First Church in Cambridge, Congregational UCC
18 July 2004
Finders Keepers
This parish has a congregational vision, the result of a long and rich visioning process about what God is calling us to become. We call the vision: a way of hospitality. We speak of the Open Door. The Open Spirit. The Open Road. The Open Table. We have called a second pastor, a Minister of Christian Discipleship, to help us live into that vision, and he arrives in less than two weeks. We look forward to the day when we can claim with confidence that Hospitality R Us.
We are not unique in having a hospitality agenda, of course. If you read the signs in front of churches these days, lots of them feature hospitality slogans. Let's face it. Hospitality is part of today's zeitgeist. But we really mean it. We know how to talk the talk of hospitality, and with God's help, we want learn more about walking the walk.
So let's get down to the nuts and bolts. Let's talk about our weekly chance to revel in God's hospitality and to mirror that hospitality to each other. Let's talk about ... coffee hour!
At churches across the nation, nay the continent, nay the world, Sunday worship is followed by food and fellowship. There's a vast literature about worship—the what-to's, why-to's, and how-to's of worship. Wouldn't you think there'd also be a sizeable literature about the theology and spirituality of the coffee hour? Especially since many of us spend roughly the same amount of time there as here in worship? Oh, there are bits of advice floating around. Some churches swear by having guests use special red coffee mugs to self-identify as visitors. Others use a two-minute rule. The two minute rule says that you can't talk with anybody you already know for the first two minutes of coffee hour.
But really, do we need gimmicks? Or do we just need some help remembering who the real host of coffee hour is, and who the guests may be?
* * *
Consider this morning's story about Abraham, who leaves the shade of his tent in the heat of the day, because he sees travelers coming. He doesn't seem to know who they are at first. The narrator does, but it's not entirely clear at what point Abraham figures it out, though clearly it's not an everyday visitor who promises you a child when your wife is 90 years old, and you yourself are 100. But even without knowing who they are, Abraham makes haste to offer them hospitality. He runs from the tent to meet the visitors. He hastens back into the tent to talk to Sarah, and bids her make bread quickly. He runs to choose a calf and gives it to a servant, who hastens to prepare it. In addition to the speed, there's a protocol for hospitality: when you see visitors, hurry to meet them, greet them with courtesy, invite them in, offer refreshment, serve them, and pay close attention to them.1
Martha and Mary's visitor is not stranger, but their teacher and friend, Jesus. They welcome him to their home, and Mary sets about listening to him, while Martha gets to work. There's a feminist reading of the Martha and Mary story that notices that the Greek word used for Martha's tasks is the same as the word used for the disciples' service. There is after all nothing in the passage that explicitly says that Martha is in the kitchen plugging in the coffee pot and setting out the toll house cookies. It's just generally assumed that she is "worried and distracted" by housework and meal preparation. She could, instead, be busy with the work of the household of God. But whatever tasks are occupying her time and energy, one thing is clear. She fluffs her duties as a host. Unlike Abraham, who got his guests settled, went off to see to the preparations, and then returned to pay attention to his guests, Martha is off and working, and comes back only to see if triangulation with Jesus will get her the help she wants from her sister.
Can't you just see Martha at coffee hour? It's her big chance to work. There she is, buttonholing everybody she needs to talk with about all of her committee work. Oh, that cream pitcher is empty, no worries, Martha's taking care of it. Looking for someone to write an article for the newsletter? Ask a busy person—ask Martha, if you can get her attention for a minute. But productive as she is—and as familiar as she sounds—maybe we don't want to use her as our model of hospitality.
* * *
A friend's family has two little kids named Annie and Josh. One day, when another child was coming to visit, their father overheard this conversation. Annie said to Josh, "When Sam comes over, we have to share our toys."
Josh replied, "I don't want to."
"Well, you're going to share," said Annie.
Josh whined, "Why do we have to?"
And Annie answered solemnly: "Nobody knows. We just do."
But of course we do know. We are to love our neighbors. And the author of Hebrews tells us not to neglect showing hospitality to strangers, "for by doing that, some have entertained angels without knowing it" (Hebrews 13:2).
There are lots of stories in the Bible, besides the ones we heard today, about hosts who offer hospitality to strangers and by doing so are brought into a closer relationship with God. For example, there's the Shunammite woman who showed hospitality to Elisha and then bore the son the he promised her (2 Kings 4:8-37), and the disciples who showed hospitality to Jesus on the road to Emmaeus, even though they didn't recognize him (Luke 24:13-35).
And there's the widow of Zarephath, who offered hospitality to Elijah and then found her supplies of flour and oil to be inexhaustible (1 Kings 17:8-16). And that, incidentally, is a pretty good metaphor for God's hospitality. It never runs out. There's plenty to go around. It's like the flour and oil, like the loaves and fishes—after everybody's fed, there's still an abundance left over. It's not a finders keepers, losers weepers situation. We don't need to hoard God's hospitality for ourselves. All of us are finders and keepers, and there's no need for anyone ever to be a loser.
Unless, of course, we are at coffee hour, and we forget to share God's hospitality with them.
I'm among the guilty. I look forward to coffee hour for the conversation with my friends, and for getting a bit of church business done. When I took a week off from my field work and came home to First Church for Pentecost, Miss Minnie Taylor tried to flag me down at coffee hour to say hello ... but I had church business to attend to. "I'll be back," I assured her. But by the time I was done with my business and looked around for Miss Minnie, she had already gone home. I can be such a Martha.
So what's a congregation to do, besides open a chapter of Marthas Anonymous?
* * *
Well. My friend Ellen is a regular customer at Coldwater Creek, a purveyor of women's fashions. In fact, she's such a good customer that she was invited to become a Secret Shopper. She goes undercover to a Coldwater Creek store, spends a $100 gift certificate on merchandise of her choice, then afterwards fills out a questionnaire to rate her experience of the store's hospitality—and she gets to keep the clothes she bought! Six times she's gotten to do this. Six hundred dollars worth of Coldwater Creek clothes! (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ... wardrobe.)
The UCC has picked up on the secret shopper idea as a tool for parishes to use to learn about themselves. I am not making this up. They encourage parishes to arrange for what you might call Secret Worshippers to visit on a Sunday morning and then fill out a questionnaire called the "Guest's Checklist for Hospitality" to rate their experience of the parish's hospitality.2 It asks the Secret Worshipper to answer important questions like: Were modern technologies utilized during worship? and Were there adequate parking spaces? But there aren't any questions about the Secret Worshipper's experience of hospitality at coffee hour.
Peter Wells has, tongue in cheek, filled that hospitality questionnaire gap with what he calls the "Unofficial United Church of Christ Welcoming IQ Quiz" for parishioners. Question 5: "Where is your nametag right now?" Question 6: "You may know the way to San Jose, but can you tell me how to get to a bath room?"3
And then there's Question 10. Question 10 is where the rubber meets the road: "Do you serve decaf or high test coffee at your coffee hour and how do you make sure the visitor doesn't have to drink the stuff alone?" The first part is easy to answer. We serve both, hallelujah, and they're really good. The second part is harder. We want to do it well. We admit we are still learning how.
If I were going to write my own First Church coffee hour hospitality survey instrument, I would base it on the biblical protocol for hospitality. It would ask: Did someone, as Abraham did, hurry to meet you? Did someone greet you with courtesy? invite you in? offer refreshment? serve you? share conversation with you? invite you to join the parish's spiritual journey?
* * *
In this summer of war, fire, flood, plague, and political conventions, why should we care about hospitality within this parish household of ours? Because this is where we gather to wrestle with what is happening out there, and with what God is calling us to do about it. Because this is where we model the Kingdom of God on earth. Because it starts here.
There's a plaque in the parish house foyer that says:
For an hour or a lifetime,There you have it. All you really need to know about coffee hour—about sharing God's hospitality—etched on a sheet of glass.
You are invited to join us in this community of Christ—the Open Door!
to attend to God's unfolding and reconciling word—the Open Spirit!
to walk in all our ways according to the rule of the gospel—the Open Road!
to be living stones in God's building, responding together to God's call—the Open Table!
With God's help, let's make it so.
1New Interpreters Bible, vol. 1, p. 463.
2http://www.macucc.org/emj/hospitality.htm
3http://www.macucc.org/ucnews/may04/quiz.htm
© 2004, Marian Williams