A sermon delivered by The Rev. Kathy Schmitz on September 2, 2007
At Pathways Church, A Unitarian Universalist Community in Southlake, Texas
From Radical Hospitability by Father Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt
Story before the sermon: Lizard’s Guest by George Shannon
A woman invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to her six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?"
"I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied.
"Just say what you hear Mommy say," the mother answered.
The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"
Oops!
So often we start out with all the right intentions. We want to welcome people into our homes, into our lives, into our communities. But somewhere along the way we lose sight of what we set out to do.
This woman invited someone, her family, her friends, a new neighbor, a fragile co-worker, to the hospitality of her home. Why? Lots of good reasons.
Companionship. Curiosity. Compassion.
But somewhere along the way she lost track of those reasons.
She dropped Companionship in her race through the grocery store.
Curiosity was stowed with the clean supplies once the bathroom was sparkling.
Compassion? I believe that was shoved under the bed in the spare room along with the dog toys, an unshipped package to her brother, and the pile of magazines yet to be recycled. But at least the guests have somewhere to pile their coats.
So often we start out with all the right intentions. We want to welcome people into our homes, into our lives, into our communities. But somewhere along the way we lose sight of what we set out to do.
In the lovely little book, Radical Hospitality, Father Daniel Homan, OSB (A Benedictine Monk), and Lonni Collins Pratt write:
Hospitality has two meanings for most people today. It either refers to hotels or cruise ships, or it is connected to entertaining friends and family in the warmth of candlelight with gleaming silver and ivory lace. (page 10)
Homan and Pratt say that one of these is meant to be profitable and the other warm and cozy. But real hospitality they would claim should be “revolutionary, risky and world-rattling.”
Real hospitality is when we open our hearts to know and to be known.
And this is harder than we sometimes think. For all kinds of reasons.
Homan and Pratt list some of the enemies of hospitality: suspicion, misunderstanding, prejudice, narcissism, fear.
Perhaps some sound familiar to you. Writing in 2002, they pointed out that many of these enemies of hospitality began to rise after the events of September 11th, 2001. And I agree. It can take an act of will not to get caught up in the some of the fear mongering that goes on. But we need that act of will. We need now perhaps, more than in the past, to beware the closing down of our hearts for some false sense that it will protect us.
We are a society in desperate need of hospitality at many levels. This makes it a wonderful thing that radical hospitality is one of the core commitment and on-going goals of this congregation.
But underlying any discussion of hospitality must be the idea that it is something that happens inside us through practice when we keep our hearts and minds open. It is not, much as we would like it to be, something that we decide and that’s the end of it. Sure, sometimes we have a sudden transformative experience. But, more often, it takes time. It takes practice. We plant the seeds but we have to give our hearts time to grow. In our lives and in our communities.
And we have to be open to that growth. It’s something that can happen anytime, anywhere. Even, as our reading this morning demonstrated (From Radical Hospitality the story of Kevin found on pages 217-220), in the check out line.
Homan and Pratt comment on the story (modified slightly for gender inclusion):
Kevin probably gets ignored often, but you know Kevin is used to it. Now that he’s out there at the cash register, every now and then someone will look Kevin in the eye and they will affirm him, they will grin at him, they will listen to Kevin. And that would not happen without that politically correct employment policy.
It is very good for Kevin, but if you have known a few people like him you know that he will be okay anyway. There is an ability to love, understand, forgive, and accept in the Kevins of our world that is beyond understanding.
The ones who otherwise would have avoided Kevin are the ones who are really changed when they first listen, when they first discover they can no longer ignore someone whose only crime is making them uneasy. Listening is the core of hospitality, and while the people we listen to benefit, in the end we are the ones transformed.
Homan and Pratt suggest that hospitality is a spiritual practice. They are not offering “ten easy steps to hospitality.” Contrary to some claims in popular culture, the development of our spirits doesn’t work that way. Here is their description of spiritual practice – speaking from the Roman Catholic tradition.
A spiritual practice is an action intended to make a change or adjustment in the deepest realm of the self. A spiritual practice is a thing we do that opens a door. It might be meditation or prayer. It could be serving the poor. Stripping life of what is unessential and practice simplicity – that is a spiritual practice. The spiritual practice creates a possibility or opportunity, but the change itself is more gift than effort. The spiritual practice puts us into a receiving place where we are open to the something more that we call God. You can set your will to be more open to others, but your heart still has to stretch gradually.
When we are trying to grow our spirits, it is not like balancing our checkbook or learning the capitals of other countries. While these tasks may challenge us at times, if we keep at it we are likely to succeed in a fairly predictable way and in a finite amount of time.
But growing our soul, or our heart, or our relationship with the divine, this is a different matter. It will happen in unpredictable and surprising ways. And not only is it hard to estimate when we will be done, I not sure we can ever be done. There will always be more growth possible.
When I first encountered the book Radical Hospitality, several years ago, I realized that it was not a book to be read in 24-hours like the most recent best-selling page turner. Rather it is a book to be savored. It would be more appropriate as daily meditation manual giving the reader something to reflect on throughout the day.
As I read it, I found I had many thoughts as I went through my week. One nice day, during that time, I decided I would walk rather than drive downtown. The greeting of strangers was very much on my mind as I strolled along and I discovered a little something about myself.
If I am approaching someone on the street, specifically someone I don’t know, I tend to acknowledge them with a nod of the head. No real smile. I had never really thought about this. It was never a decision I made. It just evolved over the years. In general, I found that people responded in kind.
Well, that day, since I had been reading and reflecting on the topic of hospitality, I found my brisk little nod lacking, and so instead, I smiled at each person I passed that. Even the ones I approached from behind (these I usually pretend to ignore completely). Without exception, each and every person I smiled at smiled back at me. None of them even looked distressed – at this bold maneuver – though I can’t be sure what they were thinking. One to two-dozen shared smiles that would have been lost had I not been reflecting on my simple way of greeting strangers. It made me wonder what other habits of mine were in need of review.
One of the fascinating things about hospitality is that it is, in its best form, a two way street. An example of this can be found in the ways that parents instruct children about hospitality, when they explain the rules explicitly to their kids.
One day they say: When you get to Lee’s house, remember to eat what you are given, say please and thank you, don’t take things that aren’t yours. Remember, you’re the guest. Be polite.
Several days later, they say: Now, when Alex is here, remember to ask what she would like to eat, use your manner, and share your toys. Remember, she’s the guest so be polite.
Children, may ask silently, or perhaps out loud: So wait a minute, just who is it that gets to be the boss? The host or the guest? Or is it just NOT ME?
But children learn, like most people do, through experience and gentle guidance that it is always a dance between the host and the guest. Each has responsibilities. Neither gets it all his or her own way. At least not most of the time. And when things get out of balance – that’s when things can get ugly.
As it happens, the word hospitality has the same root as the word hostile. That root means stranger, it means both guest and host. Properly it means, “someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality.” (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.)
The meeting of strangers. Perhaps a host. Perhaps a guest. A moment full of possibility.
What happens next depends, on the condition of their hearts. Will there be hospitality? Will there be hostility?
These are questions of both personal and communal concern. We seek to plant the seeds that will grow our own hearts. We also seek to ensure, in the words of the Breathe Prayer created by the Life with God group, that “Pathways is an open door to light and love in all the world.”
And just as the growth of hospitality in our own heart takes time, takes practice, so too, the growth of hospitality in our communities is more than an act of will. This, too, takes time, and practice, and intention. This is why programs such as Welcoming Congregation can be such a blessing to a community. Welcoming Congregation is a program created in the early 1990’s for Unitarian Universalist congregations that want to be more intentional about their welcome of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender people and their families. It gives us the time, the practice, the intentional opportunity, to truly consider how open our hearts are.
When I began my ministry at All Souls Church 8 years ago, they had already gone through the Welcoming Congregation program. Over the years, again and again, I would hear the people who had participated in the program talk about their transformation. “You know,” they’d say, “I thought I was open-minded. I thought I was welcoming. But I understood so much more through the conversations we had and the relationships that grew out of them.”
By being intentional, we have the opportunity to be more welcoming, to change more lives, and I would argue, at times, to save more lives.
The growing of our hearts, individually or communally, is important work.
Strangers meet. A moment of possibility.
What happens next depends, on the condition of their hearts. Will there be hostility? Will there be hospitality?
The next time you meet a stranger, or the stranger in a loved one, or even in yourself… what will be the condition of your heart? … the next time you meet a stranger …
This morning’s story about Lizard and Skunk (Lizard’s Guest by George Shannon in which Skunk pretends injury to overstay his welcome as the guest of Lizard and Lizard has to come up with a creative solution to his problem.) is an example of a situation in which one of the parties is not holding up his reciprocal duties of hospitality.
Although Skunk and Lizard are friends, Skunk does not seem to mind faking his injury to create guilt (and using his tail to create fear) so that Lizard will care for him. Lizard shows his care and concern for his friend even in the face of some behaviors that could make a reptile pretty angry. He keeps his little cold-blood heart open and finds a creative way to show Skunk, both, that Skunk’s alleged wounds are healed and that he still cares for Skunk as a friend.
I hope that they next time you set out to offer hospitality you will not loose track of your reasons along the way. That a flurry of time constraints and social expectations will not prevent you from remembering the companionship, curiosity, and compassion with which you began.
Next time you are called upon to offer hospitality, to really be present for another person, to offer them what they truly need, what will be the condition of your heart?
I hope it will be stretched and willing to stretch some more.
I hope it will be open. I hope it will be brave.
Guidelines for use: Here are Rev. Kathy's wishes for the material offered here. The main purpose for making these sermons available is for the use of members and friends of Pathways Church and for those interested in Pathways Church. In this capacity, it is expected that they will be read in place by interested individuals. Should they come to the attention of others, with attribution they may be quoted freely, without permission. With attribution they may be used in whole in the context of worship or religious education without advance permission though Rev. Kathy would be interested to know how they are used and by who. She asks that the text not be used in whole in print press or on another web site without advance permission. Thanks!