Sermon 05.11.2025: Participating in the Mystery of Grace
When I have offered hospitality, often I thought I was doing something kind for someone else. And I sometimes have tried to figure out how to get out of it, because it is work to welcome people in to your life. But it has almost always ended up being a much bigger gift to me than it might have been to the person I thought I was helping. God uses the people we meet and encounter in our lives to call us deeper into God's mystery of grace.
Scripture
Genesis 18:1-10, Romans 12:1-13
Genesis 18:1-10
The Three Visitors
18 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
3 He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord,[a] do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”
“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”
6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs[b] of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”
7 Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. 8 He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.
9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.
“There, in the tent,” he said.
10 Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him.
Romans 12:1-13
A Living Sacrifice
12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Humble Service in the Body of Christ
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Love in Action
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Sermon
Before we dive into the sermon, I want to remind us about Abraham and Sarah. They are important patriarch and matriarch figures in the Book of Genesis. Their story starts with migration. With his father, they leave Ur of the Chaldeans, today in Southern Iraq, stopping in Haran, which is in modern day Turkey. From there, God sends Abraham to yet another place. In chapter 12, the Lord says to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
There are promises of blessings, and descendants. But those promises require him to become a refugee. To leave the people he knows and loves, to leave the things and places that are familiar, and journey to a different country. We’re told he journeyed in stages toward the negeb, a desert in southern Israel. A journey in stages means it wasn’t a straight shot. He did not have a direct flight from Haran to Canaan. He had to change planes in Atlanta, Chicago, and Denver.
They also end up in Egypt for a time because of famine and other challenges.
So, while we tend to talk about Abraham and the promises of God about having descendants more numerous than the stars, let’s not forget that he was a refugee, a sojourner on the road, journeying in stages, fleeing famine, seeking welcome, and knowing real hardship.
There are people today living out Abraham and Sarah’s story, people journeying by stages to a new land, facing struggles, and famine, seeking welcome. Think of them as we think of Abraham and Sarah.
And maybe the journey is easier because God tells you to make it. But if you read their story, I’m not sure that’s true. And maybe the journey is easier knowing God has made promises for you of descendants, but the descendants aren’t showing up and it must have been frustrating to realize you didn’t ask God what the timeline was, exactly, for this to all happen.
Abraham and Sarah, as our story begins today, have not built the split-level ranch house quite yet, but they are at least somewhat settled by the Oaks of Mamre. They have a tent set up. They have flocks. They have water to drink and flour to make cakes. They have shade in the heat of the day.
And Abraham sees three men, perhaps fellow sojourners. We aren’t told if they look like friendly people, or if they are wearing the right clothes that would indicate they were from the right country, or cheering for the right team, or voting for the right political party.
There are not conditions on welcoming strangers.
God calls us to welcome them. Full stop.
And Abraham does.
I suspect there were stories that didn’t make the Book of Genesis, about when Abraham and Sarah received hospitality. When they were the strangers wandering in the heat of the day, and they came upon a tent by an oasis, with shade from oak trees, and were welcomed in and given food and rest and hospitality.
Abraham goes all out for these strangers. He has Sarah make food. He has a calf slaughtered and cooked. He brings them cheese curds and milk. It was a lot of work, and no small cost, for them to care for these strangers. But the Bible doesn’t record any grumbling about that. Or any concern on Abraham’s part that because they gave this calf to feed strangers, maybe they won’t have enough food for themselves later on.
I know from my own life that my generosity has not caused me harm. I’ve never suffered because I was generous in caring for others. That’s how the abundance of God works. When we live in trust that God will provide, we can share what we have with strangers and know that our needs will also be provided.
God has provided for Abraham and Sarah as they have journeyed by stages. And Abraham and Sarah participate in that by providing for others.
The God who gave each of us life wants us to give life to each other.
And when we try to live our lives as if we don’t need hospitality from others, it gets us off track. When we forget to ask for help, when we forget to accept the gift of an offered meal, and seat under the shade on a hot day, we begin to believe that we are islands to ourselves, that we aren’t dependent on each other to give life to each other as God has cared for us. It can make us think that people who do need help are somehow weak when we think we are strong, or we think they have made mistakes and we are without error. Buying the lie of our own independence leads us to tell false stories of others, as if they are unworthy of our care.
my favorite book of the year, even though I read it in January. I was born again about this book, telling strangers on the bus about it. My husband read it, on my recommendation, and hated it. He said nothing happened in it. He’s not wrong. But when it won the Pulitzer, I felt vindicated.
Only my family can turn reading into a competitive sport?
The book is a fictional journal/memoir of an old pastor dying of heart disease in the fictional town of Gilead, Iowa, writing to his young son, knowing his son will not have many memories of him, and hoping his letters can bridge a gap between them that his upcoming death will create.
The sermon title today comes from a passage in that book, and underscores for me why hospitality is both important and difficult. He writes to his son:
“When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise One of my favorite novels is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. When it came out, I gushed about it. I said it would be than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person.”
I offer his question to us, as we consider meeting strangers, and offering the hospitality God calls us to offer. What is the Lord asking of us in this moment, in this situation?
The Bible has very clear instructions about welcoming the stranger. It is all throughout the Old Testament. Paul mentioned it in our passage from the Book of Romans as a Christian ethic too.
And one reason for it, I think, is because all people need help, not just people we know and like. Not just people who look like us, or vote like us. And even we need help, from time to time.
All people are made in the image of God and God wants all of their children to be okay. As our new pope said, not long before he was elected pope, “Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
And the reason I love that quote from Marilynne Robinson’s book so much is that it is a reminder that the way we behave isn’t supposed to be just commensurate with the way we are treated. It isn’t about whether or not the other person deserves our kindness.
We behave as we do because of who God is and who God calls us to be.
God is the host with the most. We have been welcomed in, not as guests, but as family. We have received grace upon grace, not because we have earned it but because that is who God is.
God came to earth and lived among us, as one of us. And as an infant, Jesus became a refugee, his family having to flee to Egypt because of political threat in their home country. The God who created the universe showed the ultimate form of solidarity with humanity by becoming one of us, and by experiencing the vulnerability of being human. God knows what is at stake when God tells us to welcome the stranger, because God has vulnerably lived it.
Are we willing to be vulnerable in our hospitality? Inhabiting vulnerability is the path into welcoming the stranger.
The poet David Whyte, in his book Consolations, says this about vulnerability:
VULNERABILITY is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without, vulnerability is not a choice, vulnerability is the underlying, ever present and abiding under-current of our natural state. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to be something we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others. More seriously, refusing our vulnerability we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity. The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.
—David Whyte, from his chapter on “Vulnerability” in the book “Consolations”
In the biblical instructions to care for the stranger, God invites us to participate in the grace that has saved us. God invites us to be vulnerable and extend grace to friends and to strangers, not because they have earned it, but because it is who God calls us to be and how God calls us to live.
May we participate in the grace that has saved us. Let us be brave in our welcome of others, as God has welcomed us. Let us be loud in our defense of hospitality. Let us be vulnerable in our welcome, for we may entertain angels without knowing it.
