"Love is Not for the Weak" (Luke 14:1, 7-14)

In 2002, filmmaker Michael Moore’s documentary, Bowling for Columbine was released.  It is a film about gun violence in the United States, which has the highest rate of people killed by gun violence than any other developed nation on earth.  The movie was both praised and criticized for being anti-gun – it was – but perhaps a more significant feature of the movie was its attempt to go beyond the conventional answers and explanations.

At the heart of all this violence, the movie suggests, is fear.  America has a culture of fear.

Why was Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager in Florida, killed by George Zimmerman?  Because George Zimmerman was afraid.  Why was George Zimmerman carrying a gun?  Because he was afraid.  He lived in fear.

Was his fear rational?  Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?  Trayvon Martin was unarmed.  Was there a real threat to George Zimmerman?  It appears that there wasn’t.  But apparently there was a perceived threat.

And perhaps that perceived threat had nothing to do with Trayvon Martin.  Maybe George Zimmerman carried that perceived threat around within him.  Maybe he carried around within him fear, anxiety, apprehension, rooted in prejudice and bigotry, fueled by media portrayals of race and violence.

What if it was Jesus walking down that street that night, instead of George Zimmerman?...  OK, maybe that’s too much speculation, so let’s instead turn to the story from scripture.  The scripture passage presents a story in which Jesus is attending a meal at the house of a leader of the Pharisees.  This is a respectable gathering in the home of a respected community leader, with respectable, honorable guests all intent on maintaining and improving their respectable, honorable status in society.

As they came in, they jostled around, trying to secure for themselves the most honored seat, a seat close to their host, looking for the highest seat they dared to sit in.  The host, meanwhile, was just pleased to have so many respectable, honorable people in his house, since that only added to his own respect and honor.

Jesus watched all this take place.  He said:  “When you come in, take the lowest seat.  And when you invite guests: invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, not ‘important’ people whose presence makes you look good.  Do that, and you will be blessed.”

Why weren’t the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind invited to this feast? 

Probably because the host was afraid.  Afraid of them.  Afraid of what having them there would do to his reputation.  Afraid, because he understood so little about them.  Afraid that, maybe, they would try to steal from him, and perhaps even kill him to get what they wanted. 

He’d been told that that’s what those people do.

Would his fear have been rational?  I don’t know.  What do you think?

Jesus seemed to spend an awful lot of time with the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and they never hurt him.  In fact, it was the respectable, honorable people who had it in for him, and who eventually killed him. 

All those guys at the dinner, they had so much to lose.  A big part of their fear was losing what they had.  They had so much, that it would be a big risk to invite those who had so little.  They loved their possessions more than the people of their city, and were afraid to sacrifice their possessions for the sake of the people.

Fear is perhaps the greatest impediment to genuine hospitality.  Inviting a stranger into your home is a lot easier if you don’t have much.  But if you have a house filled with expensive things, fear is going to make you think twice about inviting a stranger in, especially if that stranger looks different than you, dresses different than you, talks different than you, or comes from a different class than you.

This week I came across the words of religion professor Paul Wadell, who asks:  “How do we forge bonds of friendship with the very persons we are trained to view suspiciously?”

More often, he admits, “we build barriers because of ethnic and racial differences. We build barriers on the basis of economic, social, or political differences.

“Barriers pop up when differences of gender, physical or mental ability, educational background, or religion render us closed and inhospitable. Or we settle behind barriers on account of prejudice, grudges, unhealed hurts, or painful memories. Instead of nurturing friendship and intimacy, we foster disconnection and estrangement.”

Is the fear behind our reluctance to welcome strangers justified? 

Ever since we moved to Long Beach, our kids have been able to wander up and down the street, going back and forth freely to their friend’s house who lives at the other end of the block.  Now, when we first moved to town, we heard the same phrase from different people at different times:  “this is a nice neighborhood, but it is still Long Beach.”  The implication was that dangerous things do happen in Long Beach.

Most parents these days are increasingly protective of their children.  They’d keep them in bubble wrap at all times if they could, which seems kind of ridiculous (although, now that I think about it, it does give me an idea for a game we can play at youth group…)  Children don’t walk to school anymore…. I walked three blocks to school every day, by myself, starting when I was six.  Kids don’t do that anymore.  It’s not that the world has become more dangerous.  Statistically speaking, a child walking to school is safer today than he or she would have been in past generations.  The danger hasn’t grown; only the fear has grown. Their parents are too afraid.

A few years ago a New York mother named Lenore Skenazy wrote an article titled, “Why I Let My 9 Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone.”  The opening sentences of that article read, “I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale's a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door.

“Bye-bye! Have fun!

“And he did.  He came home on the subway and the bus.  By himself.”

She wrote that, for weeks, her son had been asking her to leave him somewhere and let him figure out how to get home on his own.  He wanted that adventure.  Boys need adventures like that as part of their development into men. So she did.  She left him with some money, a subway map, and a Metro Card.

She was worried, yes.  She feared what might happen to him.  But she evaluated the risk, and decided it was worth taking.

Her son came home safely.

She wrote that half the people she told this story to wanted to turn her in for child abuse.  Apparently parents these days are supposed to be like Marlin, the father in the movie Finding Nemo, who wanted to keep his son close, sheltered, and protected at all times, because the world is just too dangerous, so that nothing could ever happen to him.

But of course, something does happen to Nemo; and to Marlin, this just reinforces how dangerous the world is, and how he should have tried even harder to protect and shelter Nemo. 

With great sadness, he says, “I promised I’d never let anything happen to him.”

But Dory says, “Huh.  That’s a funny thing to promise.”

Marlin says, “What?”

And Dory says, “Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him.  Then nothing would ever happen to him.  Not much fun for little Harpo…”

Haven’t we all become just a little too much like Marlin?  Afraid to take a risk?  Closing ourselves off to the world, afraid to extend a hand to a stranger?  Afraid to associate with someone who’s not like us?  Afraid to offer hospitality?  Afraid to do anything?

We don’t even sit on our porches anymore, most of us.  We hide away inside our homes, with the curtains closed, watching TV or catching up on facebook. 

And yet hospitality – that ancient virture – does require that we take a risk.  The good Samaritan who helped the injured traveler took a risk.  By standing in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, Jesus took a risk.  Showing the love that Jesus showed and which he calls us to show requires that we take a risk. 

In the fourth chapter of 1 John it says:  “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness.”  Love is perfected when we have boldness.  Love requires us to take a risk, a bold risk.  And you know, nothing I’ve said today is meant to imply that you will be kept safe. 

That boy on the subway: something could have happened to him.  His mom knew that.  And she knew that she would be devastated if something bad did happen to him.  But she realized that although there was a risk, it probably was not as great as her perception of the risk was. She knew that media reports ignite fear and make things seem worse than they are.  She also knew that the growth and development of a boy requires him to take some risks.  So she courageously gave him the freedom and the adventure he needed. 

Love is perfected in boldness.  1 John goes on to say that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear;” well, I might re-word that to say that perfect love overcomes fear; and whoever allows fear to keep them from extending hospitality has not reached perfection in love.  Whoever allows fear to keep them from welcoming a stranger to table has not reached perfection in love. 

“For those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

Even when it takes us outside our comfort zone.  Even when there is real or perceived risk involved.

In 1573 Italian painter Paolo Veronese painted a Last Supper scene for the rear wall of a refectory of a Dominican friary.  However, it immediately generated a controversy.  The Roman Catholic Inquisition launched an investigation, and Veronese was called to answer for irreverence indecorum, and heresy.

The Inquisition asked him to explain why the painting contained “buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs and other such scurrilities…”  The judges found it offensive that such types of people would even be near the Last Supper of Jesus.  They told Veronese that he had three months in which to change the painting.  Instead, he simply changed the title to The Feast in the House of Levi, and the judges were apparently satisfied with that.  Jesus did associate with lower classes, and it was okay to picture that… but not at a meal as sacred as the Last Supper.  At that most sacred meal, the Inquisitors found it offensive that Jesus would be associating with riff raff, as if the disciples themselves didn’t come from that same riff raff.

A more modern version of the Last Supper, by photographer David Lachapelle, is similar in its ability to capture people’s attention.  Instead of showing unrespectable, unwelcome guests lingering around the Last Supper, this 2003 artwork portrays the disciples themselves as outcasts of society. 

It’s easy to look at an image like this and feel fear.  Anxiety.  Perhaps even revulsion.  Because we want our Jesus to be safe, and we want to be assured of safety in following him. 

But Jesus didn’t choose the safe route.  He chose the route through Samaria.  He chose the table with the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  He chose to love, even when loving was risky or dangerous. 

And that’s what Jesus calls us to do.  We are called to love boldly.  We are called to love in spite of our fear.  We are called to love even when love is dangerous. 

Love is not for the weak or the timid, but for those who are strong and courageous.  Let us, then, pray for the strength and the courage to love.