out for an unexpected (and late-arriving) guest [Luke 11:1-13 ]. While we can understand the man getting up to give the neighbor something, just so the noisy pest will go away, there was a greater force willing him to give in–the pressure of the neighborhood. It’s not that the other neighbors would have gotten upset at an increasingly noisy display of begging going on (though that may well have been the case)–it’s that someone failing to assist with hospitality would have brought shame to the whole community. “What would the neighbors think?” isn’t just about propriety in this story–it’s about a heavy cultural expectation that hospitality is a priority and a matter of honor, regardless of the time of day (or night!) the guest arrives. And hospitality means not only welcoming a guest, but helping a neighbor extend a welcome. Everyone shares the responsibility for hospitality.
From Jesus’ perspective, the story is an effective tool to teach about God’s expected response to prayer–if a man asleep will respond to a nuisance neighbor in need (and he will–there’s no option not to), how much more will God respond to those who’ve been chosen as God’s own, and in whose prayers God delights?
From our perspective, there’s another lesson here–just as important as the strong encouragement to pray. How are we to extend hospitality? Whose responsibility is it to see that welcome is offered, and that basic needs are met? What would it mean if the pride or shame of our whole community rested on how each of us dealt with the newcomer, the outsider, the stranger?
It’s summer–a time of great transition in our nation and in our communities (faith, civic, educational–all our communities). There are people you don’t know who are or soon will be appearing on your block, in your worship, at your school or place of business. Try on a new framework–go beyond friendliness (if you’ve already reached that level) to true hospitality. Make his/her welcome sincere, full and real. Act as though the pride of the entire community rested upon your interaction with the newcomer, the stranger.
I suspect the response may surprise you–and not only the response of the stranger. Your neighbors, co-workers, fellow worshipers and friends are likely to take notice. Some will be awed; some may be irritated, but I’m betting they’ll all react.
What will that look like where you live?
What will you do to extend hospitality?
What will the newcomer experience in your welcome?
What will the neighbors think?

It might be fun to find out.

“It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.” (Ecclesiastes 4:5) This isn’t a Sunday worship text, but I’m reading through Ecclesiastes in daily devotions, and these words echoed as I thought about last Sunday’s passage from Isaiah, and about all the prophets whose words we’re hearing this summer. I suspect few of their original listeners preferred their wise–and usually challenging, often blistering–words to the songs (soothing, happy words) of the other voices that filled their lives.

As a preacher, I’m certainly aware of the difference between rebuke and “song.” I’m hardly prophetic. But even preaching about the prophets, and raising the same questions they raised about the priorities we set in our lives, makes people uncomfortable. Who wouldn’t rather hear a positive word, or a happy thought, or a congratulatory tribute?  I won’t claim to be wise, but I know enough to recognize when my words are simply a fool’s song, meant to entertain or to please.  And if I recognize it in time (before they’re uttered), I try to back up, pray for a little wisdom, and look for ways to speak the truth–even if it’s a rebuke.  But it’s not easy–or fun.

Ours is a consumer culture.  If we don’t like what we see, hear or otherwise experience, we can always go somewhere else.  It’s a theme in national matters, regional matters, local matters, even within congregations, homes and families.  But Ecclesiastes’ wisdom reminds us not only that words we don’t like are often better for us than words we do; it reminds us of the value of staying connected with those committed enough to be honest with us:  “though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one.  A threefold cord is not quickly broken.”  Unity based on honesty is a strength that can withstand any assault.  Even a fool can recognize the value of community.

I give thanks to God for the possibility of such community being fully realized in the Church.  I pray for the ability to be honest enough, and committed enough, to help make it a reality.  And I pray for the grace to hear–or speak–the harsh honest word, when the misleading song of the fool is so much more alluring.

Gratefully yours–in truth,

Brian