In Mark, Jesus appears to his
disciples as they “sat at table.” Eating again.
In John, the disciples are fishing,
when Jesus appears on the beach, preparing a fire to cook the fish. A picnic!
Just like Jesus.
Small wonder, when the early church
looked for a way to celebrate Christ’s presence among us every time we gather,
they settled on breaking bread and drinking wine. Feasting and God’s victory
over death were connected in the Bible long before Jesus. Isaiah gives us this
vision of the heavenly feast:
On this mountain the Lord of Hosts
will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines…and
God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples…God
will swallow up death forever. (Isaiah 25:6-8)
Resurrection triumph, the death of
death, and the feast that God gives for all people, all belong together. We
anticipate the heavenly feast every time we celebrate the Eucharist. Feasting
with God is the message at the heart of the practice of hospitality. This basic
Christian value, hospitality, was the focus of our Lenten study. We have only
begun to plumb its depths. We will spend the next several months, perhaps the
whole year, exploring the ministry of hospitality.
As a congregation, we’ll examine our
practice. How do we invite people to be part of our community? How do we make
them feel welcome? How do we open our hands and faces and hearts, so that
strangers gradually become friends? How central is the ministry of hospitality
that we practice through Popy’s Café, to the life of our congregation? Should we
work to make it continue after the ELCA grant expires at the end of the year?
Are there other ministries of hospitality that we might like to pursue?
I hope you will pay attention to ways
you practice hospitality in your own life, too. Do you take the risk of
accepting new invitations? Have you enriched an offer of friendship with rich
food and well-aged wines? Or perhaps a shaken iced tea lemonade at Starbucks?
In Christ’s hospitality,
Pastor Pam
