So, 

We’ve got it clear, practicing hospitality is part of our faith. We are inviting people into a closer relationship with God through Christ, by inviting them to come with us and follow Jesus.

We do that by going to them, inviting them to come and follow, by baptizing them, and by teaching them all that Jesus taught us.

And while doing that, we practice radical hospitality by not only making sure they are comfortable, fed, clothed, and given a place at the table, but we also make sure that we are sharing a caring relationship with them.

We listen to them and we invite them to be part of our growing family, both our personal family as well as the family of the church.

But today we are reminded again that we are to do something else too. We are to make sure we aren’t excluding folks Jesus wants at the table.

The curriculum our children and youth are using (and I apologize for forgetting to send the youth last week to your discussion group) is talking about this and using the word “othering”, that is treating some people as outsiders.

Sometimes those people are challenged, or difficult, or seen as this generation’s outcasts. They are often chosen by the culture in which one lives, so the outcasts can be different kinds of people in different nations.

Sometimes they are immigrants. I remember a couple of decades back a friend going to Sweden and being appalled at the way those lovely blonde and blue-eyed Swedes treated the immigrant, Turks.

In other places Gypsies are treated as lesser people, not invited to the table. And in some places even others followers of Jesus were excluded, Protestants in Catholic communities, and Catholics in Protestant communities, like in Northern Ireland.

There is even a story of believers who had come to faith in Jesus in Africa, being excluding from churches in the American south because they were black.

Today’s story is of Jesus going to dine with a Pharisee, named Simon. 

Let that sink in! Already Jesus is practicing radical hospitality, by accepting an invitation to eat with a man who most of us would have thought was Jesus’ enemy!

Jesus often sparred with the Pharisees and he with they. 

Yet offered hospitality, Jesus returned the generous offer with generous acceptance, because of what was at stake, the Pharisee’s time with the Messiah, and the relationship that could be built between Jesus and the man. Remember, the relationship building is essential to hospitality!

One way we practice exclusion and othering, is by not letting others care for us, celebrate us, love on us. We keep others at arm’s distance, when Jesus’ call is to embrace all of God’s beloved children.

And at that dinner, an excluded one sneaks in to bask in the presence of her Lord and Savior and to worship by offering her tears and by pouring out her heart with the most expensive thing she had in her possession.

If only we were that bold in our worship!

If only were willing to pour out in love that which we hold most dear whether it be time, energy, imagination, talents, family, and even our resource’s. 

Yes, our stewardship, our pledges, our envelope filling, our online gifts are, or ought to be, a pouring out of the alabaster jar a sacrifice of joy that makes clear to us - most importantly - how important our love of Jesus is.

It is not like paying a bill so that we can come to church! It is rather a statement of faith just like this woman’s! Heartfelt and deeply sacrificial. 

Jesus rejoices when we, like she, come and anoint him with our love.

But the Simon the Pharisee instead othered her!

He didn’t see her love, her devotion, her sacrifice, or her bravery!

All he saw was that she wasn’t on the list of possible guests. She was a sinner and therefore automatically rejected. And the Pharisee didn’t see what Jesus saw, that he was as much a sinner as her.

So, Jesus gently pointed it out. 

He had failed the test of hospitality!

While he had invited Jesus to dinner, he hadn’t provided a way for Jesus to wash his feet or a servant to do it at the door as was required by hospitality. 

He hadn’t greeted Jesus with a kiss, the sign of peace and of kinship, and he had not anointed Jesus, an act of kindness after a long day out in the heat.

Hospitality while offered was truncated; yes, food and conversation, but no relationship!

While the woman offered all the relationship she could. Much like Mary the sister of Martha we talked about last week, she was in fact closer to the Kingdom of God, then was Simon or Martha.

Jesus saw her not as a sinner, but as a child of the most high God, a princess, a disciple, a follower, and as such, a beloved sister.

So the question is, who have we intentionally or not, othered, excluded, or just not included!

Who are those in our community, our culture that we have failed to invited, to encourage, and to include? 

Take off your blinders and see the world as Jesus does, and go and invite all who would come to the feast.

Family.

Friends.

Neighbors.
Coworkers.

And even those our culture says should be excluded.

For the table is open and all are invited to come to the table! Amen.