Humble Hospitality - Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost (August 31, 2025)

Scripture Readings: Proverbs 25:6–7 | Psalm 112 | Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16 | ​Luke 14:1, 7–14

“Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:1-2).
 
What comes to mind when you hear the word hospitality?
 
Do any examples or experiences of giving, or receiving hospitality stand out to you?
 
Once, when I was much younger, my family and I spent Christmas with a family of complete strangers. My younger brother had been in the hospital in Winnipeg for several months, as he struggled to recover from some serious, life-threatening complications that occurred after going through major surgery. During those months, my Mom had stayed with my brother in Winnipeg, while my Dad watched my older brother and I back at home. As you can imagine, it was an intense time for us all.  
 
As Christmas drew near, my Dad took us back so we could all be together for what could have been our last Christmas as a family. So many of our usual holiday traditions were set aside, but at least we could be together.
It’s funny how even some of those cherished things we seem to treasure the most can become pretty easy to let go of when we realize that something else matters so much more.
 
Anyway, during her stay in Winnipeg, my Mom had come to know some of my brother’s doctors, and one of them invited our family to join them for Christmas dinner… and it looked nothing like any Christmas I had experienced before.
 
Their large family was from another county, and had very different Christmas traditions and food… liked baked fish instead of a turkey… and yet they graciously and happily opened up their home… and their lives to us, a bunch of strangers… making space for us to find some comfort and friendship around their table. We had nothing to offer them in return, and they were not looking for a reward. They simply welcomed us as we were, and helped us know in that difficult time that we were not alone.
 
At its heart, this is what hospitality is: recognizing the needs of others… and making room to meet those needs. Some of the people we meet will need things like food, or shelter, or medical care. Others need things like friendship, opportunities to grow, and community. We all have needs, and we all have ways we can practice hospitality towards others… not seeking anything for ourselves, but simply seeking the good of those around us.
 
And one of the most common ways that we humans offer hospitality is around a table: shared meals can break down many walls, and open up our hearts as well. Here at St. Luke’s, I love that we share food and fellowship every week after the service. It’s a great habit for a community to form: making time and space… and food to share with one another, and with anyone who may happen to come to our door... offered as a gift of service and love to one another.
 
But sadly, there are times when we can forget just how important true hospitality is… and instead of being intentional about opening up space in our hearts and lives for others… we can start to focus merely on meeting our own desires, or how to use others to get what we want.
 
And we can see signs of this selfishness at work in our Gospel passage this morning, as Jesus our Lord is invited to share a meal with some prominent Pharisees.
 
We know that Jesus shared meals with all sorts of people… with devout and respectable folks, like these Pharisees, and more often with outcasts, tax-collectors, and sinners… the sort of people with scary and sketchy reputations. Jesus was open to everyone. That said, sometimes these shared meals could become a bit tense… and that’s what happened in our passage today. We’re told that his hosts were “watching him closely”… and as it turns out, Jesus was watching them too.
 
And He notices that the rest of the guests were preoccupied with choosing the best seats at the table… the places of honour for themselves. This would be a common way someone could try to build up their prestige among their peers… to gain a bit of public recognition and status as an important person. Rather than making time and space to be open to one another… to affirm the worth of those around them, and draw closer together in fellowship, Jesus could see that they were distracted by this drive for recognition and status… seeking honour for themselves, but undermining their shared community.
 
And so Jesus, echoing the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, points out that this self-seeking attitude is actually self-defeating.
 
Luke 14:7-11, “When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
 
These words are of course much more than some practical advice about saving face when picking a seat at a party. Jesus is highlighting a pattern of life that actively counteracts the self-centred tendencies that we humans of all sorts keep giving into. From Cain killing his brother Abel out of jealousy, to many of the headlines we see in the news day after day, history is full of stories of people seeking their own glory at the expense of others. But Jesus shows us the blessed alternative: that the true path to glory is humility. Not being fixated on our own status, but being open and responsive to those around us.
 
This is the vision for the people of God offered to us in our second reading this morning, from the Letter to the Hebrews: Love one another. Share in each other’s sufferings. Protect each other’s honour. Place our confidence, not in things like money and status, but in God’s promise to be with us always. This kind of humility… one built on the foundation of faith in God’s enduring love for us, sets us free from the need to fight for recognition, and sets us free to be more at peace with ourselves… and open to those around us. When we can trust that God truly loves us, all sense of competition for attention starts to get set aside, and we begin to share in real community… able to care for and make real room for one another, and strangers of all sorts.  

Which leads us to the second part of our Gospel passage, where Jesus tells His host (and all of us too!) that when throwing a party, we’re not to simply invite our friends and neighbours, and those who can repay us in some way. We are to invite those most in need of our hospitality and fellowship to our tables: those who are struggling in mind, in body, and in spirit. Those who are neglected by the rest of their neighbours. Those who have no status or honour, and nothing to offer us. That is who Jesus calls us to welcome in, and make room for in our lives and at our table.
 
And we are to do this because this is exactly what the Living God has already done for us! God has welcomed us all in, despite all of our baggage, and brokenness. God has made room for us in His heart and at His table, even though we could never hope to repay Him. God has opened His arms wide to embrace us into His family.
 
When we had nothing at all to offer Him, God lifted us up by His love. And this is more than mere poetry. It is the Good News, the message of Jesus Christ. Remember that Jesus, the exalted Son of God, did not worry about His own status and honour, but deliberately took the lowest seat… not simply when He ate and drank with sinners… but throughout His entire incarnate life.

He entered fully into our frail humanity, uniting Himself to us completely: born of Mary, among the poor and lowly to share in our humble state. He set aside and resisted many opportunities to lift Himself up, choosing instead to stay true to the ways of His Heavenly Father, and extend God’s compassion and mercy to all, especially those on the margins. And knowing full well what it would cost Him, Jesus laid down His life at the cross to open up the way for sinners like us to be forgiven, and invited to share in the New Life of God through the power of His resurrection.
 
Jesus humbled Himself completely to offer us God’s hospitality. And He now calls us to humbly join Him in sharing this gift with those around us. What He has done, we can never repay. But we can be changed by it, and through His Spirit at work in us, we can become the tangible ways His hospitality reaches out into our world.
 
So then, how do we go about making room for others in our hearts and lives? What might we need to set aside, or start up in order to care for those God brings to our doors?
 
In our services here at St. Luke’s, how can we be more intentional about making room for those who are new, and those who are… not new… so we can all receive God’s loving welcome together?
 
In our wider communities, how can we be more open to our neighbours, and genuinely responsive to their needs, even if they never dream of darkening our doors?
 
And in the Church… how can we worship, and work alongside, and have real fellowship with our brothers and sisters from other parishes in ways that don’t lead to competition or posturing, but genuine communion?
 
The humble hospitality of Jesus is a calling to live out our faith… to put it into practice… trusting that if we make room for others, and provide for them, then God will take notice, and He will take care of our needs… not necessarily in the same way, but with a much more enduring effect.
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And it is a calling to grow in love… not to prioritize our own agendas and status, but to focus on the good of all.
 
And it is a calling to actively share our hope… to extend real help and fellowship to those around us… counteracting the isolation, and loneliness, and despair at work in our world today, and welcoming all those we meet into the blessed New Life of Jesus.
 
God has offered us all the gift of His humble, heavenly hospitality. And He has welcomed us all to come and share in His fellowship at the table of Jesus His Son. May we fully receive this generous gift of love today. And may God’s Holy Spirit open our hearts and minds and lives, so that we can sincerely share His saving welcome with our world. Amen.