Let Mutual Love Continue
A Sermon by The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams on the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 28th, 2022.
“Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
The Letter to the Hebrews is one, small book in the New Testament, but it has had a disportionately large impact on the Christian imagination over the millennia. Some of the most beautiful and enduring images that we have of Jesus come from the Letter to the Hebrews. Hebrews tell us that Christ is the “exact imprint of God’s very being ” and later, that Jesus is “our great high priest who has passed through the heavens”, and still later we are told that we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses,” faithful followers of Christ who have gone before us to show us the way.
And in today’s reading, Hebrews moves from this exalted language to very concrete ways to live out our faith. Our love for God, expressed in worship, necessitates that we also love others. And for the writer of Hebrews, as with other biblical writers, love is an action as much as a feeling. Love is lived out through care and concern for one another, both inside and outside of Christian community. It extends to friends and strangers, people we are intimately connected to, and people we just met.
When Hebrews talks about offering hospitality to strangers, the writer is making reference to a story from the Old Testament when Abraham and Sarah provided food, drink and shelter to three travelers in the desert. And they later discovered that these sojourners were actually angels, messengers from God, sent to Abraham and Sarah to tell them that they were going to become parents in their old age.
This is a wonderful way for us to think about our ministry of hospitality. We are blessed to have visitors come through our doors every Sunday and we are called to receive everyone graciously and recognize that each new person brings unique gifts. Newcomers often comment about the warm welcome they receive here, but what they may not know is that we are as blessed by them as they are by us, and at Saint George’s, we move from “us and them” to “just us” very quickly. One Sunday you are a visitor, the next you are a Saint Georgian.
But sometimes we find it easier to offer consistent kindness to strangers than to those closest to us. It is very hard to “let mutual love continue” in our families, day in and day out.
I remember once, many years ago, in another church, a couple came to me to talk about some of the challenges in their relationship. One partner talked about how the other rarely said “I love you” to the other. The first partner really felt hurt by this and had a deep need to hear those words in order to feel loved. The other partner was shocked to hear this. “Don’t you know how much I love you and the kids? I might not say it, but I show my love by shopping, and cleaning and cooking and doing the laundry.” Both were right.
In any kind of family relationship, whether it’s between spouses or between partners, or between parents and their children or between siblings, we all have to figure out how to offer love in a way that the other can receive it, and we also have to recognize when the other person is trying to express their love, maybe in a way that is different from how we would. Both words and actions are important for mutual love to continue in any relationship.
That’s why our liturgy incorporates both Word and Sacrament. We put what we believe about God into words and we also embody it through symbols and actions. Christians have been doing that in worship since the very beginning. Our awareness of God’s love for us and our love for God is expressed in all kinds of ways during our worship. And our mutual love for each other also gets expressed during the service. We often jokingly refer to the exchange of the peace as half-time, but it’s so much more. When we share a sign of God’s peace with both strangers and friends alike, it is a demonstration of the hospitality that we are called to in Christian community.
Back in the day, during periods of persecution, Christians would exchange the peace knowing that they could be killed by the Roman authorities before they came together for worship again. They looked into each other’s eyes remembering that whether they lived or died, they were bound together forever by their love for Christ. And it reminded them that sacrifice was part of that. When we share in mutual love, we give something of ourselves away for the sake of others.
And the love we express for God and for other people in the nave, spills out into love for our neighbors. Friends and strangers who come to our food pantry at lunchtime on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Meals that are prepared and delivered by our Helping Hands ministry when one of us is sick or has just had a baby. A lot of what we do at Saint George’s is very food-focused, whether it’s the bread and wine of communion, ice cream at coffee hour, feeding our food insecure neighbors or making meals for fellow parishioners. Food is a primary way to show hospitality and experience mutual love. Food binds people together, its universal.
Jesus was a major foodie. He was always eating with people, especially in the Gospel of Luke. People feel connected to each other during meals. Eating together is a very intimate experience. And that is why Jesus did a lot of his teaching while eating with others. It was as much about what he said as the relationships he was developing.
God is with us today at the Altar. God is with us at coffee hour. And God is with us each and every day as we strive to be present to God and to what God is doing through our relationships with other people.
“Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16