Sept. 2, 2007 (David Hyers)

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." So we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

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I correspond with my relatives back in Tennessee by e-mail. Buried in a recent e-mail from my Aunt were five short words describing wonderful news. She wrote: “In the meantime…JOY!”

Most storytellers skip over those things that happen in the intervals. We want to hear big stories full of special effects. But sometimes, the most profound experiences occur in the in-between times of our lives.

The Bible texts this morning aren’t full of big stories filled with special effects. But they reminded me of my aunt’s e-mail and the story between those simple five words.

A few weeks ago, my father sent me a short video that told a longer story. It might be a story about angels, or about those ways we are messengers of grace for one another. Frankly, I am not sure what to make of angel talk, but there is a halo.

The video was shot several weeks ago when my parents traveled across the mountains to share a meal with my aunt and her family. As the rest of the family was cleaning up, my dad went into the living room to spend time with my aunt’s grandchildren. Young Lincoln’s older sister had been talking to dad about her ballet class. Not wanting to be left out, Lincoln began to show dad his own creative dance moves.

As the music changed, his six-year-old sister McKinley Ann began to dance. She began slowly, hands above her head in that typical pose we think of as ballet. She began to twirl, slowly around the room. In the background, Lincoln continued his less practiced, but no less genuine interpretation of Cat Stevens.

McKinley Ann’s eyes were focused in concentration, but her face remained relaxed revealing her enjoyment of the movement. One cannot watch her dance on the video my dad shot and miss the joy she exudes. It is the genuine joy expressed by a child at play.

But for McKinley, it was not the rose-colored happiness we sometime paint upon children. It was her total presence to the lived moment, the kind that cannot be contained in words.

There is a smoothly different sort of rhythm to her movements. She was born with one leg significantly shorter than the other. And so her dance takes on a graceful rising and dipping movement as she goes foot to foot. To see her dance on the video is to see the hard won joy that lives in her steps. She has endured continuing surgeries to lengthen the shorter leg. These surgeries will continue until she is 16 and the process is complete.

But in the meantime, she dances, and there is joy. It was a small thing, a child dancing after a meal. But in the small words, big things are being said.

There is something of the sacred in sharing of that meal, in the hospitality and safety of her family. That something allows all the hope and uncertainty of the future to mix with the promise and progress the past brings. And in the mixing, joy burst forth into dance.

I saw in that video the freedom and safely of mutual love and trust. A dignity was given to difference. There was the messenger of joy dancing “in this the meantime.”

Sometimes it is the small things Jesus says that most moves the heart to life.

Our distance from the banquet tables of Jesus’ day make it difficult for us to see the joyous shift Jesus imagines for the host and his guests.

The nourishment of food, even the nourishment of friends and family, was peripheral to feeding the need for social position and influence. Your place at the table reflected your position in the family or in the community.

So here sits Jesus at the table of the Pharisee, redefining the world ahead, the world around. Jesus’ banquet table is not about assessing your social stature. He trades the power of position for the humility of hospitality. The value of the self is subsumed into giving of honor to the other. Competition, shame and glory are replaced by the joy of mutual love in Christ.

Here this morning we remember again that Jesus invites us to the table to sit as both humble hosts and honored guests for each other. Where we sit doesn’t matter. And what we bring to the table matter less than the hospitality we share while at the table.

For at this table there is joy. We begin to see and to experience that this kind of life can dance among us. And at this table we are called to share what we are shown.

I don’t know who got more from that meal in East Tennessee and that slow beautiful dance of my young cousin? Perhaps it was my father in the watching and videoing. Maybe it was my cousin in her dance or me in viewing the video.

Who is to say? But there was a halo and a message of joy.

In our text this morning, Jesus is trying to tell us that when all seek to serve others first, everyone will be fed.

This is the kind of mutual love the Hebrews reading implores us to remember.

This is the kind of meal I think my family shared that day and part of which I viewed on the video. The meal was full of each person’s humanity matched by the fullness of God’s love.

And that is the kind of meal we are invited to share this morning.
I don’t really know what to think about angels. Messenger, stranger or friend. Who knows?

But if I am to look for angels at all, let McKinley Ann be my guide.

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