Serving Food to Strangers (Lent 2, March 5)

Readings Genesis 18:1-8, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Matthew 14:13-21, Luke 24:13-16, 28-31 

We have heard four scenes in which food is served to strangers.
 
Scene 1. Abraham serves the travelling strangers (who turn out to be God and angels).
In the context in which all these stories are composed, hospitality is regularly a life-or-death matter. If you (and your party) are travelling, if you are in one of the many in-between places between departure and destination, your life depends on the kindness of strangers to show you hospitality, to offer water and food, to offer shelter and protection. It is not simply politeness, it is the offering of life. Abraham sees three travellers approaching and goes to meet them, insisting they stay – through this he serves God and angels.
 
Scene 2. The widow from Zarephath serves Elijah (who turns out to be a prophet of God). Amidst a prolonged drought, God sends Elijah out of the lands of Israel. Upon arriving at Zarephath he asks for some water, which the woman is ready enough to provide, but then he asks too for some bread. The woman now faces the conundrum – to offer bread to a stranger is to offer life, and yet, she has no life to offer… indeed, as she says, what she has left will be her and her son’s last meal. Death hovers over her house, what hospitality could she offer. Elijah, a stranger, says to her, from that last morsel, God will make enough food to outlast this drought. Elijah prophesies: if you offer life to the stranger at your gate, it will bring life to your home. Hospitality will keep death at bay, if she is willing to trust that this stranger at her door is indeed an emissary of a foreign God.
 
Scene 3. Jesus serves the hungry crowds (who turn out to be us whenever we take communion). Jesus has withdrawn to a deserted place in grief. The death of John the Baptist casts a shadow over the scene. And yet, the crowds follow Jesus, drawing near to the light and life of the world. In doing so they become a people in need of hospitality. The disciples are right, there is nothing for them to eat in this in-between place. They must be sent away in order to procure what they need to live. And yet, Jesus reminds them, we do not live on bread alone, what is needed to live is there amongst them. Jesus asks the disciples to share what they have. The disciples have to trust, that by handing over what little they have to Jesus, they will not become empty, that by sharing what little they have, this hospitality will bring life. And so they do, and it does. Some 10,000 people, maybe more, are fed.
 
Scene 4. The men walking to Emmaus serve a stranger travelling with them (who turns out to be Jesus). The scene is cast in the shadow of Christ’s own death. The men, in fear and grief, are withdrawing from Jerusalem. Along the way they meet a stranger, with whom they share their loss and discuss the scriptures. As they arrive at their home, they – without prompt – offer the traveller hospitality, inviting him into their homes for a meal and shelter for the evening. At their table, the stranger breaks the bread and blesses it – and in that moment they realise they have invited Jesus into their home. In offering life to a travelling stranger they encounter Christ alive and present with them. Their hospitality leads them out from under the shadow of his death and back into the life of the people of God.
 
I wonder if you are captivated or struck by any of these particular scenes?
Or notice strange connections, parallels and paradoxes running between them?
Do any of these scenes remind you of a time you received or offered hospitality? A time when you felt nourished and sustained by Christ, or found yourself being led into life through the offering of hospitality to another?
 
For as these stories teach us, we are both the ones who are served by God (in word and worship, in scripture and sacrament, in daily bread and kingdom banquets), and we are the ones who serve God (for as you did to the least of these you did unto Christ, or as the writer of Hebrews reminds the congregation: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it).
 
Last week we entered Lent with an invitation drawn from Revelation:
The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
 
Today we see that this invitation is not just some heavenly symbol awaiting us in the age to come, it also reminds us of the hospitality we have already received from God (at this table and in so many other ways). Further, this invitation is also a reminder that the hospitality we have received, that the daily bread we have been gifted, is given so that we might give. We are called to be a hospitable people. A people who love the stranger, care for the foreigner, who provide for the crowds, who open hearts and homes to those in need. By this we find ourselves in the surprising presence of the divine, by this we welcome Christ, by this life comes to our homes and heart. The offering of hospitality is not a line that proceeds from us and leaves us with less than before. Rather it is a circle, by which the love of Christ flows through us, to others, and returns to us as the very presence of God.
 
So to build on our Lenten invitation:
The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
 
And let we who have freely received, freely give.
Let we who have taken the water of life as a gift, share that life with others
Let us give drink to the thirsty,
Clothes to the naked
Food to the hungry,
Shelter to the lonely
Welcome to the stranger
For in this we receive the life abundant!

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IMage: Abraham and Three Angels. Marc Chagall 1966. Musée national Message Biblique Marc Chagall, Nice, France.