As they got into my car I noticed my landlady suspiciously observing the scene around the side of her house. So I made the short journey to the rail station and gave the couple $5 (this was over 35 years ago) and then returned home feeling I had done the right thing by them. However no sooner had I parked the car outside my door than my landlady was round the corner like a flash. “Father,” she said, “you didn’t give them anything? They were up to no good.” Piously I replied, “Yes I did in fact and drove them to the rail station. Miss Ellice, the Bible does say “to show hospitality to strangers for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” To which she replied, “Angels, my foot, those two were Ananias and Sapphira” (that dishonest couple mentioned in Acts who met a sticky end.)

Well whoever they were my quote is the most famous line in the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Let mutual love continue” says the unknown writer and then proceeds to define love in a practical, down to earth way. In fact apart from the more familiar 1 Corinthians 13: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal;” (you know the quote: it is often entitled Paul’s “hymn to love:” it is hugely popular at weddings and sometimes at funerals.) the Hebrews passage is in fact the only other definition of love in the New Testament. And it is in fact a far more practical definition. Show hospitality; remember those in prison and those undergoing torture; honor marriage; keep yourself free of the love of money; remember your spiritual leaders; considering their way of life and imitating their faith.” And to emphasize the source and ultimate nature of love the writer concludes, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Of that Hebrews definition the hospitality bit is the most remembered. Of course it is an allusion to the incident in Genesis where Abram and Sarai entertained the three strangers who gave them the good tidings of future descendants and prosperity. The icon of that incident known as the Hospitality of Abraham became for the Eastern Church the icon of the Holy Trinity. Many of us are familiar with the version of that icon which was the work of the great Russian artist Rublev.

Hospitality, as an example of how to love, is one with which we are most comfortable. Whoever we are, and whatever our circumstances, we do know about the importance of providing food and drink to friends and strangers whether as hosts or guests. It is nice to entertain and nice to be entertained. It is one thing Episcopalians are pretty good at, whether it be coffee hour after church, or at mixing martinis as in those endless jokes about us. “How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to call the electrician and one to mix the martinis.”

But as pleasant and as uncomplicated as hospitality may seem, today’s gospel pulls us up with a halt. Jesus appears to be the “guest from hell.” No sooner does he sit down than he is lecturing his hosts. But as ever there is more to it than that. I am always on about contexts but they are so important in the gospels. These short excerpts we hear Sunday by Sunday need to be looked at in the whole text. Jesus is certainly talking about hospitality. In fact most of chapter 14 of which we heard two of the four incidents in the whole passage takes place at the dinner table. But do you remember the conclusion of last Sunday’s gospel from chapter 13? “Then many will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.” It is this kingdom eating, this kingdom hospitality, which is the background to the meal Jesus takes with some Pharisees.

It is worth noting that he was the guest of a leading Pharisee. It is too easy to view the Pharisees as a solely negative force. Not so. While some were, others like the leader who is today’s host, wanted to engage with Jesus. At the table Jesus tells two parables: one about the seating and the other about issuing invitations. These two parables are followed in the text by the Parable of the Great Banquet. The first parable about where you sit is writ large in the mind of most Episcopal congregations. We are great at sitting at the back where we cannot see or hear so well! Or may be in this church away from the clouds of incense. But Jesus concludes it with the radical statement: “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” It is in the same vein as last Sunday’s “some last who will be first and some are first who will be last.” This is radical kingdom stuff. No matter what seems appropriate, right, just and deserved in human terms is turned on its head in God’s perspective, in terms of his Coming Kingdom.

It is the next parable that makes we the hearers even more uncomfortable because it threatens our comfortable notions of hospitality that is entertaining those we know and like or to whom we are related or who are what a friend of mine calls, “people like us.”

Imagine how the poor Pharisee host felt? Of course we like entertaining these people. They are not too demanding; they will most likely invite us to dine with them; we will gain some benefit from the occasion. There is nothing wrong with that. But that is not Jesus’ point. What Jesus says is that “kingdom hospitality” entails much more. “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Jesus’ choice of guests is significant because all were classified as “unclean” by Jewish law.

As Jesus challenged his Pharisee host and his friends, so he challenges us today. As Christians we talk a good deal about loving our neighbor and showing hospitality. We know they are important, indeed essential elements of the Christian life. But before we become too self-satisfied today’s gospel stretches our comfortable definitions of hospitality and showing love to encompass the kingdom dimension.

Which brings us to where we are today celebrating this eucharistic meal together. As I have said before each time we gather at God’s table on earth, this altar, we are being reminded of God’s hospitality to his faithful people of the Old and New Covenants, from Abraham, Moses and Elijah to Jesus’ feedings of the multitudes to the Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. So there is a pastness to our eucharistic remembrance. But there is a present reality as well for we receive real food and real drink which is for us the Body and Blood of Christ. But if there is past and present reference in the eucharist there is also a future one for it is the foretaste of the very heavenly banquet to which I referred earlier. We receive a foretaste of the life that is to come when we with all God’s faithful will eat and drink together at God’s heavenly dinner table. But at the same time what we experience here at this altar is a model for all our hospitality, at the coffee hour table and at the tables in our homes or wherever we offer hospitality.

So as we show hospitality to others may the possibility of entertaining angels encourage us and the kingdom significance of what we do fill us awe and wonder and hope. Amen

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