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When I hear people highlight the Bible as THE place to find life’s rule book, that it is God’s owner’s manual for the human race, I wonder a couple of things. I wonder whether they have really grasped the mixed bag of stories and horrendous family values within its pages; and I wonder how any of us can avoid picking and choosing the texts we consider “God’s word.” For surely, people don’t expect God to condone Lot’s offering his daughters to be raped rather than his guests.

I landed on today’s reading because I want to accent a conversation several people have been having here for a long time. We have recently revised our Safe Church Policy. A Safe Church policy is UCC language for having clear rules and procedures concerning sexual misconduct and its prevention. As a Christian faith community we are committed to creating and maintaining a welcoming and safe environment. A Safe Church Policy helps us do that. Thank you, Personnel Committee!

All creatures need places of safety. Places where we can let our guard down, where we can be vulnerable, share our feelings, where we can trust and be trusted. Positive nurturing requires places like this. Hopefully it can be our home, too often it is not. Hopefully it can be among certain friends, often it is not. Hopefully it can be our church, sometimes, it is not.

There is a theological word for creating safe space for God’s people – hospitality. Henri Nouwen describes it best I think. He writes, “Hospitality … means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.”

Let this sink in. Hospitality … means the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Isn’t that a wonderful summary of how Jesus understood his ministry?

The Sisters of St. Joseph gave me a wonderful nugget of wisdom long ago. Perfection is a word that is prevalent in old writings describing being close to God. It was a problematic word more than a helpful one for most of us. Then someone cast it this way – Perfection is hospitality. Living our lives extending hospitality to our dear neighbor was how we understood being closer to God.

Nouwen reminds us that hospitality in the Bible reflects the conditions in the biblical world where motels and hotels were not available. (and what are those businesses called today? The hospitality industry!) Through the Bible, God’s people are taught to welcome the widow, the stranger, the foreigner, and orphan. Acknowledging their own history, the Israelites were supposed to identify and have compassion for the migrant, immigrant, and alien. Experiencing hospitality was a matter of life and death.

Hospitality consists of a space and atmosphere where there is safe physical, emotional and spiritual freedom. In this space a stranger is treated like a guest or potential friend. The guest is protected from harm. The host provides the best gifts possible (not always material things) and the guest may choose to reciprocate. The host understands that there is a relationship of being both guest and host, similar to being student and teacher simultaneously. The guest, the stranger, has gifts to offer the host. The host receives as well as gives.

Think about this in terms of our being a welcoming church. What do visitors experience when they enter our building on a Sunday or Saturday and all the days in between? How do we welcome new committee members or rarely seen teenagers to youth groups? What are the messages and what is our culture? What makes CCC a safe place? What attitudes and behaviors are okay and what are not okay? How do we welcome the visitor that is outside our comfort zones? Are outsiders received differently than visitors? Now think beyond this building. What kind of space do we create at the Retreat House, on a choir tour, or at a Potomac Association event? Being the church is all about hospitality.

Extending hospitality does not mean being a doormat. There are important boundaries to establish and respect. Giving hospitality is one thing. Flinging wide the doors to intruders is another.  “One of the first lessons in the art of hospitality,” says one writer, “must be in how to say a courteous but firm No, being clear about boundaries while not giving offense.” Our Safe Church Policy outlines no and yes.

 “Be clear about your purposes or others will use you for their purposes,” was advice given to a contemplative retreat house organizer. “Good fences make good neighbors.” Yes, but – what kind of fences? Twelve foot walls with barbed wire on top? Railings that passer-bys can peek through? It’s a dance, taking risks and taking care.

“In order to extend hospitality, one must feel at home in his or her own house.” Isn’t this an insightful statement? I’m not clear if the writer was saying both but I certainly hear two things. In order for us to offer genuine hospitality, we must feel at home in our house. House being the physical space into which we are inviting strangers and house being the person we are. If I know who I am, I am more able to be open to who you are.

Luke writes that Jesus appointed seventy people to go out in pairs into towns ahead of him. Jesus concludes his charge with the following: But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this, the kingdom of God has come near. I tell you, on that day it will more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.” (Luke 10:10-12)

The sin of Sodom was the sin of inhospitality. Solid Biblical scholarship points to this conclusion.  The concept of homosexuality as we understand sexual orientation is not a part of this story or anywhere in the Bible. The story does relate, in part, to the desire for a sexual act with someone of the same gender. The men of Sodom desired to humiliate the strangers by sexually abusing them. Gang rape is a horrific affront to the practice and expectation of offering a safe place for the stranger and visitor. People can be cruel. God wasn’t pleased then and God is not pleased now.

There are texts of terror in our Bible. The image of this night, this mob, the daughters being offered as substitutes. I don’t understand why this familiar tale is not equally known for Lot’s behavior toward his daughters as well as for the violent men of Sodom. I do have a hunch and it disturbs me. Sexism. Ah, that is for another day.

All creatures need places of safety. Places where we can let our guard down, where we can be vulnerable, share our feelings, where we can trust and be trusted. Positive nurturing requires places like this. Hopefully it can be our home, too often it is not. Hopefully it can be among certain friends, often it is not. Hopefully it can be our church, sometimes, it is not.

Here at CCC we honor and celebrate people of all races, cultures, ages, abilities, sexual orientations and gender identity. We want to be a safe community where everyone is treated with respect. We treasure being trusted with the lives of children, youth and adults. We covenant to be trust worthy.

Here we long to teach and learn about this man called Jesus, Christ the King. Today is Reign of Christ Sunday. Today, numerous Christian churches are celebrating and pondering what it means that this king of the Jews lived, died, and was brought to life again. What wondrous love has God to share so much with us.

Let us follow in the footsteps of Jesus, creating spaces where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.

Amen.

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