Sunday Sermon - The Rev Joy Wallis (June 14, 2026)

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. There asked the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Then Jesus summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles. First, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew. James, son of Zebedee and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector, James, son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. These 12 Jesus sent out with the following. Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news. The kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment. Give without payment the gospel of the Lord. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Praise to you, Lord Christ. Hal, Age 3 through 10, are invited to join Katie for story time singing and prayers. They'll return at the peace. May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. Well, anybody who has spent any time with me over the last couple of weeks knows that I have a love hate relationship with preaching. Once it's prepared, I love it. But the process of writing it is not my favorite thing. Wrestling and wondering if I have anything to say that hasn't been said before or that other people could say more eloquently. So I'm going to take you with me on my sermon preparation journey and how it developed. First of all, I looked at the reading from Genesis about the three strangers, the surprise visitors, who were in fact the Lord God who landed on Abraham and Sarah in the desert. And Abraham was extremely gracious and offered generous hospitality to these three guests. And then they have this surprising announcement that Sarah was going to have a baby in her old age. And of course she laughed. I love that she laughed. And then when the Lord said, why did Sarah laugh? She is embarrassed and afraid and she denies it. And she says, I didn't laugh. And the Lord says, oh, yes, you did laugh. And then I thought maybe I could turn this sermon into another kind of Monty Python type sketch. And then I thought no, I need to be more serious. So then I thought, well, poked around a few commentaries. I thought well, wouldn't it be interesting to share this little snippet that some biblical scholars think that this passage is a pre figurement of the annunciation to Mary and the resurrection in the New Testament when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a child, what was barren was brought to life. The impossible made possible. Well that's interesting, but that's really hard to get one's head around this whole pre figurement thing. So I thought no, I'm not going to go there. So then I thought, well, maybe I'll reference the famous, I'll follow Adeline's advice and example and I'll talk about art. And so I found the Rublev icon. I've got a very small image of it here, but it's beautiful. A famous Russian icon that actually of these three angels. It depicts the story of the oaks of Mamre, the angels that visit Abraham and Sarah. And it's a beautiful icon to meditate on if you ever get the chance. And I thought, well, that would follow on very nicely from Susan's sermon last Sunday on the Trinity, because this is also a representation, representation of the Trinity. And then I thought, well yeah, that's good. But I'm still struggling to make a connection here because I feel like preaching should be coming from my heart and my experience and somehow touch your heart and awaken your experience of the living God. So I poked around in the readings and I saw a connection in the gospel reading. So the disciples were sent out with all these instructions. Keep it simple, don't try and make money, don't take much with you, depend on the hospitality of people in the towns and villages. And I see that there is a very strong message here about hospitality and the importance of hospitality. The disciples in the name of Jesus were sent out. And if you read a little further in this gospel passage it says, Jesus says if none of these homes welcome you, shake off the dust off your feet and move on. Because truly for those people who don't welcome you, it will be as bad for them as it was for Sodom and Gomorrah. And Sodom and Gomorrah were the two cities destroyed in Genesis for not welcoming strangers. So then it became a bit clearer to me that we have this connection between the Old Testament passage, the hospitality of Abraham and the New Testament passage, gospel reading, where hospitality is the key to the kingdom. When we practice Costly and surprising hospitality kingdom things happen. But still I'm wrestling and I'm trying to think of examples of this kind of hospitality. And then I thought, well, the Eucharist that we celebrate every week is the perfect presentation of the hospitality of Christ. We are all welcome at Christ's table. We say each week, whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey. And God invites us into the triune community of God. Rublev so much of our ministry at St. Columbus centers around vitality. The water ministry, Wednesday night suppers, the refugee ministry, and so much more. Especially when you define hospitality as making space for the stranger at your table, in your home. In our church, in our country, when we practice costly hospitality kingdom, things happen in ways that we may not expect. Now, as we read the beginning of this Gospel passage, we see that this ministry of Jesus sending out the disciples is driven by compassion, right? The first thing he says is that he sees the people harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Again, a connection back to Hillary's sermon about shepherds and sheep and being lost and stuck and wandering and the compassion of Jesus. The response is one of hospitality. And he says, first pray, pray. Ask the Lord to send out laborers. And then he calls his disciples by name. He names each one of them. You notice in that reading every single name to be the answer to their own prayer. So when you pray to God for something to happen in the world or to meet the world's needs, be prepared for God to say, good idea, off you go, I'm sending you. And I'm thinking of Lanise and all of you who are in her summer, the summer Spanish class, equipping yourselves to be better servants to our Spanish speaking community. And then, so I'm still working on the sermon here with you, right? I'm trying to kind of bring it down and bring it through. So this week something amazing happened and it was almost as if God gave me my own experience of hospitality, showing me the depth and height and meaning of what I'd been wringing my hands about. On Wednesday around midday, there was a service of candle lighting and healing prayer for the water ministry community at St. Columbus. Right here in this chapel, we were gathered together. It was an idea born from somebody in the anti racist task force gathering, a desire for us to have more collaborative ministry and connection between our ministries. So on this occasion it was a collaboration with the healing prayer ministry and the water ministry. And I sat with a beautiful gathering of folk right here in the chapel and God ministered to me in the form of three Angels. The first one was David Griswold, who planned the beautiful service. This is the order of service. And in his introduction, he said these words. At the water ministry, both volunteers and guests experience the hospitality of Christ. I'm going to say that again. At the water ministry, both volunteers and guests experience the hospitality of Christ. Wow. We are not just offering hospitality, we're receiving it as well. Hebrews says, when we show love to strangers, some have welcomed strength that was, some have welcomed angels without realizing it. I'm going to slip in another little story here before I go back to my experience. Many years ago at Sojourners, Community had a weekly food line. And a core member of that team was Mary Glover, a neighborhood woman who knew how to pray. And this is the prayer that Mary Glover would be pray before opening the doors each week. I thank you, Lord, that you woke me up today, that my bed was not my cooling board. We know that you will be coming through this line today. So Lord, help us to treat you well. Every day as the water ministry opens its doors, they may well pray, Lord, we need know you will be coming through these doors today. Help us to treat you well. So back to my experience at the water ministry service. My second angel was a water ministry guest, a man who was wearing a baseball T shirt with Coach written on the back. And as I gazed at him, I was saddened, flooded with compassion for a dear friend of mine, a friend who has a big heart but who lost his way in the wake of COVID and is somewhere in Florida, harassed and helpless. I don't know where he is and I don't know how he's doing. But as I sat there, I felt compelled to light a candle for him and pray that he might stumble across some angels of God who might offer him hospitality and bring him back to himself. And as my tears flowed and the service ended, my third angel, in the form of a healing prayer minister, prayed with me and for my lost friend. And there it is. That's my sermon, which is just an account of my experience. What is yours? If hospitality is making space for someone, friend or stranger, it can happen in so many ways, even throwing a prayer out into the universe. I wish there was a way we could all share together right now our experiences of giving or receiving hospital, because I know you have them. But in the meantime, I just want to give thanks for the myriad of ways you all live. God's love, driven by compassion to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. When we practice costly and surprising hospitality, kingdom things happen. Amen.