Welcome Table (Acts 11:1-18)

In December 1997, just a few days before Christmas, I graduated from seminary, hopped into the driver’s seat of a rented moving truck, and drove across the country.  The trip began in Indianapolis, took four days, went through nine states, and passed through one rather severe snowstorm.
Eventually I arrived back home in southern California, where my wife and five month-old son were waiting for me.  They had made the trip by plane.  And together we prepared to begin a new chapter in our lives in the small seaside town of Morro Bay, home of the first church I served as a full-time pastor.
One of the things we quickly discovered is that, in Morro Bay and the surrounding communities, there are a lot of great restaurants.  However, we discovered that not all restaurants are excited to see a couple walk in with their five month-old son.
 “Oh, you need a high-chair?  It’s over there.  You can get it yourself.”
I can’t say I blame them.  We always left a huge pile of crumbs under the high chair when we left.  We tried to leave a nice tip, but having just spent eight years in school and now starting out as the pastor of a tiny congregation, it wasn’t that easy.
The Galley was an exception.  It was a nice restaurant with a view of the bay, but the building in which it was located did very little to draw one’s attention.  I don’t think many tourists visiting Morro Bay were enticed to enjoy a meal there, but the locals knew it well.
And I must admit that other restaurants in town did have better-tasting food.  The food at the Galley was quite good, but it was pretty basic.  So, when people came to visit from out of town, we often took them to one of the other restaurants in town.
But when it was just us, or when we were dining with locals, we went to the Galley.
The first time we walked in, they eagerly greeted us and even included our son in the greeting.  They asked us his name – Ethan – and cheerfully brought us a high chair.  We felt very welcome.
A few weeks passed before we returned.  When we did, as soon as we opened the door, we heard a cheerful voice say, “Oh, look!  Ethan’s back! Welcome!”
After that, we were hooked.
It’s amazing what a little genuine hospitality can do.
Granted, there are some who say that, technically, what we experienced wasn’t hospitality.  We were paying customers.  True hospitality is given without expecting anything in return, and we, of course, were paying customers.  But even among places where a person is paying for some good hospitality, good hospitality can still be hard to find, and for a variety of reasons.
Some years later, Ginger, Ethan, Tristan and I – along with a few teenagers who had found their way into our family the way stray cats find their way into other families – all went for a camping trip.  We had reserved a site in advance at a privately-owned campground in the redwood-forested hills near Santa Cruz.
It was almost dark when we arrived.  We drove, quite slowly, through the campground looking for our reserved spot, but had a hard time seeing anything.  So we parked, everyone got out of the car, and I started walking around looking at campsite numbers.
The manager saw me and came over.  Oh, good, I thought; he can help me.  But before I could say anything, he started lecturing me about how this is a “family” campground.  He was rude and condescending.
I was so offended – and it was obvious that he didn’t want us there – that I asked him to refund the payment we had already made on our credit card, and we would gladly leave.  He agreed, and off we went, driving down the road until we came to a state park campground where the ranger at the entrance station greeted us warmly.
Reflecting back on that incident later, I decided that the rude campground manager was probably hostile to us because he didn’t like our eclectic mix of teenagers:  a couple of anglo kids, one Asian, and one Black.  People will find all sorts of reasons to be less than hospitable.
As you know, early Christianity began as a movement among Jews, who followed Jewish traditions and customs.  But when non-Jews expressed an interest in joining the movement, some among the Jews were less than hospitable toward these Gentiles.  Even after it was revealed that the Spirit had come upon them, there were some who found it hard to welcome these non-Jews into the movement.  This became the first major conflict of Christianity, and chapter after chapter of New Testament scripture deals with the issue.
Peter, the central character in today’s scripture story, wasn’t so sure that openness and inclusion was the way to go.  This part of the story actually began when a Gentile in Caesarea named Cornelius had a vision of an impending encounter with Peter.  Peter, meanwhile, had his own vision of various animals, both clean and unclean, and the voice of the Lord telling him to kill and eat.  Peter objected to the voice, saying he has never eaten anything unclean, and the voice replied, “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.”  When Peter met Cornelius, he applied what he learned in the vision to his current circumstance, and said, “God has shown me that I should not call any person profane or unclean.”  Then Peter preached a sermon declaring that “God shows no partiality,” but accepts all people from all nations.
The controversy continued, but in the end, the push for openness and welcome and hospitality won out.  Which, of course, it had too, because the push for openness and welcome and hospitality is a theme that is consistently present throughout all of scripture.  As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  Showing hospitality and welcome is an act of justice, and that’s the direction the universe bends.
Not only that, but sometimes it is in the act of showing hospitality that God is revealed.
Peter’s experience is consistent with the plan laid out at the beginning of Acts, a movement that would begin in Jerusalem, then extend to the surrounding cities, eventually making its way to the ends of the earth.  In other words, the circle of inclusion grows ever wider.  One barrier after another is removed.
Of course, this movement of inclusion, welcome, and hospitality begins much earlier than that.  In Genesis, several strangers come by Abraham; Abraham does not hesitate to welcome them and show them hospitality.  He offers them a place to rest, prepares a banquet for them, and treats them like honored guests, even though they are strangers to him.  In the process, God is revealed in these traveling strangers, and Abraham is blessed.
In another story of strangers receiving hospitality, these same strangers – the scripture now refers to them as angels – travel on to the city of Sodom, where they are welcomed by Abraham’s nephew Lot.  Like his uncle, Lot showed great hospitality to these men, offering them food and shelter and a place to rest.
In the evening, however, a gang arrived outside Lot’s door and insisted that Lot hand over to them these strangers.  This gang had obviously had not learned the importance of showing hospitality and welcome, and had a real dislike for foreigners, for they wanted to abuse the two men staying with Lot.  But Lot would not turn back on the hospitality he had promised his guests, and even offered to the gang his daughters instead, just so he could not violate the code of hospitality.
If the story of Sodom were a story about sexual morality, as many people think, offering up one’s own daughters in place of two strangers would make no sense, and would be just as offensive, if not more so, than handing over the strangers.  But that’s not what this story is about.  It’s about the importance of offering hospitality to strangers, of welcoming and even protecting them.  Lot stood by that value, while the gang outside his door insisted on violating it in the most horrible way possible.  In the end, Lot is saved, but the city is destroyed.
Another story that lingers in my mind one month after Easter is Jesus welcoming his group of disciples, including the one who would deny him, including the one who would betray him, offering them welcome and hospitality, and even washing their feet, serving them the way a slave would serve his master.  He insisted on showing hospitality and welcome, even to those who he knew would turn against him.
My gosh!  It makes it hard to imagine Jesus ever saying to anyone:  this is my table, my banquet, and I get to decide who stays and who goes, who’s welcome and who’s not.  Every once in a while you hear in the news of a church that has decided to deny certain people communion because of their views on certain political or social issues.  To me, that is just so contrary to what the table is all about.  It is the complete opposite of what Jesus did when he dined with people.
It is Jesus’s table and Jesus’s banquet, and everyone who wanted was always welcome to dine.
It’s hard to imagine Jesus turning anyone away from his table because they have the wrong opinion on the role of the Roman government in the affairs of humans.  It’s hard to imagine Jesus denying a place at the table to someone because they face Samaria when they worship instead of Jerusalem, or Mecca instead of Rome.  It’s hard to imagine Jesus denying a place at the table to someone because they didn’t understand or didn’t agree with some of the official teachings of the temple.
What Jesus did at the table was truly remarkable and radical.  Imagine an early 19th century American plantation owner inviting his slaves to sit at the fancy dining table in the manor.  Imagine the real-life equivalent of Downton Abbey’s aristocracy telling everyone downstairs to come on up, put aside their aprons, and enjoy the feast as if they were honored guests.
It just didn’t happen.
That would be true, radical hospitality, turning-the-world-upside-down hospitality, showing extravagant welcome to those who, in the eyes of humanity, did not deserve it and could never repay it, were not expected to repay it.
It would be, as Isaiah puts it, “bringing the homeless poor into your house” hospitality.
It’s the type of hospitality we encounter at the Lord’s Table.
It’s the type of hospitality that comes to mind every time I hear Dustin Rogers – who now goes by the name “Doc” – tell his story of the first time he came as a guest to a youth group event at Bixby Knolls Christian Church.  As he describes it, he was this wild-looking kid with long hair.  Not someone who would fit in very well among “respectable” church-goers, at least in appearance.
And yet the welcome he says he received here changed his life, and planted a seed of spirituality in him that has blossomed and grown over time.  Now he is singing spiritual music and counseling youth at Loch Leven, planting more seeds, nurturing more spiritual lives.
And it all started with hospitality.  It all started with a welcome.
As we prepare to gather around the Lord’s Table, let us remember that that’s really what it’s all about.  At the very least, the hospitality and welcome that is central to this gathering is too often overlooked by many today.  And for those who do see it, they underestimate its importance and its significance.
Perhaps that’s because, as profound as it is, it’s also very simple; as simple as saying: “Welcome.”