The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Trinity Episcopal Church
Towson, MD
RCL Year C - 9 Pentecost (Proper 11) - July 21, 2013
When I was growing up, my mother once told me the story
of “stone soup.” I don’t know if you have ever heard the story of stone soup, but
it goes something like this…
Once upon a time, after a great war… there was a famine
throughout the land. There was a town where all the people were very hungry because
no one had enough to eat and people of the town even hid food from each other, and
they wouldn’t share.
There was a soldier that came though the town. He was tired
after traveling the long way back to his home from the war. He knocked on one
man’s door, when the man answered, the soldier explained to the man that he was
traveling through and needed a place to stay for the night and something to
eat.
The man explained to the soldier that there wasn’t any room,
and an extra mouth to feed would be absolutely impossible. There wasn’t even
enough food for the family and the folks in town, let alone a stranger.
The soldier said, “that’s ok I have a tent that I can pitch,
if you think that the town wouldn’t mind could I pitch it here in your front
yard?” The man agreed to let the soldier pitch his tent in his front yard. After
the tent was pitched, he asked the man for a pot of water.
The man asked him what he was going to do with the water. The
soldier produced a large stone, and explained that he was going to make “stone
soup.” The man thought this was absolutely ridiculous, but agreed to get the
soldier a pot of water.
After setting the water to boil, the soldier exclaimed, “stone
soup is wonderful by itself, but it was even better with cabbage.” The man,
hearing him, came out with cabbage that he had been hiding. The soldier said, “wonderful!
Now if we only had some onion. Stone soup with an onion and cabbage is simply
marvelous!” Someone else in the town said, “I think I may have an onion,” and
went to get an onion out of his hiding place.
This went on for a while - carrots, potatoes, celery, corn,
beans, etc… were brought forth from their hiding place until almost everyone in
the small town contributed a small amount of food. Soon the whole town feasted on
the big pot of the stone soup.
Everyone in the town was amazed that it was so good. They
claimed that the stone must have been magic. They begged the soldier to let
them buy the stone, but the soldier said that it wasn’t for sale, and that the
already had everything the needed to make stone soup for themselves.
The town was amazed!
The stone soup story is really a story about hospitality, but
not just about individual hospitality – it is about communal or community
hospitality. It’s about a community coming together – Coming together in community
is one of the most powerful things that we can do, and it has deep spiritual
roots in our faith. Interestingly enough, both of our scripture lessons this morning
are about hospitality.
In the Old Testament lesson, we have a story about three men
that are passing through a town. We don’t know yet where they are going, but
later we find out that they are on the way to Gomorrah. This is the town where Abraham
and his wife Sarah lives.
This story is much different than the “stone soup” story. In
this story, Abraham runs out to greet the strangers and calls them “Lord.” He
doesn’t even know these guys… They are just passing through, yet he shows them
deep respect and welcome. Abraham goes to great lengths to greet these three, and
treat them as if they were his best friends.
He goes and gets water for their feet, the finest grains for
Sarah to make them bread and then he goes out to his field to get the best calf
to prepare for them… Hospitality was in Abraham’s nature, it was who he was – it
was a very common part of his culture and necessary to his survival. This is MUCH
different from the lack of sharing that we get in the stone soup story.
The three men are on a journey... they had been traveling a
long way, and Abraham tends to the stranger’s every need… he even washes their
feet. Abraham showed Hospitality.
Hospitality… It is
interesting that in Greek, Hospitality is “philoexenia.” This word in Greek can be literally
translated as “love of the stranger.”
In our gospel lesson, Jesus is still on his journey toward
Jerusalem. Even though he is a stranger in the area, Jesus is invited into the home
of Mary and Martha for dinner. These two sisters receive Jesus and his caravan followers
into their home.
Now Martha knocks herself out in the kitchen, running around
rapidly working hard to show Jesus and his group proper hospitality. However, Mary
is mesmerized by what Jesus is teaching, and hangs onto his every word… seated
at his feet.
Martha then gets pretty irritated by this because she thinks
Mary should help her… Martha’s complaint would be viewed by others as
legitimate because at that time and in that place the cultural expectation was
for the female to manage the household and Mary seemed to be acting like a male.
Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen to do the proper thing for her.
Some of the power message in this story is what Jesus
doesn’t say. People always give Martha the bad rap and condemn her for her
overactive busyness… But Jesus NEVER tells Martha that she is doing the wrong
thing.
At that time, Mary needed to listen to Jesus, and Jesus knew
it… she was drawn to him, she wanted to learn… She was being spiritually fed by
his words, lingering on every one of them… And as irritated as Martha was, she
was doing the right thing too because she was looking out for the needs of
their visitors and Jesus. Jesus says to Martha that Mary was doing the right
thing… she was sitting at the foot of
Jesus, paying attention to him…
So, we actually learn something of the spiritual aspects of
hospitality this morning… When we receive a stranger into our midst, we are to
look out for them, join together and provide for them, and we work real hard and
do the active stuff very well…
But we also need to be attentive to the stranger in other
ways. We should pay attention to the example of Mary in today’s gospel. Mary
didn’t go to great measures to fix something for Jesus to eat, but she does pay
keen attention to him, and she learns a great deal from him. Mary also provided
hospitality.
As a community of faith, we show hospitality in many ways… When
there is a stranger in our midst, we pay attention to them, we welcome them
into our community, help them through the liturgy, and we invite them to eat
with us at the Lord’s Table… Through our attentiveness and action, we let them
feel the spiritual presence of Christ through us.
This is the same idea that St. Benedict had… Benedict is considered
the founder of Western Monasticism… (his feast day was just a couple weeks ago on
7/11). He wrote the rule to govern monks who were living in Christian community
under the authority of an Abbot. In his effort to make sure that hospitality
was done right, he made sure to include a section on how strangers were to be
received in the community. He wrote, “all guests who present themselves are to
be welcomed as Christ” who said, “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
This is a good thing to keep in mind when thinking about
Christian hospitality. We should be mindful to welcome the stranger as if he or
she were Christ himself. We don’t hide our food, and wait for a soldier to show
up and teach us how to come together to make stone soup… We have everything that we need to be a hospitable
people, right here.
Hospitality for the Christian should be a spiritual
discipline, it is how we can show Christ and the way to salvation to others. However,
we get all-tied-up with the busyness of life, and we fail sometimes to be
attentive to what is right in front of us. Christian hospitality needs to be
both active and attentive.
We are show them the love and compassion that Christ showed
to us through action, but we also need to listen to the stranger and to learn
from them about their journey. We need to have things ready… and we need to be prepared
to welcome the stranger in our midst, regardless of who they may be.
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