Perspectives on Hospitality

By Barry Pollard

(Based on Gen 18:1-10; Ps 15; Luke 10:38-42 )

Today’s reflection today, like the Gospel itself, is couched in hospitality. At St Francis Church we pride ourselves on being hospitable. We even see it as a core element in our church’s mission statement.
Let me read it to you: “We are a community of faith who are inspired in worship to encounter a sense of the sacred and spiritual, as we journey in life together. We believe we each have a part to play in the Church and value our team approach to ministry. We are a hospitable, loving and supportive community who care for one another and the wider community to which we belong.”

Hospitality is something we understand. Or do we?
In the Genesis reading this morning Abraham takes note of three strangers approaching. Without hesitation he rushes out to them and invites them to sit in the shade of his oak trees and partake of a feast which Abraham would organise for them. In keeping with hospitality protocols of the day, this offer came complete with foot washing!
Also in keeping with hospitality protocols of the day, Abraham immediately turns to Sarah his wife and asks her to start making fresh bread, and enlists the servants to kill a calf and prepare it for cooking and serving. When things were ready Abraham served the meal to his guests.

Abraham Receiving the Three Angels (by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1667)

As it turns out these guests were not just ordinary travellers but ‘auguries’ who came to share news from God with Abraham about his impending fatherhood, telling him that his wife Sarah would have a son within the year! Many Biblical commentators think this sequence of events is the source of verse 2 in Hebrews 13: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

From the Genesis reading we glean that we should be disposed to hospitality, and be ready to extend it to all. We never know who we may be serving.

Turning now to the Gospel reading: We have probably worked out that, in this familiar reading, the supporting characters, Mary and Martha, are displaying two modes of hospitality. Martha is cast in the role of the host-provider, while her sister Mary takes the role of host-converser.
These are my terms so I’ll explain ….
Luke opens the encounter with Martha welcoming Jesus and the disciples travelling with him into their home. Jesus was well known to this family, as he is acknowledged elsewhere as a good friend to Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary. This family was definitely aware that Jesus was the Messiah, and Martha refers to Jesus as “Lord”. So, after the greetings she then sets about preparing the feast she intends to put before their guests. So, host-provider.

As Martha busies herself with the tasks of preparing and serving the food, Mary takes a position at the feet of Jesus, listening to his conversation with the gathered disciples. She has engaged with the guests through talking and listening. So, host-converser.

Practically speaking though, all hosting situations require both providers and conversers to really work. The roles are probably played out in your homes when you have guests. In ours, Keri is usually the host-provider and I am the host-converser, greeting and talking. We all have different gifts after all! The roles are not set in stone but are varied according to the guests and the type of hospitality we are providing.

But the teaching point that emerges for us from Luke’s Gospel is not found in the topics that Jesus was covering with his audience, as we are not told what was being discussed. The first lesson is in Martha’s behaviour, in particular her complaint to him about her sister’s inattention to the hosting tasks. Instead of siding with her, Jesus points out to Martha that her upset and worry about the ‘details’ means she misses the main point. And we know that when Jesus says these sorts of things, he does so for our benefit too! So what is the main point?

Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus is not mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. The story of Lazarus being raised from the dead is recorded in chapter 11 of John’s Gospel. In John’s account, Jesus again speaks with Mary and Martha. This narrative is important because it highlights again the difference between the sisters. It emphasises what they are focussed on.
In John’s Lazarus resurrection story, Lazarus was sick and died. The sisters had sent for Jesus to come to save him. But Jesus deliberately delayed his arrival to demonstrate the power over death he possessed. When he did arrive in the village of Bethany with his disciples, Lazarus had been in the tomb for several days. Beyond doubt, Lazarus was well and truly dead!

The thing we are particularly interested in though is the exchange between the grieving sisters and Jesus. Martha again has taken the lead role, going out first to address the approaching Jesus. Using an almost accusatory tone she starts telling Jesus what he should do. In her words, Lazarus should not have died, and Jesus should do something about it. God can do whatever Jesus asks, after all.

Rather than reacting to this, Jesus instead serves the main point: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” Martha needed to focus on the divine personage of Jesus.

On the other hand, Mary is late to the scene, having been summoned by Jesus after Martha’s encounter. Mary rushes up and throws herself weeping at his feet. At that moment she acknowledges that divine personage! Mary’s actions move Jesus, and he approaches the tomb and calls Lazarus out, having raised him back to life.
Martha is focussed on her concerns and the details around them. Mary is focussed on Jesus and engages with him and it was this that produced desired results. Direct attention to the guest is the most important thing, not just focussing on their needs.

Now back to Luke: although Jesus stated that Mary’s behaviour was preferred, he doesn’t condemn Martha. Remember, in today’s Gospel Martha had been fussing over providing Jesus and his disciples a meal. I am sure they all thoroughly enjoyed it!

So, how disposed are we to put Jesus first? I confess that for me, most days, it is a struggle. I tried to think of a way to explain what I mean. I came up with a scenario that may help us to focus on our own dispositions towards the Lord.
Imagine if you will, God sends a clear message in a dream to our website editor. In that dream, Web-guy is told that Jesus will be visiting St Francis Church in Tairua next Saturday. God outlines the timetable for the visit: Jesus will arrive at 10am, participate in a meet-and-greet with any assembled folk, have a tour of the facilities, share a meal with those attending, and conduct a teaching session in the afternoon.

The Web-ster is convinced that he has heard everything clearly, been shown umpteen confirming signs, and so sends out a message on the email network and on the website to tell us all what will be happening.
What would you be thinking as you receive this message? Would you be taking the Martha or Mary approach? Be honest!

I did this. Off the top of my head, I would be wondering if the church lawns had been mown, was there any unsightly piles of Op Shop drop-offs, were there going to be kids skateboarding in the carpark, do we have enough matching dinner plates, will Jesus think our church is up to scratch, will we cancel Op Shop for that day, will we wear our masks, what will I wear, what will Jesus teach us, how will I hide my doubts?

We are about to host Jesus, and to start with all I could think about was what needed to be done. How would we measure up?
Hospitality like this is more about the host than the guest!

On reflection, I’m pretty sure that Jesus wouldn’t mind if the lawns needed mowing, or that we were eating off mismatched crockery, or that the skateboarding kids were in the carpark. Yet I obviously see those things as pretty big deal. It convicts me again of Strahan’s reflection a fortnight ago when he referred to the Kingdom without the King (see here). Maybe I don’t get it, that without the King, the Kingdom is a façade; or in my case should that be: if I concentrate on the Kingdom, I turn the King into a façade!

Talking with Keri about the prep for my talk today she mentioned having read a teaching by Pastor Joseph Prince on today’s reading and found it for me. In it, Pastor Prince poses the question: “What would you do if Jesus was coming to your house?” Would you sit him down and start serving him, or would you sit down and start drawing from him? Would you let him serve you and fill you up?

Haven’t we been taught to be gracious hosts? In Acts (Acts 20:35) it says it is better to give than receive, a concept that we have adopted to look after those in need and, like Abraham, to be generous hosts. But we aren’t talking about ordinary guests we are talking about the Lord; our Lord!

Pastor Prince writes about what the sisters saw in Jesus.
When Martha sees Jesus she sees his weariness. He has been on the road, doing good, healing the sick and tending to people’s needs. Martha sees Him as tired and someone she needs to care for.
Mary on the other hand looks past the weariness and sees his divinity. She sees Jesus as someone she needs to draw from. In doing so she has acknowledged his holiness. This is the Messiah, the Saviour that came to serve, not to be served! And Jesus commends her for her actions.

So how can we become more like Mary? How do we change our dispositions?
A key is understanding the relationship God seeks to have with us.

When I first read today’s Psalm it sounded like a list of benchmarks for those deemed worthy to be in God’s presence. My first reaction was if I could do or be all this, I might be good enough. But with the help of the Holy Spirit I flipped it around. I do believe God wants me in his company. In the presence of God these things will flow. The law would have us doing the mahi. Grace would have us in communion! But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33) Jesus and the Cross cleared the way!

According to Pastor Prince, we use our ears and hearts to draw from Jesus. We use our hands and feet to serve him. But our sense and appreciation of our divine God is more precious to him than all the service we can render to him. And the mystery is that the more we draw from him, the better we become at giving and serving!
And the better hosts we will be!

So my prayer today is simply, “My Lord, if it pleases you, stop here with us for a while.”

Moderating the Inner Beast

“All men die; few men ever really live.”

If that seems like a quote from Braveheart or Thor Ragnarök or Home Improvement (with a grunt), no, it’s from John Eldredge’s best-selling, slightly controversial book called Wild at Heart (2013).

Perhaps the same can be said of women; I wouldn’t know, not having been one.

But, as a man, the quote settles well among my cushions and my comforts – as a lost but longed for ideal. I’m nothing if not an ideologue and wishful thinker.
Eldredge further declares that God designed men to be “dangerous, passionate, alive, and free”.  So, yeah, I’m all of those.

That’s why I relish parallel parking.  Or the chance to drive in rain, or use a hand saw up a ladder. (Not being permitted to use a chain saw.)
Blood courses hotly through me when I watch Top Gun or The Magnificent Seven.  I swell in stature when I face the wind on Ocean Beach or shout at the ref or get asked by my seven-year-old grandson what I did in the war.  I straighten to my full 160cm and gild my experiences as an Air Force hangar sweeper.

Trouble is, the more you fantasise about such things, the more the realisation of what a wannabe you are crushes you, and you go back to your beer and custard square.

This was the case the other day when driving back from the big city (not the beer part), where I’d attended a stamp collecting convention, and I found myself thinking, “God, what a wannabe I am,” and at that moment I shot past a hidden exit from the wide, straight road I was travelling, and I thought, “Go on … live a little.”  I screeched to a gentle halt, thinking of my tyres and brake pads, and reversed.  The road was dusty metal.  Veering off as it did immediately to the right, I couldn’t see around the corner.  All the better.  Let’s do this, Maverick.

Look, it matters not whether you judge me.  I’m a wuss. I know it, but the heart of wild man resides within and I’ll take adventure where I can find it, as long as it’s safe.  I mean … who wants to be dead?  Or hurt?  Tentatively wild-at-heart, is me, and I was. I went tentatively what they call “off grid”.  Don’t know why.  A grid is something I can select on a Spreadsheet, so …  But, anyway, I went off it.  What could go wrong?

I’ll tell you.
Because you’re expecting a disastrous end to this story, no?  So, when, a kilometre in, I stalled in the ford, I thought, no problem.  Actually, my first thought was that, surely the water will dry up soon.  My second thought was, call the AA.  But they didn’t answer.  Neither was there dial tone, which meant my mobile was off grid as well.  My third thought was, well, being wild at heart, this should be easy enough.  I’ll find a tractor.
There wasn’t one within my immediate visual radius so I did what any dangerous, passionate, alive and free man would do: checked in the car’s manual, located and depressed the ECAB (emergency conversion to amphibian button), and jet-boated out of there, back to the main road and home to catch The Chase on tele.  Enough adventure to quench this wuss for several weeks, until the wannabe-ism exceeds the instinct for comfort and safety once again.

Wild at heart, chicken in other places.  True story.  (Some of it.)

Ken F

The Kingdom Without the King

By Strahan Coleman

(Based on Luke 10:1-23)

As I’ve reflected on this passage from Luke, I’ve been drawn to think about this first evangelical mission, 2000 years on, to the decade.

We find ourselves today in a strange relationship with this story. The entire world has now heard the Gospel. Today, in 2022, we rest on the shoulders of 200 years especially of profound missional energy, with transportation making people groups and villages available that were totally unimaginable only a century ago.

From these seventy disciples (in the reading) the good news of the kingdom even reached the farthest corner of the globe, here in Aotearoa, on Christmas Day 1814.

We’re in a very different position today to the audience who first heard the story of the sending of the Seventy. Liberation has come to us all. Our entire world shaped by their faithfulness. In the West, our entire culture is christianised. Not because of so called “Christian nations” or some golden age people like to imagine existed in the not too distant past. But because Christian ideas such as the dignity and worth of every human being regardless of who they are have won over racism, classism and other forms of political oppression of minorities.

The work isn’t finished, of course. But the very fact that society embraces this struggle as crucial is a sign of Christ’s radical transformation of our world.

Roman society at the time of Christ, for example, saw mercy and compassion as weakness. Historian and author Tom Holland in his seminal book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind tell us that,
“The heroes of the Iliad, favourites of the gods, golden and predatory, had scorned the weak and downtrodden. So too, for all the honour that Julian paid them, had philosophers. The starving deserved no sympathy. Beggars were best rounded up and deported. Pity risked undermining a wise man’s self-control. Only fellow citizens of good character who, through no fault of their own, had fallen on evil days might conceivably merit assistance.”

Christians taught the world mercy, compassion and care for those whom society cast aside. The kingdom of heaven was near.
Now, the sick receive care, children are adopted and fostered, all are educated. These are all the results of Christian theology played out in society. They’re all things that have come from the Christian spirit of care and hospitality. Christians taught that all people were made in God’s image, the kingdom of heaven came near to Western philosophy, and was becoming available to all who would receive God’s offer of peace.

Because the Seventy, then and now, have been faithful.

And yet, despite this profound gift, it seems the world no longer wants the Jesus at the heart of it. “God is dead,” declared Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th Century. We have apparently outgrown him. Taking all these values and the gifts of mercy, dignity and freedom, secularism claimed it could build its own world.
Having taken what they could from God they cried out with the Psalmist,
“Let us burst [God’s] bonds apart
And cast away His cords from us.”  (Psalm 2:3)

Australian pastor, theologian and social commentator Mark Sayers names this a third culture. Not a pagan or pre-Christian world, not a Christian one either, but a post-Christian society shaped by the history, beliefs and practices of Christianity and yet unhinged from Christ himself. He summarises this third culture powerfully in the line “they want the kingdom without the king”. Christian ethics and morals, a Christian appreciation for dignity and freedom, but devoid of the anchor of the person of Jesus.

With Nietzsche, a post-Christian world seeks liberation from God, not in him.

God, to the world, appears as bondage.

This has led culture in a few directions. On the left, a militant liberalism has created ‘cancel culture’, identity politics and a ‘self-ism’ without concrete moral grounding. On the right, conservatism has found its hope in politics, power and return to nationalism for identity and security.
Even the church battles with the temptation to believe secularism’s promise that if we just keep tweaking things, just keep thinking our way there, we’ll be able to bring the world to rights.

We too can fall into a kingdom without the king spirituality. Doing church well, loving and serving our neighbours and fighting injustice, all without the joy and wonder of intimacy and profound love for God.
A life of action, without a life of prayer and devotion.
The Great Commission before the Great Commandment.

But it was always Jesus, and Jesus’s name, that brought the kingdom near, as we read in the Gospels. We can’t have one without the other. To be in the kingdom is to be found in Christ and that means both freedom and liberty as well as self-denial, prayer, and intimacy with God.

When I look around me at many of my peers and those struggling with the church today, I see a tonne of valid hurt, disappointment and frustration with the church.

But I also see this:
I see a generation who want all the good things Jesus offers, the liberation of the kingdom, but not the costly things. Even though we don’t think of closeness with God as costly, its vulnerability, openness and connection can be.
I see a people who want to make love, and liberty and grace, in its own image. Not in the shape of Christ’s.
I see an embrace of God’s patience, and little welcome of his invitation to discipline, self-sacrifice and prayerful adoration.

Even Christians can subtly want the kingdom without the king. Because it helps us to fit in. It costs us less of our hearts. The kingdom without the king embraces the extremes of compassion without conviction, or conviction without compassion. It goes to church and pays a tithe but doesn’t grieve with the grieving or seek satisfaction in God through prayer. The kingdom without the king takes the teachings that make us feel better and rejects those that cause discomfort. It refuses the pain of transformation.
But, worst of all, it wants the kingdom and all it offers without the Person who brings it to us. It prefers an arms-length approach to God. It keeps from him our hearts.

I’d like to propose that today, in honour of what the Seventy have done for two thousand years, it’s our job to place Christ back in the centre of his kingdom where he belongs.

As people in the small towns of a far away isle, we’re called now not only to proclaim, but to embody this divine friendship that changes the world and to display it before a society disconnected from it. To seek Christ’s face in prayer, to abide in him, to long for what he longs for and to live a God-soaked life. To ache for God like the body does for food and water and to embody the whole Gospel in the small town of Tairua we inhabit rather than just accept things as they are.
And to not buy secularism’s version of the kingdom without the anchor of Christ’s centring truth, way and life.

As someone who has been in ministry my whole adult life, I know how easy it is to slip into a “kingdom without the king” way of being. It’s often far easier to preach on a Sunday, pray for someone else, attend church and give a little money than to acknowledge how little I love God, sit with him in the secret places, and find fulfilment in him alone.

Work is a great distraction, even for the church.
Today’s gospel story is incredible; precisely because it’s been so successful. The work isn’t finished, but it has transformed.
We’ve been a great doing church these last few centuries, but without the being in God that this kingdom is meant to offer, we can only preach a half gospel. And not the best half.

Liberation has come via the Seventy to the world, to us, but do we still want him who brought it? Or has the kingdom – of political gain, of social work, of psychology and religion – become more important to us? I know, at times, I can say it has. I think that’s the human heart; it wanders, and we need reminders from time to time of what is deep at the heart of our faith.

I’d like to leave you with these powerful words by St Theresa of Avila, who I think knew just how important it is to personalise God in ourselves and who knew that simply to tell others of the Gospel isn’t enough:
Christ has no body on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ looks out to the world.
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless others now.

Yes, we are to go, but we go in Christ. To be Christ to the world, one must be in Christ in ever deepening layers of love and joy. The kingdom can only come near if Christ does.

A prophetic message for our world today. Maybe that is how we honour these Seventy, and continue their work – by bringing Christ himself back to the centre of his world and to the centre of his kingdom by bringing him back to the centre of our hearts.

Habits and Monastery Cats

** Since this blog was posted in July ’22, it has been accessed (read?) hundreds of times – a far greater access than any other posts on this website – from numerous countries all over the world. Even today, it gets one or two views almost every day. I’d very much like to know why. Are you real human readers? If so, what do you all have in common, and what is your particular interest in this article? Or is this some kind of electronic ‘bot’ phenomenon? What is the story?
If you are reading this, please respond in the ‘Leave a Comment’ box at the bottom of the page. I will be very grateful for your feedback, thank you. (Editor … St Francis Webguy)

What kinds of habits do you own to?  Don’t you find life is muchly governed by habits, predilections, assumptions and preconceived ideas?

It occurred to me that when drinking tea I always leave the last millilitres at the bottom of the cup, and I wondered why, when a coffee cup usually gets drained.  The answer was obvious when I thought about it.  My early tea drinking experiences were from teapots, when the bottom mouthful was always full of off-putting tea leaves.  Now, well into the twenty first century, tea bags protect us from tea leaves so they no longer populate the last mils: one can drain the cup.  But, one doesn’t.  Well … this one doesn’t.  He’s developed a sacred, irrational habit.

It is said that habits are hard to break.  Get rid of the ‘h’ and you’ve still got ‘abit’.  Get rid of the ‘a’ and the ‘bit’ is still there.  Get rid of the ‘b’ and … what?  You’ve still got ‘it’! 

Don’t think there are any easy solutions.  I bring problems, not solutions.


Breaking habits take commitment and discipline, of course, but even before that – awareness.  You have to recognise a habit before you can can it.  Be aware that it even exists.  Then you have to desire change.  Only then the application of commitment and discipline and determination and all those habit-busting things.

No.  No easy solutions. But here’s a story (maybe apocryphal, maybe not) that illustrates the problem, and the ridiculousness of some habits.  And the need for awareness; and may even have something to say about religious practices and traditions.
And the sacred habits of tea drinking.

Once upon a time there was a monastery in Tibet. The monks in the monastery meditated from dawn to dusk. One day it so happened that a cat wandered into the monastery and disturbed the monks. The head monk instructed that the cat be caught and tied to the banyan tree until dusk. He also ruled that every day, to avoid interruption during meditation, the cat be tied to the banyan tree. So it became a daily practice, a tradition in the monastery.  To catch the cat and tie it to the banyan tree before the day’s ceremonies commenced. The cat remained tied to the banyan tree as long as the monks meditated.
The tradition continued.
One day the head monk died. As per tradition the next senior-most monk was chosen to succeed him, and all other traditions, including the banyan tree custom, were continued.
One day the cat died. The whole monastery plunged into panic. A committee was formed to find a solution and it was unanimously decided that a cat be bought immediately from the nearby market and tied to the tree before starting the meditation the next day.

In time, the tree also died, and was replaced.

The tradition is followed in the monastery even today, and, centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teachers have written scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up cats for meditation ceremonies.

Monks and their habits, eh?

Ken F