Philoxenia (Heb 13:1-8, 15-16)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on August 28, 2016, Proper 17)

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How to Bless Strangers,

Or, Lessons Learned from Little Children

A lot can happen in four years. When I returned from England last July, after having studied there for four years, I encountered much that had changed. The regretful disappearance of old restaurants, like Don Pedro III, and the introduction of other tasty eateries, like Deep Run Road House and a plethora of donut shops. And now there’s online ordering for places like Panera and Five Guys. But these changes were small potatoes compared to what greeted me when I met up with old friends. While I had been busy reading books in England, they had been “busy” too. They now carried on their backs or in their arms little strangers: little human beings with chubby cheeks and wispy hair, who gurgled and cried and stared wide-eyed at the world around them.

What fascinated me most about these little strangers was how they received me. I expected that they would eye me suspiciously or, even worse, that they would cry. But their most common response was in fact the opposite. These little strangers, to whom I was a stranger, would gaze on me openly with curiosity. They would smile when I smiled. They would laugh when I laughed. Sometimes they would pick up the nearest object—a set of keys or a scrap of paper—and present it to me as a gift of untold value. They made me feel blessed. Although I was a stranger, in their eyes I was someone special. It was almost as though it was because I was a stranger that I was special.

When Jesus said that the kingdom of God belongs to the little children, I think he must have been speaking, at least in part, about moments like these.

Painting a Kingdom Picture

Prior to today’s passage, the writer of Hebrews has been talking about the kingdom of God. He has been encouraging a persecuted community to persevere in their faith, to trust that God was working through them even if they could not see any results. He has been preaching an unseen kingdom, a kingdom that lives in hopes and dreams, a kingdom that is desperate to find expression in our bodies and our cities and our world.

Today, as he draws his letter to a close, he gets practical. He paints his audience a picture of what the kingdom looks like, reminding people how Jesus lived and inviting them to live likewise. For as he says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8).

Philadelphia and Philoxenia

The entirety of this kingdom picture is sketched out in the first two verses. In the first verse, the writer urges us, “Let mutual love continue” (13:1). Actually, he says, “Let philadelphia continue.” You know how Philadelphia is called “the city of brotherly love”? That’s because the word philadelphia literally means “the love of brothers.”

It’s safe to say that philadelphia, brotherly love, is what comes natural to the world. Jesus himself observes that greeting your brothers and your sisters and loving those who love you is nothing special. Everyone does that (cf. Matt 5:46-47).

It’s in the next verse, then, that we begin to see the topsy-turvy features of the kingdom of God. Our translation reads, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” (13:2). My suspicion is that we read this the way we want to read it, as though “hospitality to strangers” refers to the stuff we already do, like giving directions to someone who’s lost or extending a hand of welcome to the visitor sitting beside us in the pew. But in fact, the writer is urging much more than a safe show of welcome. He’s insisting on much more than the social graces of “southern hospitality,” more than iced tea and a sprig of mint, even more than lending a room to a friend in need.

In the original Greek, this verse actually says, “Do not forget philoxenia.” Philoxenia. That’s the same –xenia as the xeno- in xenophobia. In other words, philoxenia is the opposite of xenophobia. One means the fear or hatred of strangers, and the other means the love of strangers. And this love of strangers is not just social courtesy. It is the same love that we show to our friends. The philo- in philoxenia is the same as the ­phila- in philadelphia.

A Strange Word and a Strange Hospitality

I’ve chosen philoxenia as the title of today’s sermon because it is a strange word, and I think we need a strange word to remind us of how strange this “hospitality” is. A hospitality that loves strangers as much as it does brothers and sisters is an upside-down hospitality, a crazy hospitality. Whereas the hospitality of this world generally welcomes “those who are welcome to begin with,” which is to say those “who serve our pleasure or our interests,”[1] the strange hospitality of the kingdom welcomes the unwelcome, which is to say, the stranger of whom the xenophobes are afraid, the stranger who may have nothing to give us in return, or nothing but trouble.

Philoxenia is a distinctive mark of the kingdom of God, and so perhaps it’s no coincidence that we see it so clearly in little children, to whom the kingdom belongs. Philoxenia is the strangerly love that a baby shows when it makes you, a stranger, the center of its world. When it opens its arms in delight for you and welcomes you at its table. When it gives you gifts. When it shares your feelings, laughing when you laugh, smiling when you smile. When it blesses you and welcomes you as though you were sent from God.

And according to our writer, welcoming strangers as though they were sent from God is an essential part of philoxenia. He says that by philoxenia, “some have entertained angels without knowing it” (13:2). On the surface, this makes welcoming the stranger sound a little bit like playing the lottery, as though we should always welcome the stranger because, who knows, we might get lucky and end up hosting God. But if we recall what Jesus said about the hungry and the sick and the stranger (Matt 25:34-40), then we know that it’s not a lottery. Every stranger bears the face of Christ.

“Who Is My Stranger?”

The rest of what our writer says today may be summed up in just a few words: “Put others before yourself.” Allow the center of gravity to shift from your own heart to the hearts of the others.

If you think about it, this is just another way of saying that we should welcome not only the literal stranger, but also the stranger inside everyone, including our friends. If we’re friends with people only because they reciprocate our thoughts and our feelings about life, then really we’ve only befriended ourselves. We’ve only reinforced our own self-interests. A genuine love for our friends and family means welcoming the stranger within them. It means welcoming them without the expectation that they reciprocate our thoughts or feelings or interests. It means attending to their deepest needs and desires, especially when these are different than our own.

A Strange Case of Philoxenia:

Covering the Cross to Reveal It

I want to conclude with a real life example of philoxenia, an example that’s so strange, it’s bound to get us thinking.

A well-known Jewish man in a little Wisconsin community had passed away. There was no synagogue in the area, but his family and friends insisted that he be honored in a sacred space. They asked all the churches in the area to host the funeral, and only one said yes.

Before the funeral, the rabbi surveyed the church sanctuary. A cross stood prominently at the front. The rabbi requested that the cross be covered. It’s important here to understand that for many in the Jewish tradition, the cross is a symbol of hate. For centuries, the Jewish people endured massacre at the hands of vengeful Christians who blamed the death of Christ on the Jewish people. These Christians would lift high the cross, and proclaim God’s judgment against the Jewish people, or as they called them, “Christ killers.” I can think of few grosser perversions of Christ’s gospel of love.

The church ultimately granted the rabbi’s request and covered the cross—but not without debate among its own congregation. Wasn’t the cross central to their Christian identity? Weren’t they sacrificing too much of themselves to accommodate these strangers? Sure, they wanted to help honor the man’s death, but it was their house, their rules, right? Surely the Jewish community could understand that.[2]

Personally, I believe this is a beautiful illustration of philoxenia, strangerly love. The love of Christ is revealed not through a symbol or through a proclamation of identity, but through welcoming the stranger, making them the center of our world, as Christ did when he embraced the outcasts of his society. For this little church in Wisconsin, it was only by covering the cross that the church could in fact walk the way of the cross, the way of selfless and sacrificial love.  It was only by covering the cross that they could reveal it.

A Kingdom That Loves the Stranger

But that’s only what I think. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. We live in a world where strangers abound, and they’re literally across the street. People who look different, who worship differently or do not worship at all, who envision a different political reality than we do.

Whatever it is that makes them strange, we are called to love them. We are called to put them before us. Xenophobia may be the way of a world that seeks safety and security, that seeks to hold on to what it’s got. But if we are ever to step foot into the kingdom into which God invites us, then we must adopt another way, a wayward way, a way that goes out of its way for others: the way of philoxenia, where the stranger is welcomed as a friend.

Prayer

Outsider God,
Whose kingdom turns strangers into friends—
Open our hearts to receive you
In the unknown and unwanted.
Lead us beyond brotherly love
To a love that goes out of its way for others.
Amen.

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[1] John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture Series; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), ebook loc. 1181-1184.

[2] This story is taken from Thomas E. Reynolds, “Welcoming Without Reserve: A Case in Christian Hospitality,” Theology Today 63 (2006): 191-202.

The Darkness of God (Heb 12:18-29)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on August 21, 2016, Proper 16)

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When the Good News Becomes Bad News

Evangelism, which means the proclamation of good news, has a checkered legacy in the church. For centuries, it has not been uncommon for Christians to proclaim the good news in the shape of bad news. Far too often, the church has resorted to scare tactics to proclaim God’s love. The result is twisted and absurd. “God loves you, but if you don’t accept God’s love and submit to God’s desire, then you’ll be spending eternity in flames.” In any other story of love, this kind of strong-arm tactic would be called spousal abuse: “Meet me at the altar…or else!”

In just a couple of months, Liberty University will host its annual Scaremare. Participants will walk through a haunted house with all the requisite props: clowns, chainsaws, creepy noises. But in this case, the frightening fun of Halloween is actually an evangelism tool. Scaremare proclaims the “good news” that without God, you will spend eternity in a house like this, but infinitely worse.

The imagery in today’s scripture naturally lends itself to just this sort of scare tactic. You’ve got fire and darkness, a stormy gloom and a voice coming from nowhere. You’ve even got the threat of death.

It’s no surprise, then, how the church has commonly interpreted this passage. The preceding verses have encouraged a persecuted community to remain strong in their faith, to trust in the way of the cross despite the trouble it was bringing them. Following these words of encouragement, the present passage appears to resort to a more negative tactic. It’s as if the writer decided on a bit of insurance. Just in case the previous words of encouragement didn’t really stick, he’d tack on an extra caution, a reminder of what would happen if they didn’t persevere in their faith.

Just What Is the Writer Thinking About?

This kind of interpretation is not baseless. The ingredients of today’s scripture include scary imagery and words of caution, “See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking” (12:25). Mix these two together, and you have a holy threat. Do this, or else.

But there are other ways of combining these scriptural ingredients.

It helps to know, for instance, that today’s scripture does not come from the imagination of the writer. He’s not dreaming up hellfire for his listeners. In fact, he’s making a careful reference to a climactic moment in Israelite history: when Moses and the people of Israel, who had just fled Egypt, encountered God at Mount Sinai. In the original story, as it is found in the book of Exodus, Moses and the people encounter God in all the ways that our writer mentions today. God descends upon the mountain “in fire” (Ex 19:18); there is a tempest of “thunder and lightning” (19:16), and a gloom of “cloud” and “smoke” around the mountain (19:16, 18). There is a trumpet blaring (19:16, 19), and the voice of God is heard in a terrifying “thunder” (19:19). All the people are afraid, and only Moses approaches the space where God is, which is a space of “thick darkness” (19:18-21).

Reading Mount Sinai: Indiana Jones versus Gregory of Nyssa

Now one way of understanding this scene is to rewatch Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. When the Nazis open the ark that comes from Mount Sinai, they unleash an uncontrollable power that is manifest in all the elements we’ve heard: darkness and fire, disembodied noise and flashes of light. It’s terrifying.

But it’s not the only way to understand what happened at Mount Sinai. There is, in fact, an interpretation that predates Hollywood by centuries and presents a very different picture. Gregory of Nyssa, a gentle and compassionate bishop of the fourth century, who would later be called the “Father of [Church] Fathers,” saw Mount Sinai in a very different light. Or rather, in a peculiar sort of darkness.

“Moses Entered into the Darkness and There He Saw God”

Gregory points out that according to scripture, when Moses climbs Mount Sinai to meet God, he encounters God in “thick darkness” (Ex 20:21). And for Gregory, this is no small detail, especially not when scripture describes God on numerous occasions as being surrounded by darkness and cloud,[1] and especially not when the gospel of John confirms, “No one has ever seen God” (1:18). For Gregory, darkness describes our experience of God. It indicates that we are encountering something “beyond all knowledge and comprehension.”[2]

The darkness of God, then, is another way of talking about the mystery of God. But for Gregory, this is not the kind of mystery that you solve. It’s not the kind of mystery that means you have a lack of knowledge, and all you need the missing piece. In fact, Gregory says, it’s the opposite. He calls it a “luminous darkness”[3]; it is a dazzling darkness that is actually the effect of a superabundance of light, like the darkness you would see if you looked at the sun for too long. The mystery of God is the mystery of excess, the mystery of something more, the kind of mystery that is endlessly known—which is to say, it is known but never completely. This darkness is the darkness of intimacy. It is the mystery of love, the love of a relationship where you know the other person intimately, but you never know them completely, because if you did, there would be no space for love and wonder; your interactions would be like the functions of a math equation.

And this, Gregory says, is the meaning of the divine darkness. “God would not have shown [Godself] to [Moses],” he says, “if the vision would have been such as to terminate Moses’ desire.” The meaning of the divine darkness, he says, is “never to have this desire [for God] satisfied.”[4]

Reinterpreting Darkness: From Threat to Intimacy, Fear to Wonder

When we approach today’s scripture with Gregory, what once sounded like a threat now sounds a little more like an intimate whisper. What once led to fear now leads to wonder. The darkness of God, the mystery of a voice whose speaker we cannot see, a swirling tempest through which we cannot make out what’s what—these images now suggest the intimacy of relationship, the wonder of love.

If you think about it, our experience of darkness draws on a similar progression from threat to intimacy, from fear to wonder.

We can all probably remember a time when we were afraid of the dark. And it’s no coincidence that most horror stories play on this fear and take place in a dark setting. This is the darkness of fear and foul-play.

And yet, we also experience another kind of darkness.

It is under the cover of darkness that we enter into the intimacies and wonders of life’s many mysteries. Who has not lain under the covers of bed and wondered at the vast unknown spread across the star-speckled night sky? Who has not stayed up into the wee hours of the night, contemplating “what ifs?” and “whys?” and “why nots?” with a close friend? Or who has not sat by the window on a snowy evening, listening to the flakes fall and feeling the tangible enchantment of creation that most of the time the world is too busy to feel? Who has not listened from within the pitch black of a bedroom or a tent to the symphony of a world unseen: the chorus of cicadas, the hoot of an owl, the steady melody of a creek?

Is not all of this an echo of the dazzling darkness of God? Isn’t this darkness an intimate darkness, the darkness of love and wonder, the kind of darkness that kindles our desire to know and experience something more, to step further into its dark folds?

Scary Stuff, or Good News

And it is only by stepping into the darkness, into the mystery of that which can never be touched, that we will receive the kingdom. The writer concludes today’s scripture by reminding his audience of the promise of God, a promise which he has already mentioned several times. He has talked about it as the promise of a city whose architect and builder is God. He has talked about it as the promise of “something better.” But today, he talks about it in rather different terms. In today’s scripture, God promises to shake the heavens and the earth, so that all created things are removed. This isn’t just shaking a snowglobe and watching the snow swirl. It’s shaking a snowglobe and watching all the scenery dislodge and spin irrevocably in a holy earthquake.

Such a promise is scary stuff. Or at least it’s scary if we’re afraid of losing what we’ve got. But if our faith is in the darkness of God, which is to say, in that which we do not know, then this promise is good news. It is the gospel of “something better” (cf. 11:40), even if that something looks completely different than anything we could imagine.

“Therefore,” our writer says, “let us give thanks” and worship God “with reverence and awe” (12:28). These words are common church words that sometimes become a bit stale for us: “give thanks,” “reverence,” “awe.” What is our writer really saying? His audience, remember, is enduring persecution. Times were dark indeed. But within the darkness of the times, lay also the luminous darkness of God, the blinding mystery of a Creator who was still creating. And that’s why the right worship of this God is not fear, but as our writer says, “reverence and awe”—which is really to say, the kind of fascination and wonder that might seize us underneath the stars, that nighttime awareness that there is much more to God than we know, much more to this world than what we can see. There is a kingdom coming out in the unseen hoots of owls and howls of wolves, out in the impenetrable darkness of the snowstorm, out beneath the dizzying spread of night sky. There is a kingdom coming, which is scary stuff for those who would hold onto what they have, but good news for those who would let it go and walk with faith into the darkness of God.

Prayer

God of dazzling darkness,
You are always beyond our reach,
And we are always within yours.
May our hearts tremble at your touch,
Not in fear but in wonder and love
For the kingdom that you promise.
Help us to let go of all that we claim,
And to be consumed with a fiery passion
For all that is coming. Amen.

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[1] E.g., Deut 5:22; 1 Kgs 8:12; Ps 97:2.

[2] Life of Moses, §164. See “Gregory of Nyssa: Luminous Darkness,” http://www.monachos.net/library/index.php/patristics/specific-fathers/60-gregory-of-nyssa-luminous-darkness, accessed August 19, 2016.

[3] Life of Moses, 2.162-166. See “Gregory of Nyssa: Moses Entered into the Darkness and There He Saw God,” https://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/gregory-of-nyssa-moses-entered-into-the-darkness-and-there-he-saw-god/, accessed August 19, 2016.

[4] Life of Moses, PG 44.404 (A-D). See “Gregory of Nyssa: Luminous Darkness.”

Something Better (Heb 11:29-12:2)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on August 14, 2016, Proper 15)

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Histories of Success

Can you remember what your favorite subject was in school? Was it math? Did you appreciate the comfort of black and white calculations? Or was it English? Maybe you were enchanted with the written word and its power over the imagination. I liked both these subjects for just these reasons. But more than them, the subject that captivated me, even after lunch when my eyelids wanted so desperately to drop for just a moment’s rest, was history. Unlike English or math, which both involve their fair share of rules and regulations, history was full of unimaginable stories: love and war, bravery and betrayal. History told the great drama of life. It was raw and honest.

In the last few decades, the history that is taught in our schools has come under scrutiny. You’ve probably heard the popular proverb, “History is written by the victors.” This is just another way of saying that history usually enhances certain stories of triumph while omitting or obscuring stories of shame and failure. I learned this firsthand when I took a course on Native American history in college, where I discovered just how brutal and deceptive our forebears were toward the original inhabitants of this land. And just recently I have learned that two famous stories about the American Revolution—Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech and Paul Revere’s Ride—are both glorified retellings that were written down decades after the fact.[1]

What I find most revealing about our tendency to warp history, is not the bias it betrays but rather the desire that fuels our biases. In other words, I’m not so concerned about the lies we tell but why we tell them. We paint history as a success, I think, because that’s what our culture preaches: the myth of success and progress. Our histories immortalize the powerful and the effective, and invite us to enter their ranks.

Triumph into Tragedy

These histories of success and progress are nothing new. It was common practice in the ancient Near East, where the little nation of Israel was born, for the historical records to honor all the king’s triumphs: the battles he won, the gods he appeased, the possessions he acquired, the titles he achieved.

And for a moment, it looks like that’s what we have in today’s scripture. The writer of Hebrews walks us through a highlight reel of ancient Israel, recounting its leaders’ mighty and miraculous achievements. Remember when we crossed the Red Sea and our Egyptian enemies perished, he asks (11:29-31)? Remember when Gideon conquered the Midianites and Samson put the Philistines to shame, when Daniel survived a night in the lion’s den and his friends walked through flames (11:32-34)? Remember when we were “mighty in war” and “put foreign armies to flight” (11:34)?

And so at first glance, we have just a standard history, which is to say, a history of success and progress, a glorified account of all that went well and nothing that went wrong.

But perhaps you’ve noticed that there’s something a bit different with this history. It repeats again and again the word “faith.” “By faith, they did this; by faith, they did that.” What matters, our writer seems to be saying, is not what was done but how it was done. His interest is not in success and progress and power but rather in the unseen faith behind it all.

And that’s the only thing, really, that could explain what comes next. All of the sudden, triumph turns to tragedy. Remember, our writer asks, when we were persecuted by evil kings and defeated by other nations? Remember when our heroes endured torture and imprisonment and death (11:35-38)? No longer does this history accommodate the myth of success and progress and power. And lest we miss this, the writer concludes resolutely that none of these people—neither the triumphant nor the defeated—none attained what was promised. Not one stepped fully into God’s kingdom of justice and peace.

Not the Power of the Hand,

But the Power of the Heart

By our world’s standards, then, every one of the heroes that our writer mentions would be a failure, a loser. And that makes it all the more outrageous when our writer says, “The world was not worthy [of them]” (11:38). What kind of history is this, that puts defeat and disappointment on a pedestal, that lifts up shortcoming and calls it good? Something upside-down is going on here, something mad and irrational—which is to say, something that has the mark of the kingdom of God, a kingdom that is foolishness and weakness to the world, a kingdom of which the world is not worthy.

If we look closely enough, we can catch a glimpse of this kingdom madness—where success and defeat are no longer the measures of worth—in the Olympics.

On the face of things, of course, the Olympics is all about competition and achievement, about bringing home as many medals as you can. This spirit of success and progress is what encourages athletes to dope up, to gain a competitive edge over their opponents any way they can. We vilify these athletes, but the truth is they’re just doing what the world has always been doing. Whether it’s politics or economics, the military or the market, the ends ultimately justify the means.

But if you listen to some of the athletes, you’ll hear something very different from the spirit of success and progress. For these athletes, the Olympics is not about competition or bringing home the gold, however much these things might enrich their experience. The Olympics for them is about not triumph but determination, about not prevailing but persevering. It’s not about the rewards but about the risk, about taking a leap of faith and trusting that the journey is worthwhile. For them, the Olympics is about not the power of the hand, but the unseen power of the heart.

And I think that this spirit of unseen power hints at the faith that our writer praises in his history of shortcoming, where everyone falls short of the promise. It is a delightful coincidence—and perhaps more than just a coincidence—that the writer uses Olympic imagery in describing faith. He says that like the Olympians we are running a race. And what matters most is not our finish but our faith, the unseen power through which we persevere, regardless of success or progress.

An Olympian Team of Faith

In this light, the “great…cloud of witnesses” that our writer extols, is like an Olympian team of faith. They are our teammates, and their example encourages us. And this team includes countless others, like Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther King, Jr., like Sojourner Truth and Fred Craddock. Like the Israelite heroes mentioned before, these too show us that faith is not a finish line but a race. For they too did not obtain the promise; their kingdom-dreams have not yet been realized.

Similarly, we might say that the world was not worthy of them. Because although much of the world pays them lip service, in truth it does not share or even aspire to their faith. It stubbornly holds onto its histories of success and progress and power. Sure, folks may quote Jesus admiringly—“Love your enemy” and “Be a servant to everyone”—but when it comes to putting these in practice, especially on the grand scale of international relations, such ideas are derided as foolish and dangerous. Why? Because they’re not practical. “That’ll never change things,” we’re told. Turning the other cheek may make sense if you’re facing your sibling, but it’s a ludicrous idea if you’re facing an enemy.

But the voice that demands success and progress, that is the voice of the empire, the seductive whisper of power, the echo of men sitting around a table drawing up battle plans.

In contrast to this voice, Christ calls us not to be effective but to be faithful—to run his path, which is the path of selfless love, the path of the cross.

A History of Shortcoming,

And the Promise of “Something Better”

And the grand irony of faith is that the path of the cross is not a dead end. By the cross, Christ, our pioneer (12:2), leads us into what our writer calls “something better” (11:40).

Out of its 18 occurrences in the New Testament, the word “better” occurs 12 times in this letter. It is perhaps the best one-word summary of what our writer wants to say. It is a word filled with unforeseeable promise. No one knows exactly what “better” will look like. Faith, after all, is about “things unseen.” To live as a follower of Christ means to live in a world that does not yet exist, to live in a world of nothings and nobodies and not-quite-yets. Faith takes us to the final frontier, which is to say, the heart, where power is not a matter of prevailing but persevering, not a matter of achieving our own interest but seeking the interests of others—as Christ did on the cross.

Most histories of the world proclaim that greatness has been achieved, or at least that the ingredients are now here for us to put on the finishing touches. Most histories sing the praise of its heroes’ triumph and success. But the history of faith is a history of shortcoming, which by some strange reversal becomes a story of “something better,” a reminder that we trade not in the currency of change and progress, but in dreams and promises that are unseen and incalculable—like the vulnerable embrace of love and the risk of welcoming the stranger and the foolish turning of our cheek.

It is hard to train our vision on a kingdom unseen, difficult to count on what is unaccountable. And I think that’s why our writer today ends by giving his listeners a simple image: Jesus on the cross. Should we ever forget, this is our pioneer, the frontrunner of faith. This is the paradoxical, countercultural, upside-down way of life, by which we trust we are stepping into the better world that God has promised.

Prayer

Christ of the cross,
Our friend and frontrunner—
To the world, and sometimes to us,
Faith looks like failure.
Inspire us by the sacred shortcomings
Of the holy fools of your kingdom,
To run with perseverance
The way of the cross.
Amen.

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[1] Ray Raphael, “Are U.S. History Textbooks Still Full of Lies and Half-Truths?” http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/7219, visited August 10, 2016.

Strangers and Foreigners (Heb 11:1-3, 8-16)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on August 07, 2016, Proper 14)

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Of Houses and Homes

Lion lives alone in the hills. One fall day, as he tends to his garden, he hears a noise above. A wounded bird falls from its flock. Lion takes the bird into his care, bandaging his wing and welcoming him into his home. Over the winter, as Bird heals, the two become inseparable friends. Bird often perches within the shaggy warmth of Lion’s mane. At night, when Lion climbs into bed, Bird climbs into one of Lion’s oversized slippers. On snowy days when they’re homebound, the two sit in front of the fire, and Lion reads to Bird.

Finally the winter passes. Early one spring day, Bird hears his flock overhead. It is a bittersweet parting.

Lion resumes his solitary life, but now it feels emptier than ever before. His house is no longer a home. It lacks the warmth of companionship. It lacks love.

For Lion, the summer is slow and lonesome. His thoughts are continually turned upward to the sky, wondering where Bird is. Summer slides into fall. Lion spends most of his days in the garden, passing time the best he can, until early one lonely morning when he hears a familiar tweet. There, above him, he sees a flock of birds flying south for the winter. One bird descends straight for him. It is Bird, returning for another winter together.[1]

“Home Is Where the Heart Is”

If the story of Lion and Bird were told in a school setting, you can guess what its moral might be: “Home is where the heart is.”

It’s a time-honored saying, the kind of thing you’d expect to find hand-stitched and hanging in the kitchen, or perhaps sitting quaintly on a mantelpiece. It’s a warm and cozy proverb, a feel-good sentiment that we can all appreciate, the kind of sentiment that graces Hallmark Christmas cards or Cracker Barrel merchandise.

It is not the sort of saying that you’d associate with revolutionaries enduring persecution. It is not the kind of thing you’d expect to hear among an oppressed people faced with state-sanctioned violence and theft.

But that is just what it is in today’s scripture, where the writer addresses a people who are enduring beatings and imprisonment and dispossession (cf. 10:33-34). In today’s scripture, the writer encourages this community of Christ-followers by reminding them that their faith and their hope are not in the visible world, but rather in what is “not seen,” in “things that are not visible” (11:2-3)—in a homeland that they have not yet reached. In fact, he suggests, they are “strangers and foreigners” just like Abraham and other ancient heroes of faith. Which was his way of saying: “Home is where your heart is—and your heart is somewhere better than here.”

What’s Really Real

The writer of Hebrews does what any good person of faith does in our world. He pulls back the veil from the plainly visible world and reveals an enchanted world, a world imbued with mystery, filled with the unforeseeable. He rallies his discouraged listeners against the powers of the obvious and the self-evident, against the tyranny of the seen, against the common sense of what is calculable and measurable and observable. Yes, they may be losing their possessions and their homes. Yes, all evidence points against the prospect of security and comfort in the foreseeable future. But the world, he whispers urgently, is filled with unseen possibilities. In fact, he says, it is the invisible that gives birth to the visible (cf. 11:3).

To prove his point, he points to the example of the ancestral family, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Abraham left the comfort of his home and family, he says, because of an invisible promise. He didn’t even know where he was going. For the same reason, Isaac and Jacob remained in the foreign land, living in tents as strangers and foreigners. According to our world’s way of seeing things, they were homeless. They had left home far behind. But according to their hearts, home was somewhere else—its blueprints nothing more than the misty, shifting outlines of a promise.

Which is all to prove the point of the writer of Hebrews—what is visible is not the realest thing in the world. What’s real, what’s really real, is the invisible.[2] What’s really real is the stuff of poems, prayers, and promises. Indeed, it is an invisible promise that leads Abraham and Isaac and Jacob away from the real comforts of their home to go wander in a strange land, lost and homeless. That is the fabric of faith: attending to the invisible tugs and pulls of God, heeding the holy commotion in one’s heart. These invisible movements are indeed what give birth to new life. Anyone who knows the power of love or forgiveness, the power of hope or trust, knows this to be true.

No Department of Homeland Security in the Kingdom of God

We can imagine how this message would encourage the community to which it was written. For people who were regularly on the receiving end of beatings and imprisonment and dispossession, it is good news indeed to be reminded that the visible world is not the end of the story. It is gospel to hear that within all the tangible and visible elements of persecution, there flutters an invisible, intangible promise of something much different, something much better. For a people whose homes are shattered or even taken from them, it is a holy lifeline to hear that their real home is in things unseen.

But where is the gospel in this for a people like us, a people who know nothing of the oppression and hardship of that early Christ-following community?

There are, of course, some Christians who do claim persecution in this nation, who do claim that the Christian religion is under attack. To these claims, I would humbly suggest that the removal of Christian mottos from national objects or the absence of Christian prayer from public events is not persecution. It is a loss of power and privilege—two things that Christ shunned all his life. If anything, the recent cultural and political developments lead us back to a more authentic expression of our faith, one where we truly are “strangers and foreigners.”

In the Greek, the word for stranger is xenos. This word echoes suggestively in our word xenophobia, implying that our faith makes us very different from the present world, that it puts us on the margins of this world. Perhaps that is the message of the letter to us today. As followers of Christ, we are strangers to a world that is interested in securing what is visible, in protecting what it possesses. But in the kingdom of God, there is no department of homeland security. In the kingdom of God, the homeland is never something we secure; it is something that we seek (cf. 11:14).

Seeking a Homeland

I am reminded here of the story of Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan. He and eight other Catholic activists poured napalm on a pile of draft files and burned them in Catonsville, Maryland, in a “creative protest” against the obligation of war.[3] Berrigan was arrested and imprisoned for three years. It was a controversial event. I’m not here to deliver a verdict one way or the other. I think Berrigan was right, and I think the United States government was right—each according to their respective standards. In the kingdom of God, where the enemy is loved, the persecutor is prayed for, and the other cheek is turned, it made much more sense to burn paper than to burn the lives of others. Berrigan was right. In a kingdom of this world—whether it’s the United States or any other country, really—the force of law and order rules the day. The United States government was right.

It is an illumining contrast in perspectives. The United States acted out of self-interest to secure its homeland against the spread of what it saw as a dangerous influence. From such a perspective, it was justified. And from such a perspective, Daniel Berrigan was a stranger and a foreigner—just like the heroes of faith extolled in today’s scripture. He acted out of alien interests to seek a homeland that did not yet exist, a homeland “whose architect and builder” was God—a homeland that could never be secured by sword and spear, but could only be sought by way of invisible things, like love and forgiveness, hope and vulnerability.

“There Is Another World, but It Is within This One”

For many centuries, much of the church has interpreted the promise of a better homeland simply as a reference to heaven, ignoring the fact that Jesus prayed for God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven,” overlooking the great vision of Revelation that one day heaven will finally come to earth, to the very ground we walk.

William Butler Yeats is attributed with having written: “There is another world, but it is within this one.” I can hardly think of a better paraphrase of the gospel in today’s scripture. We are “strangers and foreigners,” yes, but neither are we travelers simply making an earthly pit stop, nor are we immigrants seeking naturalization into the present order. No, we are “strangers and foreigners” whose hearts are firmly planted in this world—or rather, within this world, within the invisible promise of a better world.

We are like Lion. We have lived here all our lives. But one day Bird flew in—which is to say, Love flew in—and ever since then, we have realized just how empty this “home” can be. Our hearts are yearning for a better home. Not a homeland to be secured against the unknown, but a homeland to be sought in the unknown—a gospel homeland where the stranger is welcomed and the enemy is loved, where the unruly rule of love “lift[s] up the lowliest instead of [waiting for] relief [to] trickle down from the top,” where the least and the littlest “enjoy pride of place and a special privilege.”[4] A homeland whose architect and builder is the God who is Love.

Prayer

Hope of the homeless,
God of the stranger and the foreigner—
Attune our souls
To the shifting outlines of your Kingdom;
Draw our hearts away
From what is visible and known,
From the lesser homeland we would secure,
And pull us through the unseen powers of love
Toward the homeland You are building.
Amen.

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[1] This tale is a paraphrase of children’s picture book The Lion and the Bird. Marianne Dubuc, The Lion and the Bird (trans. Claudia Zoe Bedrick; New York: Enchanted Lion, 2014).

[2] Cf. John D. Caputo, The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 183: “Indeed, we are more realist than the realists, never satisfied with what is merely real, hyper-realists in love with the real, by which we mean the ‘promise of the world,’ the events harbored in the bowels of the real.”

[3] David Dark, The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 148.


[4] John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), ebook loc. 1387-1390.