The Life of the Party

 

Remember the last party you went to, what images come to mind?  Maybe it was a Super Bowl party on Sunday, New Year’s Eve, a recent birthday celebration, or fellowship after church.  When we gather in Syster Hall on Sundays, we are living the value of caring and belonging.  Ponder, what helps make a party a party?  Is it music, food, dancing, or meeting someone new?  Do you love big parties or more intimate dinner gatherings with just a few others so you can all participate in the conversation?  One of the key values of God, according to John, is gathering people where each can show up as their God-created self.  The truth of worship isn’t just for us to celebrate God as if God needs the praise to feed God’s ego.  Rather, when we worship, we get caught up in celebration as a key component and characteristic of God.  What would it mean to worship a God who loves parties, not just somber, serious prayers?  What would it mean to welcome others as a way of prayer?  Welcoming is one of our core values as a church.  We embody this in the practice of an open communion table ~ there is a place for everyone at Christ’s table.  We don’t decide who is on God’s guest list.  We don’t check baptismal cards, attendance records, or contribution statements.  All means all.  We practice a prayerful welcome at fellowship, seeking to sit with people we don’t know as well.  We practice a prayerful welcome in taking food to those who are food insecure at the Community Meal and Resurrection House.  We practice God’s love in hospitality, taking food to friends who live in fear and cannot go out because of ICE.  You can practice prayerful hospitality in conversations.  Your listening ear, curious questions, and open posture toward another is a loving action.  To be sure, it might be easier to turn water into wine than listen to people who are full of hate.  I would rather welcome people I like who think like me.  This is what social media bubbles do to us.  They promise us that we are safe, secure, and soothed, but watch the moment you color outside the line.  When you post something that doesn’t reflect the perspective or political position of another, there is someone who lashes out with keyboard courage to “tell” you what is right.  Just as Jesus lived in an honor and shame society, so do we.  We blame and shame each other viciously online and in the 24-hour-news-tainment that is our world.  Today, practice gracious, generative hospitality with one person.   Pro tip: doesn’t have to be your mortal enemy, doesn’t have to be someone who makes your blood boil and the tiny vein on your neck throb.  Pick someone whom you do care about, but perhaps can step on your toes.  Finally, please note, the goal is not to “change” the other person.  The goal is not for you to do this to earn God’s love (which is unconditional anyway).  The goal is to see what happens in your body, mind, soul, and life when you welcome another person with an embrace of God’s love that has you.  I pray this stirs your soul in new ways this day.