Year A, Proper 8
7^th Pentecost
June 29, 2008

Three weeks ago, I went on my traditional family vacation. It is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Three generations of relatives gather at the beach in the same house for fun, food and memory-making. My dad brings the same $3.00 kite he’s had for the last 20 years, except, it’s not the same kite. He buys an exact replica every other year to use for parts when the original inevitably gets torn on the sea oats. That $3.00 kite is now a financial investment and a family heirloom.

Our week at the beach is characterized by traditions. We buy shrimp off the boat every Wednesday. Thursday is homemade ice cream night. Teenage boys turn the crank; teenage girls sit on the bucket to keep the churn steady. An uncle is required to shout, “Don’t let any salt get inside the dasher, it’ll ruin the flavor.” Cousins roll their eyes. The uncle winks at his brother-in-law. The motto for the week is “There’s no complaining at the beach.” If you’re not happy, put yourself in time out until you’re ready to have a good time. There are very few rules for this time together. Sleep in, or get up and watch a sunrise. Skip breakfast, or go ahead and eat 5 eggs, it’s your choice. Boxes and boxes of Coco Puffs get consumed. A fair amount of beer disappears as well. Besides the “no whining” directive, we have no TV this week. After dinner, (the one meal we’re all together), after the all-family walk on the beach, after the 3 people left behind clean the kitchen, we’re back in the house for “Family Fun Night!”

Everybody plays. Either it’s Scrabble or Password, Charades or Cranium, Scattergories, or “31”. Tuesday night, we’ll read a play or a short story. One year we each had to write a blues song about peeling and de-veining shrimp. “Smelling nasty” was a recurring theme. The night we play “Guts Monopoly” is always a tad tense. There’s no crying, but lips have been known to quiver. Aunts and grandmothers would like to ban the game, but that’s not happening. This year, a new game was introduced – Table Topics. A square, acrylic box holds 200 or so cards with a question. Someone reads the question and everyone takes turns answering. The questions are designed to spark discussion and sharing. There is no “correct” answer, and no need to persuade anyone to your view point.

Topics include questions like these:

“What does your perfect day look like?”

“Is justice or forgiveness more important?”

“What would you love to find at a yard sale?”

“Is it more difficult for you to speak kindly or honestly?”

We all had great fun going through the cards a few at a time each day. But, when this card came up, we were a little stumped. “What are the redeeming qualities (the good qualities) of the person you most dislike?” The people I love best, sprawled out on sofas and the floor of the living room, quickly came up with an individual they found irritating and off-putting. In their mind’s eye, they saw that person with all his/her unattractive flaws. The list of faults or episodes of bad behavior flowed swiftly through our consciousness. Moving past that thought process to the person’s better side came slower. People looked up to the ceiling or down in the carpet. Some sighed, some hmmmed. One relative finally said, “The person I most dislike has a good sense of humor.” A cousin said, “The person I most dislike is very dedicated to her job.” I said, “The person I most dislike is really good at visiting sick people. He makes people feel better and helps their relatives rest easier.” Eventually, we all named at least one positive attribute for the person who repels us the most. This exercise stayed in my mind for several days and imposed itself again when I reread this morning’s Gospel passage. Jesus continues his discourse to his disciples begun in last week’s reading. He gives them basic instructions for their work. When they go out into the world carrying his message, they need this basic understanding, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the Father.” Whoever is in front of you has some essence of me inside them. Everyone, everyone is created in the image of the Father.

Every person carries somewhere in their soul a spark of God. Some tiny piece of God is deeply intertwined into every human being. Inside the most irritating, most dishonest, most mean-spirited, lazy, violent, petty, complaining, nagging, humorless, self-righteous, catty man, woman or child, there resides a piece of God. Behind, around, underneath the hard, nasty elements, there rests pure goodness. Sometimes the image of God is so obscured by character flaws we can’t see, we can’t even imagine God’s goodness making a home in that person. 

A messy, dirty, filmy surface may hide a precious treasure, but it can’t blot out its existence. Despite appearances, despite evidence to the contrary, the person we most dislike is our twin! We are exactly alike in this – we come from the same source. We share the identical, original DNA. We are all God’s own natural children.   His essence courses through our souls. No matter what comes later, at the beginning, the person who causes us the most dis-ease, the most resentment, or brings about the most negativity, that person started out as pure light and wonder. He or she was divinely marked and blessed. This is true for the person we dislike most and the person we dislike second most and third most and people we haven’t met yet. That person may become our best friend or may replace the worst on our list.

This reality is why Jesus commands the disciples to be about the business of “welcome.” Whoever “welcomes” you, “welcomes” me. Whoever “welcomes” me, “welcomes” the one who sent me. They welcome the Father. Here, the concept of welcome means acceptance. Jesus tells the twelve, whoever receives you, is open to you. They accept you. They also receive and accept God. In recognizing and connecting with you, they see the impress, the outline and shadow of God. They open themselves up to make him welcome in their lives. Jesus also reminds the first believers, when you welcome whoever is in front of you, you are receiving and accepting the one who made you. When you welcome another, you open the door to God. Welcome means making space, creating room, allowing another access, trusting, believing and thinking good things are possible in the interaction. 

This idea of “welcome” of “acceptance” of “hospitality” is a repetition of God’s second major theme. Closely following “love me first and foremost” is “love your brother, love your kinsmen.” Love all your relatives – which means everyone. You’re all related. You all come from the same originator. “Love your neighbor.” “Love one another as I have loved you.” “Love the least of these…” Jesus is extremely clear in the Father’s directives. 

Find a way to accept every one of your spiritual brothers and sisters. Find a way to locate God’s goodness in strangers and even the people you most dislike. Find a way to see God behind their irritating habits and anger-making behavior. Find a way to embrace those you want to avoid. Yuck! Who wants to hear this news? It would be one thing if Jesus said “Love the lovable!” We’d be on board if he said “Love everyone in the whole wide world who is likable.” If he had only told his followers, “Be sure to love all the nice people.” But, Jesus made the command so much harder. He didn’t add the comforting qualifiers. He didn’t give us the list of exceptions. Welcome and accept people in your family, even the slightly obnoxious ones. Welcome and accept friends, and friends of friends. Welcome and accept countrymen and people who share similar values and beliefs. Welcome and accept people whose basic goodness is apparent.

But, you can ignore liars, cheats, thieves, infidels, gossips, whiners, or anyone who pushes your particular buttons. He didn’t say that. Man, don’t we wish he had! Instead, Jesus left us with this daunting, unrealistic challenge: See God in the ungodly. Accept the undeserving because God resides there as well. Look long and deep. Keep looking until you find the presence of God, the face of Christ shining back from those eyes. 

“Love your neighbor, welcome the stranger,” is repeated again and again in our scripture. We know the words and we get the idea, but we may miss the crux of the issue. The reason this theme appears over and over is because God’s ideal doesn’t become a reality until people’s hearts change. The perfection God imagines for us doesn’t come to earth until we use some other standard for loving. Earth stays the way it’s always been as long as we hold on to the same model of loving the easy to love and dismissing the hard to like! Heaven and earth remain far, far apart as long as we feel comforted and righteous in our list of slights and faults so apparent in the people we most dislike. God’s hope, God’s dream for us will never come to earth in our current paradigm. Our island home will remain a place characterized by strife and tension until the time we modify our practice and “welcome” those we don’t even like. 

The secret God knows is that the world changes one person at a time. Heaven on earth comes about one opened heart turning another. God knows it’s hard to love the hard to love, but it is also hard to resist sincere welcome and kindness. So, even the hardest heart can soften when held warmly and gently. World change, world peace, heaven-like harmony begins with us. Each one of us locating the “God”ness in the person we like least is a place to start. 

Call that person to mind. Consider him, ponder her. What is one divine-like quality hiding underneath, behind all the other problems? When we locate that goodness, we can express our appreciation. We can tell the person face to face or in a note, in some non-threatening way with no expectations from them. We can and we need to express “welcome” and acceptance. This is how the world gets better. One person making welcome to another. One person recognizing kinship where discord lived before. One person seeing the Father behind the mess. The world gets better. People’s hearts change and then their actions change and heaven comes closer. And, as heaven comes nearer, God notices.

“Truly, I tell you, whoever welcomes the little ones, the weak ones, the least of mine – they will receive their reward.” And, dear ones, that reward is life in a better world today and a perfect life in eternity.

So, what are the redeeming qualities of the person you most dislike? 

The person we most dislike carries within them, the image and likeness of God, and, therefore, has the capacity to change this world for the better…just like me, just like you, and you, and you, and each one of us.

Amen.