8 Cool Things About Having a Visitor

Sharing your life, your favorites, the world through your eyes with a guest has its challenges as well as its rewards.  I’ve had a lot of company these last weeks, and as Rachel (Rae) from Scotland and I share our last full day, I’m already thinking back.

Here, then, a list of things cool about sharing with a guest to your life:

1. The fun of sharing regional favorites, like Five Guys, sweet tea and fried chicken from the gas station.

2. Heading to those places you love but seldom get to – Cooper’s Rock, Valley Falls, and  Natural Bridge, to name a few.

3. Luring her in to your own obsession with all things Star Trek, ending up with both of you humming together the Star Trek Voyager theme music at dinner.

4. Laughter.

5. Finding your amazement at the things she doesn’t like that you just love – who wouldn’t love fresh tomatoes with mozzarella, basil and a little balsamic?  Why, it’s positively unAmerican.  Oh.

6. Seeing your world through her eyes, realizing (again) just how loud we Americans of the U. S. variety can be (are); noticing our craven love for salt (who knew there even could be too much salt on movie pop corn?); having to warn that our hot water is not an inexhaustible supply (why will we not adopt the U. K. way on this?); rediscovering that a coffee maker is mysterious if you’ve never used one before; explaining that you’re safe in a car from a Mama Bear; remembering how much you love fire works; having to explain who the people of your people’s history are – what each tribe holds so dear of its past is but so much unknown data to those of another tribe.

7. Showing her the magic of the nighttime in summer and watching her see lightening bugs for the first time – pure magic.

8. Rediscovering how very much we are all alike and how very much we are all so different – all at the same time.

Sermon Cliff Note: What to do with Uncle Zac?

SCRIPTURE: Luke 19.1-10

Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.

Zacchaeus too, is family.  But which family?

Maybe he’s the rich uncle everybody loves for the lavish presents he brings, but don’t want to see out in public because of all the suspicions about exactly how he has all that money – the guy we love as kids but cringe to know as adults.

He’s the one who never comes to church with us when he visits, always vaguely saying maybe some other time . . . I’ve really got to be going now . . .

Good ol’ Uncle Zac knows even more than we do as to why the likes of him should never darken the doors of the church . . . he already knows why he won’t be welcome there.

Yeah, he’s that guy.  His gospel is not good news.  It’s no gospel at all.  And no wonder, for he is who he is. . . and we are not.

So it is that the family crowd gathers on the streets leaving Uncle Zac behind sitting alone in the living room, no one bothering to explain to him all the fuss . . . but he’s listening – Uncle Zac always hears . . . and he wants to see as much as we do.

He runs outside, but forgetting him, we press in tighter together, leaving no room for Uncle Zac.

So he does a strange thing – something he’s never done before – something he probably can’t even explain to himself – he climbs a tree so that he too can see.

This grown man, known to us all our lives, climbs a tree and still we do not see him.

But Jesus does.

And in seeing Uncle Zac, Jesus changes him.

Uncle Zac didn’t get sorry to climb that tree – he got curious.  Even his meager curiosity was enough for Jesus, who takes the slightest crumb of our being and changes us into something spectacular:  he makes us beloved . . . he makes us welcome.

Jesus went to Zaccheaus’ house to stay – it’s worth remembering that hospitality is as much about receiving as it is about giving – we do no favors to another by having them to our home when we refuse to enter theirs.

Jesus was known not for who he invited to supper, but who invited him.  He makes them special simply by saying yes.  Accepting their invitations, he accepts them.

They are exactly who we think they are.  Uncle Zac was everything we thought he was.

But he was something else too: he was a child of Abraham.  Family matters.  He didn’t stop being family because he was bad, but we treated him as if he wasn’t family anymore.  We treated him like a stranger – like someone you have to be nice to because hospitality requires it.  We grudgingly let him come to our house, but we would never, never, never, darken the door of his.

Jesus’ answer to that kind of piety is the unspoken but sure reprimand:  shame on you.

Jesus is in the eye-opening business.

All he’s ever wanted from his followers when it comes to others is for us to see them as the family they are – beloved children . . .  just like us.

Is that so much to ask?

Uncle Zac, come on down now.  Let’s go to your house, okay?  Let’s hang out there on the porch.  Maybe that Jesus fellow will come and join us.  What do you say, Uncle Zac?  Won’t you come down, now?

I Forgot That I'm Good at This

I forgot that I’m good at some things – like hospitality.  I had some friends over for lunch today, a last-night spur-of-the-moment thing.  So I took what was on hand and made deconstructed (yes, I just used the word ‘deconstructed’ in a sentence and I’m proud of it!) BLTs.  It all came together beautifully.

Here’s the thing: I love to entertain folks in my home.  Always have.  I can remember making a turkey dinner with all the fixins for some friends when I was 18.  And making my parents a Valentine’s Day dinner of manicotti when I was 16.  There’ve been a long line of shared meals over the years, but in recent times (measured from when I became a pastor), that practice has dwindled to a mere trickle of hospitality.

What happened to my hostess mojo?  I have no idea, but I suspect it went where my energy did – into my job (I know, it’s a vocation, a calling, not a job – but it’s a job too – shout out to Erin for the reminder).

I think I’m on a come-back – I’ve already planned a late-evening dinner later this month and have begun doing some thinking on the menu.  Yes, I admit it, I hope to impress.  But even more, I hope to delight.

A seminary buddy once observed that whenever he has guests, he always serves bread and wine, because friends around the table is always sacramental.  Sloane’s right.  It is sacramental.

There’s holy ground around the table.

We didn’t have wine today, but we did have bread and cranberry juice – close enough.

Yep, definitely a come-back.

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*Deconstructed BLT’s (easy)

1 half loaf of any good rustic bread – I used rosemary bread today (if you really want to show off,                bake your own.  I used store bought.
½ pound pepper bacon (Schwann’s has some good stuff) - baked until crisp (400 degree over for 12-           15 minutes)
2-3 fresh tomatoes
mozzarella cheese 
olive oil & balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper
romaine lettuce
butter
olive oil w/ salt and cayenne for dipping

Warm the bread and cut into rectangular slices good for butter spreading or oil dipping.

Break bacon slices in half as a good size for impromptu sandwich or just as finger food
Slice tomatoes onto plate interspersed with slices of mozzarella & drizzle with olive oil & vinegar.  Salt & pepper to taste.

Use the smaller (middle) leaves of romaine and serve standing up in a cup or glass.

It’s all finger food except the tomato/mozzarella salad, that can be put together in any combo your guests desire.  

Serves 3-4.

Locking the Church Doors

Blessed are those who throw the church doors open wide.  –Kathleen Norris

Last Sunday I headed to church in Girvan.  I remembered that it began at an unusually early hour, but I was still late, dawdling the morning away.  I kept dithering about whether to even go or not, as I well knew the doors would most likely be locked when I arrived 5-10 minutes late, depending on my walking pace.

Photo by Dennis Behm at Creative Commons

But I went.  And sure enough, the front doors were locked tight.  I could hear singing inside, so I knocked, hoping to be heard, but alas, I was not.

I went around back and found the door to the choir room and the youth room in the separate building both open, both empty.  I went into the choir room and sat down.  I went back around front and tried the door again, thinking that perhaps it was unlocked but heavy to open – wrong.  I went back to the choir room.  I thought about leaving.  I stayed, knowing that the children would come out after the children’s sermon for Sunday School and this was their only route of escape.

A few minutes later, the Beadle came out with the kids following and with his reassurance that all was well, I scooted in to a side pew and joined the worship.

But as I had wandered about trying to get in to the worship space, I was, as I always am, struck by how difficult it can be to actually get inside a church.

This time, however, I vacillate between Kathleen Norris’ benedictory command to fling the doors open wide and wondering whether it might not be better somehow to have to struggle to gain access.  But even as I ponder, that doesn’t feel right.

I am lucky enough to ‘belong’ in the sense that as a minister, church buildings are innately familiar territory to me – going in back doors might feel a bit intrusive, but I’ve no compunction, really, about doing it.  I’ll wander in the kitchens, stand in the pulpits, look under, over and around things as if I have a right to.  I think we all do, but familiarity of landscape makes it a lot easier for me.

Which brings me full circle in my ruminations that particular Sunday: I was wrong to be late.  But many of us come late to God’s party one way or another.  Now there may come a time when it is too late, as the parable of the bride’s maids suggests.  But that is for God, and not for the likes of me, to decide.

In the meantime, I feel blessed for all the church doors I’ve come across, those closed tight and those open wide; but I have to admit – I see the arms of God in the church more clearly when the doors are flung open into the morning sun.