Preacher, Chris Ayers

FLUFFY AND HER NEIGHBORS

ACTS 16:14-15

I love my dog but. . . I dearly love Fluffy but her barking gets on my nerves.

Fluffy barks at birds. Cardinals, finches, bluejays, blackbirds, sparrows, thrushes, wrens, starlings, crows, woodpeckers----it doesn’t matter. If it’s a bird, if it's got wings, if it's it in the yard, she barks at it.

Fluffy also barks at squirrels. And God knows in our corner of the world we’ve got squirrels by the dozens. Multiply each squirrel by fifty barks and you start to get the picture of life at the Ayers homestead.

And let’s not forget to throw in a few cats. We don’t have a lot of cats in the neighborhood, but we do have one particular black cat. The feline, I believe, likes to taunt, torture, bait my dog. This cat will graze in our backyard, prance on our property line, and Fluff has a conniption.

Bird and squirrels and cats---and---and dogs. We’ve got plenty of dogs in Olde Stonehaven. And it seems we at 6132 Gate Post are on everyone’s walk the dog route. Lucky us. You’d think Fluffy might bark less at her own species but actually I think the barking is worse when it comes to dogs.

As you can tell I’m sick and tired of Fluffy’s barking. Her barking drives me crazy, looney, up the wall. I mean, if she barked at burglars or alerted me to approaching Duke graduates or warned me about "incoming Baptists" that would be one thing. But two times last week at 2 a.m. in the morning Fluffy started barking at God knows what. Twice in one week. 2 a.m.

Those who study this sort of thing call this behavior territoriality. Another way to say it is that Fluffy needs a few lessons on hospitality.

Fluff could learn a thing or two from my in-laws, James and Jean Willis. I’m not sure I’ve ever met more hospitable people. Heah, I know what you are thinking. If they let me in the family, they have to be hospitable. That point aside, when it comes to the Willises their casa is your casa. Their home is your home.

If you think I’m exaggerating or just trying to get on my wife’s good side, ask our youth about Willis hospitality. Ask some of the adult chaperones for our youth who have stayed at the Willis residence during the last two youth ski trips.

Yes, Fluff could take some hospitality lessons from the Willises and also from a woman named Lydia. And this is what I am getting around to. All the twists and turns I have been taking are to get us to Lydia. The Lydia in our first scripture lesson. The Lydia from the city of Thyatira. The Lydia who was a dealer in purple cloth. The Lydia who was hospitable Lydia!

Lydia listened to the preaching of Paul and she and her entire household got baptized. All that dunking probably wore the preacher out because when we say household we’re not just talking about blood relatives. We’re talking economic unit: slaves, servants, the whole kit and kabuttle. I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Over and over and over Paul did it. The whole household.

After all the baptisms, Lydia went up to Paul and said, "Paul, you and your entourage are staying at my home, mi casa. Now don’t argue with me. I insist. I demand it. I command you to stay with me."

Well, actually our text says Lydia urged Paul. She prevailed upon him. Hospitality was written all over Lydia’s face and Paul accepted her invitation.

Has anyone ever prevailed upon you? Do you remember when someone was a "Lydia" to you? Do you remember when someone insisted? Do you recall what that person did? How it made you feel?

There’s nothing quite like hospitality.

In his book, Hospitality to the Stranger, Thomas Ogletree, Dean of the Theological School at Drew University, writes: to be moral is to be hospitable to the stranger.

In support of his position, Ogletree cites Exodus 23:9 and Matthew 25:35. "You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

"I was a stranger, and you welcomed me."

Hospitality.

Jean Vanier in a book that for me is a second Bible, Vanier in Community and Growth argues that "to welcome is one of the signs of true human and Christian maturity." Let me repeat that. "To welcome is one of the signs of true human and Christian maturity."

How hospitable are you?

Hospitality is so very important.

Of course, I don’t want to us to think of hospitality as just involving putting someone up in our homes for a night or two, although such a gesture is no small deed. But when I refer to hospitality I am trying to get to something much deeper, much more difficult. Vanier puts it this way. "Hospitality is not only to open one’s door and one’s home to someone. It is to give space, to give space to someone in one’s heart, space for that person to be and to grow; space where the person knows that he or she is accepted just as they are, with their wounds and their gifts."

That kind of hospitality is much harder than providing a bed and a shower and a breakfast. Giving space to someone in one’s heart. Accepting the other without succumbing to the overwhelming temptation to try to change or fix them. But to welcome, to be at peace enough with yourself so that you can welcome the other---why that’s quite an achievement, a sign, as Vanier puts it, of Christian maturity.

What prevents us from being hospitable, from welcoming others?

I think a lot of it has to do with our insecurities. The other, the stranger, the newcomer, can reveal our weaknesses, expose us for who we are, identify the chink in our armor, uncover our Achilles heel. The other can take away our power, our control; make us look stupid, incompetent, foolish.

It’s nice when we Christians are hospitable, not the superficial stuff, but real hospitality. That’s nice. But I’ll have to be honest with you. When I get up each morning and I am eating breakfast and Fluffy starts barking at some bird or squirrel or cat or dog because some bird or squirred or cat or dog is on her turf, my first thought is---well I better not tell you that. My second thought is, what I have just witnessed reminds me of churches: a lot of barking and a lot of turf protection. Squirrel—--bark. Bird---bark. Cat---bark. Dog---bark. Get off my property. I don’t like you. I don’t want you around.

A bunch of barking Baptists. And I’m one of them too. Hospitality is as difficult for me as it is for you.

This past Tuesday when I came back from lunch I checked the answering service and the first voice mail was from a person I had never heard of. Actually, it was from an individual I frankly did not want to return his call. I knew this even though I did not know him. I could tell from his voice. Another sad story from someone down on their luck, I thought. Probably wants some money. Probably is an alcoholic or drug addict and needs some money for his habit. That’s what I thought.

Going against my personal desires I punched in the number.

"Hello," he said.

"This is Chris Ayers from Wedgewood Baptist returning your call."

"I’m glad you called. Your number was on my answering machine. I don’t know how it got there but it was there. And I knew God had some reason for me to call this number. You know, God works in mysterious ways. There must be some reason God wanted me to talk to you and I had to find out."

My first reaction was, just what I need, a religious crazy to talk to on this Tuesday afternoon. My second reaction was, this guy needs to be in a mental ward. But my third reaction was, Is this mysterious God playing with me? Here I am working on a sermon on hospitality and I get a phone call like this. Here I am getting ready to preach on hospitality and there’s not a hospitable bone in my body.

My new found "friend" proceeded to tell me at great length all the sordid details of the past twenty years of his life. I listened and listened and listened, but I didn’t really listen.

Sensing my lack of listening he asked, "Are you there?" I had not been responding back to him as he had told me he had been a drunk for the past twenty years but that this last year he had been dry.

"Yes, I’m here," I said, answering his question as I questioned in my own mind if the guy was not currently intoxicated.

By this time the person had sensed that I really did not want to talk to him. Yet, he kept pushing.

In an aggressive manner he said, "Well, I’ve told you about myself tell me about yourself. Are you the preacher?"

I wasn’t about to give my life story to a stranger as he had just done.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Want? I want to talk. I want to know if you are the preacher."

"Yes, I am."

"How long you been the preacher?"

Still annoyed at his pushiness and nosiness and wondering who the heck the fellah was I said, "Nine years. I’ve been at Wedgewood nine years. Listen if you want to get to know me the best way to do that is to come to Wedgewood this Sunday."

"Are you saved," he quickly asked.

What? You are asking me if I’m saved, I thought.

"Yeah, I’m saved."

"Really? Saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ?"

Predictably he rattled off Bible verses by the dozen as I felt myself wanting more and more to rid myself of this nuisance.

"What do you think about the signs of the end? The earthquakes, the wars. It’s all happening."

Here was my opportunity to shake him. "You want to know what I think? I think just the opposite of the way you think. I don’t think those are very good signs. We’ve had earthquakes and wars, best I can tell, a long time. Jesus said he didn’t know when the end was going to be and I’m not any smarter than him."

I was very short, curt, brusque. There was a bite in my voice.

There was a pause, a long pause.

"Do you have an AA meeting at your church?"

"We sure do."

"When does it meet?"
"Thursday nights at 7:30."

"Will you meet me at the meeting?"

"No, I will not. You are welcome to come to the meeting but I will not meet you at the meeting."

"Tell me you name again. Tell me who this standoffish preacher is."

By this time "the water was about to boil." I said, "I think it’s time for this conversation to end."

Working on a sermon on hospitality and I can’t even be hospitable. Working on a sermon on hospitality and I find myself wanting to grind up and spit out a person I have never met.

The conversation made me think of some feelings I had during this year’s Room In The Inn ministry, feelings I think that are summed up rather well by Jean Vanier. The quote is on the front page of your newsletter. Let me share it with you.

"When a community welcomes people who have been on the margins of society, things usually go quite well to begin with. Then for many reasons, these people start to become marginal to the community as well. They provoke crises which can be very painful for the community and cause it considerable confusion, because it feels so powerless. The community is then caught in a trap from which it may be hard to escape. But if the crises bring it to a sense of its own poverty, they can also be a grace. There is something prophetic in people who seem marginal and difficult; they force the community to become alert, because what they are demanding is authenticity. Too many communities are founded on dreams and fine words; there is so much talk about love, truth, and peace. Marginal people are demanding. Their cries are cries of truth because they sense the emptiness of many of our words; they can see the gap between what we say and what we live."

Authenticity.

After the phone call and often during the Room In the Inn ministry I find myself struggling with authenticity. I feel like the Titantic and I’m surrounded by icebergs that are poking holes in my practice of Christianity.

And so I find myself asking these questions: What does it mean to be hospitable? Do we have to be hospitable all the time and to everyone? How do we balance hospitality with care for ourselves? What gets stirred up in us that we end up barking at other people?

Like Fluffy, my dog, I have barked at more than my share of squirrels and cats and birds and dogs. How about you? Do you bark a lot? Or, is it a habit of yours to give space to someone in your heart, space for that person to be and to grow; space where the person knows that he or she is accepted just as they are, with their wounds and their gifts?

Hear again words that were formative for the early church.

"When Lydia and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Savior, come and stay at my home.’"

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