Sermon preached at Christchurch, 15th August 1999
2 Kings 4:1-37
Acts 16:1-15
Castle-building
Well, we have almost got it done.
The pictures are up, the carpet’s down.
All we need now is a few toilet roll holders and we are done. And it is a fantastic house, with lovely
colours, and lots of space for the children.
Our bedroom is a cosy little retreat, and the lounge is a comfortable
place to relax. Everything’s just
perfect. As we’ve been moving in and
getting it straight I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a home, and
what, as Christians God wants us to do with the places we live in. Is an Englishman or woman’s home really his
castle? Is that really a Christian
idea? If we do make our homes into
castles designed just the way we want them then how on earth are we ever going
to open our hearts and lives to each other in a meaningful way? It can a great thing but also a very
vulnerable experience to open your home to someone. I’m thinking of for example the
young man who called his mother and announced excitedly that he had just
met the woman of his dreams. Now what should he do? His mother had an idea.
“Why don t you send her flowers, and on the card invite her to your apartment
for a home-cooked meal?” He thought this
was a great strategy, and a week later, the woman came to dinner. His mother
called the next day to see how things had gone. “I was totally humiliated,” he
moaned. “She insisted on washing the dishes.” “What's wrong with that?” asked
his mother. “We hadn't started eating yet!” said the son.
We are faced with a several factors in the way life functions in Britain
today which make it very difficult for our homes to be open to each other at
all. If we are going to have I don’t
know how many times I've heard people
talk about a time during, for example, the war, when people always left their
doors open and would watch television in each others' homes. The home was an open place. Now however, there are three factors which
characterise the way we live, and which I would suggest make up the three walls
around which we build our homes as if they were castles. The first is this (a drill) -
do-it-yourself. We no longer need anyone. Our homes are organised so that everything
we need is at our fingertips - cooking, cleaning, washing, dishwashing, etc.
etc. As a nation we are encouraged to
do all our household repairs, gardening ourselves. The ideal is for everyone to have a full set of garden tools, a
full set of paint brushes, a workshop, plumbing, fixing, rewiring tools. Self-sufficiency is the keyword. This has only been possible in my lifetime
and adverts are permanently trying to convince us that this is what we really
want. Not only that, but we seem to
have the idea that, as home is the only place where we can truly be ourselves
at all, we need to protect this space from others who might come in and
threaten our identity. And this brings
me to the second phenomenon of recent times - privacy. (headphones) Privacy has the status of a human right in our
society. If we don't get our space, we
feel aggrieved. But this is primarily a
cultural thing. When Ruth and I lived
in China, there was substantially less emphasis on the need to be private. You lived with the people you ate with. Junior staff at a school slept in
dormitories. There were no cubicles in
public lavatories. It's a very strange
experience drawing a crowd by going to the loo in a public toilet! Jesus, too, didn't place a great deal
of value on the need for privacy. In fact, the only context in which we read
anything about the need to be private in the Bible, is when its purpose is to
help us to pray better. We don't read
"Jesus got a bit fed up with everyone and needed some private space." We read "Jesus withdrew to a quiet place
to pray." I'm not suggesting it's
not good to be alone sometimes, but I am saying that privacy isn't perhaps a
right which Christians should spend a lot of their time upholding.
And finally I have here a remote control, to symbolise the third wall of
our castles. We love to control the
environments we live in. Everything where we live is arranged exactly
as we want it. Who comes in, who goes
out. The ridiculous extreme of this is
apparently Bill Gates' home, where apparently every friend of his is tagged
with a special code which registers their details. When they walk into a room, their code is electronically
recognised, and they will hear their favourite music and see their favourite
artists on multimedia screens. Over the
last few centuries, our control over our environment has become socially
relevant. In the middle ages, an urban
craftsman would share his home with his apprentices, and they would all eat
around the same table. Even in
Victorian times, rich and poor would live very close to each other - the master
and servant in the same house - now we live in areas where everyone is from the
same social background as us, and so if you live in a so-called posh area, you
could possibly avoid ever having to see anyone needy at all. We have to ask ourselves what the effect of
this is on our social consciences, on our response to the needs in God's world.
Self-sufficiency, privacy and control.
These are perhaps the walls from which we construct our homes, or
castles. But in these two readings, the
Shunammite woman in the Old Testament and Lydia in the reading from Acts are
both wealthy women - if they were around today they would probably be living in
one of the big houses down Belmont Crescent - whose instinct is to open their
homes in a way that is entirely different.
The Shunammite woman urges Elisha to stop for a meal. She would have washed his feet after his
long journey as well, as this was the Israelite custom. Lydia urges the apostles and prevails upon
them to stay at her home. Their invitation
is a response to the love and grace of God in their lives. It's a love that makes them want to open up
their homes and lives, not in a half-hearted way because they feel they ought
to, but in a way which is almost embarrassing in its persistence. They feel wanted by God, and they want their
guests to feel wanted too. It's a great
gift to make someone feel wanted in your home.
The Growth into Action team were telling me how they had been invited
round to someone's house in the parish this week, and been cooked a special
meal. That had made them feel wanted
here above all. When Ruth and I moved
to Swindon, as you know we couldn't move in to Upham Road, and it was Judy and
Phil's welcome in Bath Road, letting us stay in their house for a month, that
helped us to stay sane.
The Shunammite woman said to her husband, "Let's make a room for
Elisha. Let's give him a bed, a table,
a chair, a lamp, so that he can stay here whenever he comes to us." There is something very healing to us when
we are in need about people simply giving us the space to be with them in their
homes without any expectations. I
remember working in a church when I was eighteen and having a very rough time. I went to stay with some friends for a few
days. They didn't do anything out of
the ordinary, they just let me live alongside them, but it gave me the space
and the acceptance I needed to cope.
And the best thing was that they didn't expect anything back for their
hospitality - it was offered to me freely, without any strings attached.
Isn't that what hospitality is? Being able to offer your space to someone as their space. The quality of our home doesn't have to be that great. It's the fact that we offer it at all that counts. I read this in a book recently about the differences between entertaining and hospitality:
Entertaining says, “I want to impress you with my home, my clever
decorating, my cooking.” Hospitality, seeking to minister, says, “This home is
a gift from my Master. I use it as He desires.” Hospitality aims to serve.
Entertaining puts things before people. “As soon as I get the house
finished, the living room decorated, my housecleaning done—then I will start
inviting people. Hospitality puts people first. “No furniture—we ll eat on the
floor!” “The decorating may never get done—you come anyway.” “The house is a
mess—but you are friends—come home with us.”
Entertaining subtly declares, “This home is mine, an expression of my
personality. Look, please, and admire.” Hospitality whispers, “What is mine is
yours.”
But at the end of the day, what is mine can be yours because it isn't
really mine at all. All that we have
belongs to God, and is given by God to be used in his service, including our
homes. Perhaps this is why Jesus wasn't
as attached to the idea of having a home as we seem to be. Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the
Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
Whoever gives up a home in this age, will receive many homes in the age
to come. For Jesus, to be truly
converted meant to have a certain detachment from material and household
concerns, and instead to be more focused on generosity to others. For him, the value of a home lay in what we
are able to do with it for his glory, for at the end of the day, 58 Upham Road,
with all its nice furnishings, exists not just for us, our for Christchurch,
but so that the kingdom of God can be built in Old Town.
Do we live in castles? Or are we
going to open our doors to those around us?
An open door is the sign of an open heart. The way we use our homes above all shows how we respond to the
love of God showered upon us. There are
many people in this church and in this wider community crying out for a
welcome. There are many people behind
net curtains longing to be given companionship. Can we ask ourselves this week whether we are going to imitate
the culture of castle-building - self-sufficiency, privacy, and control, that
dominates our society, or whether we are going to take our example from two
wealthy women who saw that in opening their homes to others they were showing
their love for God. Will our energy be
directed into building a home for ourselves, or into making it a place where
God's grace can overflow to others?
At the heart of this question is a greater mystery. There was a young woman who became
pregnant. She gave a home for nine
months to the child inside her. She
gave it warmth, food, protection and the space to grow. Her name is Mary, and she herself opened up
her life to God - offering hospitality to him. The writer to the Hebrews wrote, "Do not neglect hospitality,
for some have entertained angels without realising it." St Benedict's rule included the command, "Let
all visitors who chance to arrive be welcomed as if it were Christ
himself." Mary offered her home to
God. Can we be a church that will do
the same, as we open our doors and our lives to others in welcome.