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Repentance and the Formation of a Hospitable Self
The Sunday after Theophany - 1/9/2000

I don't know how many of you picked up a Wichita Eagle yesterday and saw on the cover the story concerning Abe’s Restaurant. Of course, it was nice to see one of our member families featured there so prominently, but a little further into the newspaper, beyond the front page, there were a number of interesting articles.  

One of them was the column of Sharon Hamric about Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, who passed away recently. He was responsible for giving the order to spray Agent Orange to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam.  His son was on a mission there during that time, and it turned out later that he developed a very bad case of cancer and died at the age of 42. Since then, it has become pretty well established that Agent Orange has been responsible for cancer in many, many people. 

Sharon commented that Admiral Zumwalt was among the rarest of public figures - he acknowledged a grave mistake and spent the rest of his life trying to make amends.  He started and supported a number of efforts to support victims of cancer due to Agent Orange. 

His honesty and integrity, his ability to face up to his wrongs and to try to make amends - as we all know too well - are unfortunately all too rare, (as Sharon pointed out), in public life and in American life in general today.  But it was precisely to such honesty that Jesus called people when he went out and preached, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand".

My brothers & sisters in Christ, the call to repentance first is a call to take ownership of your actions.  That is what Admiral Zumwalt did.  He took ownership of his actions, especially the bad ones. 

We don't usually have a problem of taking ownership of our good actions. We recognize them quite readily as belonging to ourselves, and if others compliment us on them, all the better.  But it is amazing how easy it is, on the other hand, to refuse ownership of our less than worthy actions.  How easy it is to make excuses for ourselves when we realize we have done something unworthy!  It comes so naturally; everyone knows how it goes:  "Well, I was under a lot of stress".  "I was lonely".  "Everyone else was doing it".  "He deserved it".  "I was just saying what I felt." And the examples could go on and on. 

What I am describing here has a long history.  I have pointed out to you many times where it all got started. We read it right in the book of Genesis:  God said to Adam, "Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded that you shall not eat?"  Then the man said, "The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate".  And the lord said to the woman "What is this you have done?" and the woman said, "the serpent deceived me and I ate." 

It's always somebody else's fault, there's always an excuse, right?  It's tough to take ownership of our own actions, to recognize ourselves in our bad actions.  Think about it for a minute - to recognize our self in our bad actions.  "That's the "real me."  There I am.  I'm that guy.  I'm that angry guy." "I express my anger in hurtful and destructive ways, that's me."   "I show people contempt instead of respect - that's my way"  "I'm more interested in pleasure than in doing good - that's my character". It might seem strange to think of it this way, really.  But taking ownership of ones own actions is quite clearly the first step of repentance.  Seeing yourself as you are, your actions as reflecting the self you are, is to be honest and truthful.  The results can be surprising. 

I remember a story a friend told me. He was driving 120 mph in a 65 mph zone.  Then he saw the flashing lights behind him, he heard the sirens come on, and he pulled over.  The police officer slowly sauntered up to the window and asked, "Do you know how fast you were going, son?"  My friend answered, "Yes, sir, 120 mph." "Why were you going 120 mph in a 65 mph zone?"  "Because I like going fast."  The cop was so stunned and found the honesty so refreshing that he turned around and walked away without giving him the ticket. Perhaps we, too, may be surprised at the result when we’re really honest about our actions.

Spend a moment considering taking ownership of the self that you are.  You know that you are not just a bundle of disconnected actions. You are a self.  And a self has character - it has a certain nature that is identifiable.  The question is: What kind of character?  What kind of character does your self possess?  And most importantly, is it a character fit for the kingdom of God?  One writer* described it this way: "in choosing one course over another, we are choosing one soul over another."  We become, in time, one type of character rather than another.  More important than the rightness and the wrongness of individual choices is the crucial significance of becoming a certain kind of character and the flow of choices from the nature of that character. 

The importance of individual choices, then, is their effect in building the character of a self.  We are slowly assembling a self throughout our life; we are slowing building a soul.  And that which we assemble, that which we build, we will present to God on the last day.  And so the critical question with regard to repentance is, "is the character of my self such that Christ would recognize as his own?"  When you present what you have built, will Christ recognize himself in it?

I would turn your attention to the gospel of Matthew so to recall this passage: "not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord', shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, have we not cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?' and then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you.  Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"  I never knew you.  I do not see myself in you.  You are alien to what I am.  What you present to me is unfit to dwell in the kingdom of God.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we falsify our spiritual life when we make our religious concern simply a matter of being preoccupied with a list of do's and don'ts rather than focusing on the central issue of becoming a Christ-like self.

St. Seraphim of Sarov fasted severely most of his life.  But that's not what attracted thousands upon thousands of people from all across Russia to make a pilgrimage to go to see him and to make confession to him.  What was it?  His Christ-like self.  It was his unbounded compassion, his mercy and his kindness, the fact that in him people saw, knew, and touched Christ. That's what attracted people from all over that vast country.

So when take a look at our actions, take ownership of them, look honestly at the self which originates them, what if we have to say "this is not a Christ-like self?" Or, at least, "there are elements in this self that are not Christ-like?" What are we to do then?  Well, Jesus calls us to repent; that we know.  And I think we know what that means, right?  To be sorry, to confess, to resolve to amend our ways, to set out to do better.  But I am going to offer a different image of repentance to you.  I am going to ask you think about it in a different way.  If I cannot say that I am a Christ-like self, perhaps I can say - in the words of Cambridge University theologian David Ford - that I may be able to be a hospitable self.  A self that is hospitable to God.  A self that is hospitable to others.

We all know what hospitality is.  Especially in the Middle Eastern cultures, hospitality is a supreme virtue.  To fail in hospitality is to utterly fail as a person, as a self.  When people immigrate from the Middle East to this country and move into a neighborhood where everybody lives with their own individual little family in their own individual little home, they often have a hard time with it. The neighbors are strangers and they can’t understand it. They ask, "Why doesn't anyone drop in for coffee?  What is going on here?"  The sense of hospitality is so ingrained in them that they can barely exist in a situation that does not manifest it.

Perhaps you know a person, or you can think of a person, who is particularly hospitable.  What are – (I could say his or her, but I really want to say 'her') - what are her characteristics?  What are the characteristics of a truly hospitable person?  What words can we use to describe her?  Consider these: Someone who is always welcoming and open.  Someone who is solicitous for your comfort.  Someone who is concerned to offer you every kindness.  Someone who is prepared to take care of your every need.  Someone anxious to please you and to make you feel well.  And she is so, not to satisfy her own neurotic needs, but because she honestly and truly cares for you.

Did I miss something?  Does that give a flavor or a savor of what a hospitable person is?  What if we consider our souls as being hospitable to God and to others?  We pray in the Advent Paraklesis service that "just as God deemed the cave to be a fit dwelling for the Lord almighty, so make our souls to be fit to contain the uncontainable God."  That's the idea. To prepare your soul, to spread your table, to sweep your floor, to lay out your goods, to put a smile on your face, and to open your heart that it might be a welcoming place to God.  And you know you simply must sweep some of the stuff out if it's going to be hospitable to God.  That’s what repentance is.

What about for others?  We cannot embrace repentance under the idea of hospitality if we fail to consider whether or not I am a hospitable self to others.  Do those same qualities that I have mentioned describe your self?  Do they describe what others see in you as they approach you? Do they experience you as welcoming, solicitous, prepared to take care of every need, open and so on?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus speaks to us today and calls us to repentance.  He calls us to take ownership of things that we don't want to own.  He calls us to own them only long enough that we might take hold of them and transfer them to Him.  "I own them, but Lord, take them, I repent of them, I confess them." He calls us to become a Christ-like self.  He is not interested in people with whom He can compare checklists and say, "Yes, I see, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, you have completed all your tasks, you have done all your good deeds, enter the kingdom".  That is not his way.  He recognizes those in whom He recognizes Himself.

And so the question for us is a matter of becoming a Christ-like self.  The key to becoming a Christ-like self is first of all to be a hospitable self - open your heart, open your home, open your life to the presence of Christ.  Welcome Him as the supremely honored guest.  And welcome all others in Him, and in doing so you will have attained the kingdom of heaven. To paraphrase, "For inasmuch as you welcomed one of these, the least of my brethren, you welcomed me."

May our repentance begin with a willingness to take ownership of all that we are: the good, the bad, and the ugly. May it lead to the formation of a hospitable self for God and man. May that hospitable self welcome Christ, and through frequent and intimate association with him, become a truly Christ-like self.

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