“Self Righteous service comes through human effort. It expends immense amounts of energy calculating and scheming how to render the service. Sociological charts and surveys are devised so we can “help those people.” True service comes from a relationship deep inside. We serve out of whispered promptings, divine urgings. Energy is expended but it is not the frantic energy of the flesh.”¹

Hospitality gives service a personality. It is warm and emotional in its connection to the basic human needs. As the disciple learns to understand his or her own dependance on God for basic needs, he and she also learns the beauty of providing for those needs in others. In essence hospitality is extending the borders of the heart, of the family to encompass the neighbor and stranger, the enemy and the friend.

“Our ‘dwelling pace’ may be physical � a room, apartment, or house. It may also be a metaphor for mental and motional ‘space.’ We can invite others into our inner world of thoughts and feelings, sharing gifts of the heart and mind. Gracious inner space gives others room to play, question and converse; room to be heard and understood; room to reveal themselves as they choose.”

I can’t understand the image of Christ as stranger. How could he come to those beloved disciples on the road to Emmaus unrecognized? How could he be naked, poor, imprisoned, and we not see him there? How could he, my dear heart, be the stinking, cursing, drunk and homeless? Could he be my neighbor John who riding is bicycle home from the bar, at two AM, went over the handlebars and broke his nose? Could it have been Jesus I drove home with tears in his eyes and pain in his body? It is hard for me to see Jesus there, not because I don’t think he would stoop so low, but because I love him and don’t want to see blood pour from his nose or tears from his eyes. What would it mean to see my Jesus in all those around me? Is he there in people I know, and who don’t even know him, or just in strangers? Does he visit in the familiar as well as the strange? Perhaps he does, perhaps his incarnation is both in us as his hands and feet and in the fleshly suffering of those around us. Perhaps his paschal mystery continues in all who are hurting, naked and abandoned, just as his advent happens in us as we engage them in service and hospitality.

Seeing our neighbors and strangers as Jesus can be difficult precisely because we cannot see Jesus as coming to us in the form of a sinner.

“What does it take to see to see in every other person a sister or brother? If we cannot truly accept our weaknesses as well as our gifts, we will be unable to love others in their brokenness and giftedness.

“We are speaking again of humility. A humble heart is hospitable. It accepts people as they are - a mix of familiar and unfamiliar, good and bad. Acceptance leaves others free to be themselves in our dwelling place. It does not require them to be like us. Our guest may be friend or total stranger, mentally impaired or emotionally estranged, different in race, faith, social circumstance, or political perspective. Hospitality means giving all guests the freedom to reveal themselves as they choose. A guest should not need to fear personal attack, rejection, or conversion efforts on the part of the host. Freedom is the medium of human exchange in true hospitality.”²

God is the great Host, his hospitality for us is unmatched. There are beautiful days when I am aware of God’s grace pervading my day � those times when he lays out a feast for my soul. I have experience reading books and feeling warmth fill my body, or praying the psalms and weeping at his goodness to me, or walking the fields at my grandparents’ farm knowing he was there ministering to me in the breeze. I am left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude � overwhelming in it’s emotion, humility and a small sadness. Thompson describes it in her travels in Scotland, and in her friend’s trip to Mexico, as they received the hospitality of the locals. “My friend felt a mixture of wonder, gratitude guilt and humility.”³ That is just what I feel when God lavishes his grace on me.

Maslow meets Johari

I have often wondered how to get people to open up, to explore the depths of our relationship together and our relationship with God. Could it be that I haven’t given enough room to those around me? Have I not invited them in to a house of hospitality even when I visit their houses or talk at the restaurant?

What if the way to get people to open up is by opening up yourself. This is what the Johari window describes as self disclosure. We can also provide room by meeting the felt needs, working our way up the Maslow pyramid, giving people room to hunger for more � more us, more God. A time may then come when they will gladly give up those needs to become a deeper disciple and know their true fulfillment comes from God. He has a way of overwhelming Maslow’s pyramid.

1 Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline. HarperCollins, 1978. Pg 128.

2 Thompson, Marjorie J. Soul Fest. Westminster John Knox Press. 1995. Pg134.

3 Thompson Pg126.

Giving to make friends

• Date preached: 23 Oct 2007, Sebewaing

• RCL Proper 20 C

• Text: Luke 16:1-13

• Subject: How should we use deceitful money?

• Complement: We should use the riches of this world to make eternal friends.

• Exegetical Idea: The early church had to be shrewd about their own interests and cunningly do the right.

• Homiletic Idea: As we creatively and cunningly adopt the generosity of the Kingdom, we will win friends.

• Purpose: Hearers will give in the offering in response to the word of God.
  

• Type: Narrative

Songs:

• You are good

• O how I love Jesus 36

• Jesus paid it all

• Be thou my vision

• Holy, Holy, Holy

Prayer

Announcements

Greeting

• I Go to the rock

1. You're Fired

Imagine with me we are in the board room, and Donald Trump is deciding our fates. We've tried our best to out connive, out scheme, and out sell the other team and we've come up short. Soon Trump is going to say “You're fired!” and one of us is done for ever. He's called us in to hear our accounting of how we've done.

One of your team mates leans over and whispers, “Do you ever sit and wonder what Jesus would do if he were on one of these reality shows? Have you thought about how he would play survivor? Or Big Brother? Would he make alliances and back stab people? Would he look out for his own interests?”

That is what you've had to do playing this game. You've had to be shrewd, you've had to be calculating. When you got called into the board room you had to convince Mr. Trump to fire someone else, every week.

Now you're up on the chopping block again.

2. What will I do?

As you sit there you wonder “what am I going to do?” Whose voice are you going to listen to? The money is talking to you.

“You need me! Take as much of me as you can before you go!”

Money is deceitful, it'll lie to you.

“Treasure me!”

“Treasure me! I will take care of you, I will make you happy!”

“Trust me! Treasure me!”

“We can go it alone?”

But then you wouldn't have made it this far in the game if you hadn't known how to look to your interests. Is it in your interest to go it alone? Is it in your interest to have a little money today and tomorrow its gone? You have the rest of your life to think about.

You think about the day you went to the financial planner and asked how much you would need to retire on, and he said, “How long do you plan to live?”

“Forever! I want to live forever!” Isn't that what your heart screamed? What is in your interest if you want to live forever?

Soon it will all be gone, your job, your money your stuff... What do you hate to part with most? What will you do when its all gone?

“I must look to my own interests,” you tell yourself.

3. People welcome me into their homes

I know what I'll do... I need to make it so someone else will hire me. It is in my interest to make friends.

That annoying team mate of yours leans over and whispers to you again. “You know Jesus, I think he would have made lots of alliances. Just look at the way he went around forgiving people. They thought that his Father would only love the people who did everything just right and here comes Jesus giving away his father's love and mercy like it was going out of style. Generosity, now that is a strategy someone should try in these reality shows!”

OK, so maybe you won't win the game, but maybe you can come out ahead anyway. You take sneak Mr. Trump's cell phone off the table and go into the lobby. You start calling all of his business associates.

4. Forgiving interest

“Hello, Mr. Richman? Yes, thats right we spoke earlier... that's right I'm one of Mr Trump's apprentices. Mr. Trump wanted to tell you that we are going to modify the contract on that building you're purchasing... No, Mr. Richman, I convinced him to lower the price to below market value. Yes, I know that means no commission, but you can use the savings to do the good work you have there! You're welcome, talk to you soon, Mr Richman.”

“Hello, Mrs. Goldwater? Yes, you know that money you owe Mr. Trump we spoke about earlier? Yes, go ahead and take the interest of your bill... You're welcome....”

And so on you go down Trump's list of contacts.

You look again at that voice screaming from your pocket... “Keep me!” And you say Hush! It is in my interest to use you... I need to get rid of you for now and that's that. Don't look so down.

5. Bad manager commended by the big boss.

And here is the big surprise. Mr. Trump hears about it and calls you in. Instead of reprimanding you he says, “Good Job! You made me look good and you took care of yourself, way to go kid! You'll go far.”

Now if you can imagine a person on the Apprentice or Big Brother, or Survivor looking to their own interests and doing something right, something smart, how much more could you as the child of light do something even better? Jesus wants you to look to your own interests, to your eternal life and give like there is no tomorrow!

Jesus said, “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light, I tell you, use worldly [deceitful] wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Offering

Puppet song: Loser

Songs

• More precious than
  

Join us for Week of Prayer!

From 1/17 until 1/25 we will have services each day at a different church. Please join us for prayer and bring a lunch to fellowship, too. Check your bulletin for each day's location.

Christmas Program coming up on December 17th!

Don't forget to memorize those lines! We will have a pizza party after the program.