Well-aged wines ...

From the lectionary texts for this week, Isaiah 25:6-9.
Hear the word of the Lord:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make
for all peoples a feast of rich food,
a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow,
of well-aged wines strained clear.

And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.

Then the Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people
he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.

It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God;
we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the LORD for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

The voice of Isaiah brings word of the remarkable hospitality of God. Does the miraculous work of Jesus (John 2), where he makes water into wine at the wedding feast, fulfill this promise? Partially, but not perfectly. Even that marvelous move for hospitality at Cana did not completely bring the promised hospitality of which Isaiah speaks so longingly. How could it while we are still in this broken world? When Jesus says, “Woman, my hour is not yet come,” Jesus seems to be saying that it is not yet time for him to host the great celebration meant for the end of all time. It still isn’t time for perfect hospitality.

So we stand in tension. On one hand, we believe that the kingdom of God will, in the fullness of all time, bring the perfect and amazing banquet in heaven itself, presided over by God himself. At this table there is no exclusion, no pain, no disgrace, no death. There will be providence, peace, and salvation.

On the other hand, we believe that our job as messengers of the kingdom is to offer hospitality to a broken world today. Just because we can’t do it perfectly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to do it better. So while we ought to expect that we can and will be more perfectly hospitable, we need to guard our hearts from the false expectation that we are going to do this perfectly in this life. We will not.

We are in the middle. Before, hospitality did not seem so important. In eternity, it is God’s way of welcoming his people into perfection. Now we are challenged to offer the best that we have, and to forgive when what we receive inevitably falls short of flawless. We have to wait; Isaiah tells us so twice: “we have waited for him, so that he might save us”; and “This is the Lord for whom we have waited.”

We can afford to be patient because God will keep God’s promise. God will not allow that patience to go unrewarded; when the time is right, those who have waited will receive from his hands what only his ways can produce: well-aged wine.

Grace and peace,

Ron

Receiving hospitality

Some years ago I traveled in Panama on a mission trip with a group of teenage youth. We walked through a neighborhood (not the poorest, and not the richest, but nonetheless, people of very humble means) inviting the children and their parents to come to a gospel meeting that the local church was having every evening. These families were very, very poor in comparison to United States families. In the middle of one particularly steamy afternoon, one of the families we were visiting showed their hospitality to my two young companions and myself by inviting us to share some refreshment with them. I politely declined, but the head of the household would not hear of it. One of the children was dispatched to get a Coca-Cola, and the mother went into the corner that was a kitchen to prepare something. Perhaps this family remembered the words of the Hebrew writer:

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
- Hebrews 13:2 - NRSV

We certainly knew that we were no angels. If God had given us wings, we might have been too tempted to fly away. Out of embarrassment. I looked over into the eyes my partners to see if they understood just what was about to happen. Both gave me a quick nod of comprehension. We had been clearly warned, more than once, to be careful about what we ate and drank. The local water supply was such that food or drink prepared from it could easily inflict a fairly severe physical revenge upon us. But these young people understood clearly the issues. Whatever we were about to eat, however carefully prepared, however tasty, it held the potential to make us all really ill. On top of that, the cost of this afternoon's refreshment was easily equivalent to several hours' worth of labor for the father. And because of the brevity of our stay, we knew that it was highly unlikely that we would ever be able to repay them. Yet we all understood that to decline would be to inflict the worst possible insult upon this humble family.

We smiled. They smiled. We ate. It was delicious. We drank. It was cold. We smiled bigger. We gave them our sincere thanks, and continued on with our afternoon's work. God, in his traveling mercies, protected us from any unintended negative consequences. Instead he filled our hearts with fond memories of warm conversation and cool refreshment in the midst of a hot day. All of this with a beautiful family who clearly understood the biblical notion of hospitality.

Hear the words of Jesus:

"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."
- Luke 14:12-14 - NRSV

Now, it wasn't Sunday when we had our Panamanian banquet, and the elements of the meal were not those we use for the Lord's Supper, but I hope that we all realize that there was something holy about that meal. The sacred and the mundane are not separated, not encased, but connected permeably, so that each of these flows from one to the other in our lives. Partaking of the bread at the Lord's Table can never be completely removed from whether or not we share hunger-preventing bread with the poor whom we encounter. When things are right, the richer will share with the poorer. The girls and I would certainly have been much more comfortable if we could have treated this humble family to the banquet of their lives, but God chose to use their generosity to teach us a lesson about what real hospitality really means.

One of these days I hope that God repays this family for their kindness. Something bigger than a Coca-Cola and a snack. Perhaps it will please God at the end of time (or the beginning of eternity?) when we are all in heaven to allow the girls and I to bring a meal to the heavenly table of this beautiful family. Not that we could or would be the host; no, that will be God's place. The girls and I will merely be the servants of God, showing respect, showing hospitality, bringing providence, where both hospitality and providence are due.

Who will want to be at the table with us?

Grace and peace,

Ron