Kendall's Notebook Page 7
The Hospitality of Jesus
March 9, 2003
Mark 1: 9-15
Preaching: Kendall Brown
This morning’s message serves as a kick-off for our Lenten series starting this coming Wednesday. The Lenten theme for our Wed. evening services will be “hospitality.”
This morning, I want to focus on the hospitality at work in Jesus’ own ministry. What Jesus did defines what we should be doing. Hospitality was at the heart of Jesus’ work throughout his life.
He was the very model of a gracious host in countless situations. On the last night of his life, the role he chose to play with his disciples was that of host at the Last Supper. He made reservations for a meal with them in a special place. He sent disciples ahead to make sure that all was in order. When he got there, he washed his disciples’ feet and had a place for each and every one of them at his table – even a place for the one who he knew was in a process of betraying him.
We miss the mark if we do not understand that hospitality is for Jesus the very nature of love. If love is the spirit, then hospitality is the body by which love is made known.
The Last Supper was hardly the first time that Jesus played host and exercised hospitality. A prelude to his ministry was his forty days in the wilderness. Even in the wilderness experience, Jesus’ defined and exercised hospitality.
According to all the early reports as we find them in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus came face to face with the devil in the wilderness. That stand-off has the makings of a mighty awesome encounter!
The two rulers of the universe – the Prince of Peace and the Prince of darkness, spent a few moments eyeball to eyeball. The universe can only stand so many of this kind of encounter!
I don’t know about you, but with these two universal giants in the same room, I’d expect some sparks to fly. But let us look a little closer at those accounts – especially as the details are
drawn out by Matthew and Luke in stories that Mark only passes over with a quick reference.
The sparks did not fly! Indeed, the Devil was most hostile towards Jesus. If Jesus is the model of hospitality, the devil does an excellent job of playing to the hilt the model of hostility.
It might be surprising to some of you how the Devil was hostile to Jesus, because when we look at hostility at work in these wilderness passages, we might find ourselves looking at some things that are pretty close to home. There is a little more Devil, and the Devil’s hostility, in each of us then we care to admit.
One of the biggest temptations in reading the temptation narratives is the temptation to not see ourselves in the Devil or our own actions as the very mirror image of the Devil’s actions.
The Devil was a master at using some of the world’s most common forms of hostility. In his temptations, we can see the Devil trying to use Jesus, manipulate Jesus, and to get Jesus under his control.
Those, three things: to use people, to manipulate people, and to control people are the essence of hostility. One of the most brutal
forms of controlling people is slavery. Sometimes controlling people in family systems and in other sets of relationships can be much more subtle than slavery, but no less brutal to the soul and person.
Prostitution is the use of one person by another person totally for the user’s pleasure and purposes. Prostitution is dehumanizing in that use.
God does not call us to be users of other people. In terms of today’s message, we are called to be hosts to each other, offering to others who are outside of ourselves the hospitality of Christ.
We often think of hostility only in physical terms. Hostility is threatening someone, shouting at someone, injuring someone or shooting another and taking his or her life. Hostility is more than mere physical action.
Hostility is a stance towards other, a position one takes, the stance and position of the Devil, which assumes that others are there to be used,
or to manipulate or to control for one’s own pleasure or purpose.
A part of the Devil’s manipulative game to get Jesus under his control was his refusal to affirm or to recognize Jesus’ boundaries. Like all hostile people, he figured that everyone, including Jesus fell inside his boundaries.
You have got to give the devil credit where credit is due. He has a hell of an ego! And with that ego, that all consuming egocentricity of his, he figured that he could even invade Jesus’ quiet time with God in the wilderness. Hostile people do that – they learn it from the devil – they put their noses where their noses don’t belong and then they have the gall to get upset when their noses get bent all out of shape. We don’t think of it very often in this way – it might be good for us if we did – but having one’s nose in someone else’s business is an incredibly hostile act. The Devil was very good at doing this. *See post script.
But now, let us look at Jesus and how, in the face of the Devil’s hostility, he responded with
hospitality. First of all, in response to the wilderness attach from his arch enemy, Jesus did not offer hostility for hostility. We would have.
But Jesus didn’t. He did not respond by shouting at the Devil to get lost or by punching him in the nose. Jesus did not respond to the Devil by going on the defensive, as the Devil attempted to lure Jesus into his control with the temptations. (The Devil didn’t just want Jesus to stumble and fall. The Devil wanted to own Jesus.) Defensiveness was not a part of Jesus’ response for it is itself a hostile act. Neither did Jesus try to win the Devil over to his side in the school of thinking that the best defense is a strong offense. Jesus did not respond to the Devil’s assault by trying to control or win the Devil over. Jesus did nothing like any of this, neither did Jesus lie down and let the Devil use him for a doormat.
If Jesus did none of the above, what did he do? This question is best answered in term of who Jesus was, not in terms of what he did. Read the temptation accounts again this Lent. There you will find a man at peace with himself and with God, even in the face-to-face presence of the Devil. Out of that deep inner peace within him, Jesus responded to the Devil with hospitality. Yes, hospitality!
We think of hospitality as a set of actions such as saying to others, “Have a nice day,” or remembering to be polite, or asking our friends over for dinner. The Biblical understanding of hospitality runs much deeper, and we see that depth in Jesus with the Devil in the wilderness. In the presence of the Devil, we might not be inclined to be polite, not to mention hospitable. But Jesus was hospitable. He reached into the deep hospitable peace of his soul. From the peace of his inner center, he called forth and offered the Devil a hospitality that allowed the Devil to be the Devil.
Jesus clearly saw that the Devil had his boundaries and that he, Jesus, had his own, too. Hostility is an attack on boundaries and the Devil was engaged in a full frontal assault upon Jesus’ space. Hospitality is a recognition and affirmation of boundaries. Jesus response to the Devil was to say, “I know what my boundaries are, I am the beloved son of God as my baptism witnessed, and Mr. Devil, you can’t step into my space and take it away from me. You cannot lure me out of my place with God to come over to your place and be under your control.” This response carried the strength of a person at peace with himself and was extremely hospitable. This response had no place in it for becoming defensive or going on the attack. If Jesus had done either of those two things, he would have been playing right into the Devil’s hand by playing the Devil’s own game. By playing his own game, the game of peace-filled hospitality, Jesus stopped the Devil in his tracks and turned him on his tail.
The hospitality that Jesus presented to the Devil in the wilderness was carried with him throughout his life. His hospitality allowed others the space and place to be who God calls them to be. His hospitality does not say to others, “This is my god and for us to be friends, my God must be your God.” His hospitality does not say, “These are my beliefs and in order for us to be under the same roof, my beliefs must become your beliefs.” His hospitality did not say, “My sexuality is such-and-such and for me to be hospitable to you, your sexuality must be the same as mine.” His hospitality offers others the freedom of space and place to maintain the boundaries that God has given them. This hospitality is Jesus’ peace and comes from a heart that because Jesus is at peace with himself and with his God he is able to be at peace with others, even those who are hostile towards him.
“On earth, peace goodwill towards all,” sang the angels at Jesus’ birth. “My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I…” said Jesus to his disciples before he left the world. That peace is found in the soul, which has opened itself in hospitality to the presence and power of God.
“May there be peace on earth, may it begin with me.”
Postscript: Hostility is a product of egocentricity. The more ego-centric one becomes, the less hospitable one is capable of being. Our world today has some mighty devilish and hostile egocentrics around and about. Among them, Saddam and Ben laden. Today’s lesson, however offers, some definition to the Christian response to terrorists. Jesus did not respond to the Devil’s hostility with hostility. He did not become the Devil’s ward by falling into playing the Devil’s own game. On the international level, our country has much to learn from the way Jesus responded to the Devil’s terrorism without becoming a terrorist himself.