Let’s talk about hospitality. 

All of us, I imagine, experience hospitality in our homes and in the homes of our family and friends. It is the welcome we offer to others, the comforts of food and conversation. For some religious folks, hospitality is a ministry of welcome. Well, welcome and coffee. I expect a lot of people experience hospitality as an area of commerce that includes restaurants, hotels, and tourism that is also based on welcoming and feeding. Hospitality for people living in 21st century America usually refers to extras – travel, dining out, visiting friends. We don’t usually think of hospitality as a matter of life and death. 

But it wasn’t always that way. 

For our ancestors in faith hospitality was born of need. In the harsh environment of the deserts in which Judaism and Christianity and also Islam were born, hospitality became a defining value. It was more than providing food, drink, and a place to stay. Hospitality was a moral obligation. 

Welcoming and protecting strangers is a major theme in the Bible. Treating immigrants and strangers as one of our own is an imperative. When water and food were scarce, when political boundaries and leadership shifted, travelers relied on protection from hosts. It was not a social option. It was part of what defined people as followers of God. 

Hospitality is so important and familiar a social construct that Jesus uses it to describe the Kingdom of God. Feeding the hungry is the same as feeding him. 

There is another key aspect of hospitality for these ancient people that has been handed down to us: it’s bread. Welcoming strangers to your table and giving them bread is connected to this core value of hospitality. 

In the story of Israel, offering bread is connected to their sojourn in the desert after freedom from slavery and God sending manna, bread from heaven, to feed them. Knowing that they – we – once struggled as strangers is meant to make us feel and show compassion. 

Again and again in his ministry, Jesus not only feeds people bread, he instructs his followers to accept hospitality when they are guests and show hospitality to others as a mark of their faith. 

To this day, even in secular contexts, when we say we are breaking bread with others, we mean that we are making peace and establishing bonds of friendship with them. 

It is with all this in mind that I read story of Jesus’ despondent disciples on the road to Emmaus. On that seven mile journey, they had a robust theological conversation with someone they didn’t think they knew, someone they talked about scripture with and debated interpretation.

That stranger was, of course, Jesus. They didn’t recognize him in conversation. But two things happen to open their eyes:

First, as tradition and Jesus urged them, they showed hospitably. Night was falling. They did not think they knew this strange man, but they knew that he would need a safe place to stay. So they offered to put him up – to feed and shelter him so that he would be safe. 

And it was in that context – their hospitality to Jesus – that the second thing happened. Jesus took, blessed, broke, and shared the bread. He mirrored their hospitality back to them. 

Then they recognized him. Hospitality is what oriented these disciples so that they could see Jesus.

The faith of these followers of Jesus gave them particular values, including hospitality. The stories and prophecies of their tradition reinforced those values. Scripture was how they knew about the history of God’s connection to them and love for them. Scripture was how they passed faith and values on to their children and grandchildren. And yet it was actions that revealed Christ to them. It was living those values that opened their eyes. 

Jesus meets us whenever we show hospitality to strangers – in churches or in our homes or on the streets. This is how it was for Cleopas and his friend who walked for a couple of hours with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, 

Jesus shows us when we live the values he taught our eyes will be opened. We will see Christ in the people around us – the hungry, the lonely, the distraught. We will see Christ in people just like us and in people very different from us. 

The other day, on my way to a meeting, I parked my car, got out, and saw on the ground a small wooden cross. It was lying there on the pavement. I almost picked it up – it seemed like maybe the universe was giving me a symbol of my faith, perhaps some reassurance. In the end, I decided to leave it there for someone else to find – maybe someone who needed encouragement more than I did that day. 

After the meeting, as I drove away, I thought about that cross and what it could mean for the next person who found it.

Maybe someone like me, a Christian, would find that cross and be reminded to carry their faith with them into their next meeting. 

*****

The crosses in churches and around our necks and on the bumpers of cars carry lots of meanings for the people who see them. 

We know that at the time of Jesus’ life and death, crosses were instruments of death. Romans used tall wooden crosses to execute criminals they found especially heinous. The worst crimes were challenges to their power. Treason, rebellion, murder, desertion from the army. These were all offenses punishable by crucifixion. 

Not only was the execution painful, it was public. The naked bodies of the offenders were on display as they died and long after as a warning to others: If you offend, this will happen to you. It was intentionally humiliating. 

When Jesus’ disciples and his first followers thought of the cross they thought of victory, but their image was not gold and ornate as our crosses often are. In fact, among early Christians, the cross was not even the main symbol of their faith. They used a fish/icthus that we sometimes see on bumper stickers or an anchor as symbols. 

Early Christians were mocked for their association with the cross, it was a shameful symbol of Roman power and execution. It was that way for more than 200 years. 

Then the Emperor Constantine came along. After he had a vision that promised victory in battle if his army used the symbol of the cross on their shields, helmets, and standards, it became a symbol not of weakness but of political and military power. 

There was a complete turnaround. The cross started appearing on coins and monuments. Once a symbol of persecution, it came to represent victory and protection. It was not only aligned with the power of God, it was also linked to the power of earthly empire. 

Things were never the same again. Since that time, Christians have used the cross, a symbol of salvation. And we have also used the cross to oppress and terrorize people. The instrument once used to execute Christ has, since the time of Constantine, been used by Christ’s followers to persecute perceived enemies, including fellow believers. 

*****

I thought about this when I reflected on the cross I found in the parking lot. What if whoever found that cross was not a Christian, but someone who had been hurt by cross-bearing people? Historically, this has especially been the case for Jews. For centuries a false theology (that Jews were “Christ killers) has led to massacres of Jews individually and as whole communities. Good Friday became a dangerous time for Jews, a time when Christians targeted them with harassment and violence. 

Along the way, Muslims were added to the target list as enemies of the cross. Like Jews, they were victims of the Crusades and Inquisitions. 

We might be tempted to think that the cross is no longer abused in this way. We might hope that the lessons of past mistakes would encourage Christians to remember that the cross should rightly be a symbol of humble service and sacrifice. 

But sadly, the cross has been and still is used to stand for other values…
In the 20th century, people who claimed Christian faith and heritage burned crosses to intimidate and threaten African Americans and other marginalized groups. This practice is still used as a tool of hatred today. 

Some Christians are using crosses to shame and vilify our LGBTQ siblings – and to denounce other Christians who disagree with their interpretations of scripture and tradition. 

There are many today who feel more traumatized by the cross than saved by it. 

*****

I wonder what finding a small wooden cross in a parking lot would mean to our Jewish and Muslim neighbors?
I wonder what it would mean to someone who had no particular faith tradition? 
I wonder what it would mean to someone who had faced the cross as a threat?
I wonder how someone might feel finding that cross if they were a Christian who had been hurt by the church? 

Today, more than most days, is a time to reflect on the cross and what it means.
What it meant to Jesus and to those who saw him hanging on it.
What it meant to his early followers who met in secret because of their devotion to a cross-shaped faith.
What it means today to people who wonder if God loves them. 

Today is a good day to remember that the cross was the place where God met us in our human suffering in the body of Jesus Christ – and did so not to shame us or vilify us but to love and save us. 

The cross is our reminder that God was and still is with us, even in the depths of physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. The cross is God’s promise that there is resurrection on the other side. 

Based on a sermon preached at St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church, Buda, Texas 4.3.26