May 21, 2006: Who Invited You?
Acts 10:44-48, John 15:12-14, Psalm 98
Eileen Parfrey       Springwater Presbyterian

My grandfather was the kind of person of whom it could be said, "He never met a stranger." We spent summers together on a remote island in the Canadian wilderness where it was his habit to wave in passing boats from his dock. He was a man of big gestures, and I'm pretty sure that when people who had never seen him before saw him waving at them to come in, they must have thought we were in some kind of trouble and needed help. "C'mon in!" he'd shout. When they got to the dock, he would ask them up for a cup of coffee, enticing them further with fresh wild blueberry coffee cake. More often than not, we'd end up sitting at the kitchen table, swapping stories of old days on the lake and where the fish were biting. His hospitality didn't distinguish between the Indian fishermen (who always accepted) and Clare Booth Luce (who declined coffee).

Hospitality is the subject of one point in Springwater's new Mission Statement. It reads, "To reach out and offer a sacred space for health, growth, comfort, and renewal." Picture Springwater standing on the dock, waving in passersby. "C'mon on!" With us, it's about more than coffee. We say it's about sacred space, and that we offer it out of Christian hospitality.

Both scripture passages today are about hospitality. Peter and Cornelius are prepared by visions for revolutionary changes in their notions of hospitality. Peter accepts the invitation to come to Cornelius, to receive hospitality from not just any Gentile, but an agent-of-the-oppressor Gentile. He in turn offers the hospitality of faith to a hated outsider, proving once again that sometimes hospitality is just as uncomfortable to give as it is to receive. He doesn't wait to find out what the focus groups say or to test the demographics of their target audience. Would our current bureaucracy still be forming a task force while Cornelius grew old and died waiting for us to show up?

People offer hospitality; institutions do not. Jesus says as much when he puts hospitality in the context of love and friendship. The disciples are friends, but they are friends of Jesus first, not of each other. A friends is someone with whom you can be yourself, and this is important for how we talk about our goal of offering sacred space for health, growth, comfort, and renewal. Sacred space is where we can be wholly and completely ourselves with God-no strings attached.

When we speak of offering sacred space, presumably we mean to offer it for ourselves as well as for others, but we started the statement by speaking of "reach out," as in "move outside our comfort zone." This is the Peter and Cornelius thing, where the strangers to whom we offer sacred space might be our equivalent of "Gentiles." Maybe people with mental illness or some visible disability or a different skin color. Or people in a different social or economic class than ours-either much higher or much lower, both would be uncomfortable. Or immigrants, people who can't speak English. Are we sure we want to do that?

There is a part of me that wonders why we are only offering sacred space. Why aren't we offering ourselves? Didn't Jesus say, "Love each other as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends"? Isn't faithfulness and discipleship about more than being rental agents and real estate promoters? Aren't we supposed to put ourselves on the line? To offer sacred space, we must first be sacred space. Not just this patch of ground, this building, these paths and landscaping. To be sacred space, we must make room for the holy in our lives, create sacred space in how we use our time.

One of my friends just experienced a time conversion. She is notorious for filling her life up to the minute-effective and productive use of time, she says. Her conversion came through her sister, who one day called her on the time thing, pointing out that she'd been complaining of "being too busy" for years. My friend realized that her busy-ness was how she held people away. As if she was afraid that if someone got too close, actually got to know her, they'd find out she was a fraud, that she wasn't as lovable as she tried to come across, nor as noble and selfless as she was cracked up to be, and certainly not as smart as she claimed. And then, she realized with a sinking feeling, she wasn't just doing that to people. She was holding God away. She was so busy "doing God's work" that she didn't have time to be with God. Her conversion, like Peter's, was a realization that since God is not bound by the rules we control, since God loves even "Gentiles," she might have to re-interpret God's work and change her practice. She might have to be.

Time is one way of creating sacred space. Friendship is another way, especially when it allows people to be more like themselves and not necessarily like us. When we offer sacred space, it means more than the labyrinth and outdoor worship area and sanctuary. It means being a safe place for people to bring questions and to express doubts without feeling judged or being told what they "ought" to believe. Being a place where growth and renewal can mean "re-examine" without our checking up on them to make sure they make the grade or fulfill the course requirements. Being a place where "health" means the possibility of just being.

Toward the end of June, two pastors from Portland will make a pilgrimage. Like all pilgrims, these men will make their pilgrimage as an act of devotion and not necessarily to "accomplish" anything. They will have as their destination a hospitable place where God is worshiped and experienced, where the holy is invoked through art and architecture and landscape as well as by word and action. Their destination is the place we offer, but their pilgrimage will be about journey. They intend to ride the Springwater Trail out to the Springwater Church, and the work and effort of that day's journey, as well as the weeks of training leading up to it, are as much a part of their pilgrimage as what they do when they arrive here. Part of our offering sacred space means we can support them by praying for them on the days of their pilgrimage and as they prepare for it.

How else can we prepare ourselves to be a pilgrimage destination? We can begin by practicing hospitality, by standing on the dock and shouting, "C'mon in!" By making room for the Corneliuses and Peters who will come our way. Here is a story of that type of hospitality. A man visited a house church, gathered literally in a house, not a church building. The sanctuary was the living room, which had been filled with chairs. The visitor entered, noticing that most of the chairs were already occupied and that a group of folks leaned against one wall. An usher met him at the door, showed him to an empty chair, and invited him to sit. He felt lucky to have gotten one of the empty chairs, but as he watched, the usher tapped a few of the seated folks on the shoulder. They stood up and joined the group at the wall. The visitor realized that by anticipating visitors yet to come, the congregation made their space more welcoming. They knew that if all the chairs were filled when a visitor arrived, the visitor would feel uncomfortable that someone was asked to stand on their behalf. By always having a few empty chairs, there is always room for strangers.

If we thought of our Mission Statement the way my grampa thought of passing boats, we should be picking the blueberries right now and putting on the coffee, while the rest of us stand on the dock, watching for boats to come by so we can wave and call out, "C'mon in!" Sacred space doesn't just happen. It takes time. It takes friendship. It takes welcome. It takes God breaking a few of our pre-conceived rules. In the meantime, we can already be praying for the people who haven't arrived yet. "C'mon in!"