Lessons from the Redneck Riviera

Matthew 10:40-42

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

I grew up in Northwest Florida.  They called it the Redneck Riviera because that’s where all the redneck Alabama families would go to vacation.  You know, now that I think about it, Kelly’s from Alabama… and her family vacationed there.  Hold on!  Wait a minute!  Could my Kelly be from a Redneck Alabama family?  What?  

Anyway, that area of Florida has every species of poisonous snake that lives in the United States, all in one place.  I’m also Gen X which means I was often out in the woods for 10 to 12 hours every day in the summer completely unsupervised, mostly barefoot, and totally feral.  That combination developed in me a VERY fined-tuned sense of situational awareness.  I NOTICE what’s going on around me at all times!  I can FEEL if there is something or someone close to me.  Knowing every step you take can be potentially deadly turns out to be a very effective way to learn to notice what’s going on around you.

Moving North, I noticed people’s situational awareness was less developed.  In Maine, where there are no poisonous snakes at all, there seemed to be no situational awareness at all.  I know correlation does not mean causality, but when you push your cart up to someone blocking the whole aisle at the supermarket and they remained completely oblivious to your presence?  I mean, if I was a snake, I would have bit ‘em!  

Anyway, I tell you all that, because I think the very first step in Welcoming the “Little Ones” or anyone else, for that matter, is NOTICING THAT THEY ARE THERE!  WE NEED TO SEE THEM.  WE NEED TO SEE THE OTHER IN ORDER TO WELCOME THE OTHER.  

And we need to notice them.  We need to see them.  Not for what they can do for us.  Not as potential movers of the needle, drivers of efficiency, or optimizers of work flow.  NO!  We need to notice them as fellow human beings… in communion with us, in communion with creation, and in communion with the Divine.  We need to notice them for their ability to care, love, mess up, repent and tell the truth.  We need to notice them, not for what in them can be mined, manipulated, and monetized, but as beloved children of God.  We need to notice the other, as a living WONDER… A MIRACLE, made in, and reflecting nothing less than the image of the Divine.

In his recent encyclical, Pope Leo writes that the quality of a civilization is measured not by its power, but by the care it offers: reading stories to a child; keeping company with an elderly person; making a home welcoming.  

Philosopher Jim Stump reflecting on what the Pope wrote says “These are not inefficient tasks waiting to be automated. They are practices through which we become human.”  He says, “Maybe one day AI will read stories (to children) with flawless pacing and perfect voices.  Maybe it will keep an elderly person company with inexhaustible patience.  Maybe it will recommend the ideal arrangement of furniture, lighting, and music to make a home feel welcoming.  Fine.  But WE still need to read to children.  WE still need to sit with the elderly.  WE still need to make places hospitable for others with our own hands and attention.  If we outsource care itself, WE lose something — maybe not for the person on the receiving end (though I’m not convinced of this yet), but certainly for the person who would have given care.”

I think the "something" we loose, when we fail to NOTICE the other, is connection… not just with a fellow human being… but with the God… with the Holy… with the Divine.  I believe that developing, growing, nurturing, and practicing the skill of NOTICING… the skill of genuinely SEEING the other is honing the tools needed to welcome the prophet, welcome the righteous, welcome the little one, welcome Jesus, AND welcome the One who sent him.   

Now, if you wanted to practice NOTICING, you could move to North Florida and walk around barefoot all summer.  A less potentially deadly way to practice noticing would be to look directly into the eyes of the person you are talking to long enough to register their eye color.  Determining their eye color isn’t the point.  The point is that the 4 or 5 seconds it takes to register someone’s eye color turns out to be the same 4 or 5 seconds it takes for us to profoundly SEE the other and for the other to FEEL profoundly and deeply seen.

The world is super busy, always rushed and driven for what it calls efficiency.  Let’s slow it down.  Let’s take time to sit together with our shoes off, touch grass.  Let’s pause to consider what was just said rather than racing to respond.  Let’s sit and look into the eyes of the other, tell stories, laugh, be at ease with one another.  I believe that in doing that we will come to notice, sitting right there in front of us is a creation which contains and reflects the image of the Divine… THE IMAGE OF THE DIVINE… for crying out loud!  And once we see that... welcoming them, caring for them, giving them what they need to fully live… not just what they need to get by, but what they need to live abundantly… will become as simple as handing someone a cold cup of water.  Amen. 

Bruce

 Hosea 5:15—6:6

I will return again to my place

  until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.

  In their distress they will beg my favor:

 “Come, let us return to the Lord,

  for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;

  he has struck down, and he will bind us up.

After two days he will revive us;

  on the third day he will raise us up,

  that we may live before him.

Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;

  his appearing is as sure as the dawn;

 he will come to us like the showers,

  like the spring rains that water the earth.”

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?

  What shall I do with you, O Judah?

 Your love is like a morning cloud,

  like the dew that goes away early.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;

  I have killed them by the words of my mouth,

  and my judgment goes forth as the light.

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,

  the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Have you seen the movie, Bruce Almighty?  It’s not new.  You may have, in fact, rented it from Blockbuster… perhaps even on VHS!  Eeek!  Bruce, played by Jim Carrey, wanted to know what it felt like to be God, played by Morgan Freeman.  So, God obliged and among other things, Bruce used his new-found powers to part his tomato soup like it was the Red Sea.

But Bruce was not the first character to be shown what it feels like to be God.  The first was Hosea.  God wanted the prophet Hosea to understand what it felt like to be God in relationship with God’s people.  So, God had Hosea get married to the town’s most infamous prostitute.  Apparently what it feels like to be God, in relationship with God’s people is… “interesting” from the start.  

God tells Hosea to treat his spouse with an abundance of love, grace, generosity, and tender care, no matter what, BECAUSE, that’s how God treats God’s people… no matter what.  So that’s what Hosea does.  But Hosea’s wife… she loves the nightlife, she’s got to boogie… so off she goes, leaving Hosea.  Apparently, part of what it feels like to be God in relationship with God’s people is feeling… unappreciated… unwanted… abandoned.  

Still though, God does not direct Hosea to give up on her.  Instead God tells Hosea to go out and find her, no matter how far she’s gone.  That turns out to be easier said than done, but Hosea does eventually find her.  She’s gotten herself sold into slavery, but Hosea buys her freedom.  And apparently, all of that too is what it feels like to be God, in relationship with God’s people.  It feels like a perpetually repeating search and rescue operation for a less than grateful spouse.  

At this point, maybe you’re wondering if this story arc will eventually reveal some deeply hidden gratitude… some wonderful and redeeming qualities in Hosea’s wife that have at long last been cracked open by Hosea’s unwavering love and devotion?  No.  We’re not getting any of that.  Apparently, that too though, is how God feels in relationship with God’s people.  It feels like giving a Divine-Sized investment of love, kindness, generosity and care… and getting a return on that investment from God’s people of… bupkis, squat, nada, zilch, zip, nothing.  

And yet, Hosea learns that God remains undeterred.  God’s character is not changed by the ungrateful response of God’s people.  God continues to be God, regardless of how God’s people respond and that means God always continues doing Hesed, because Hesed is the core of God’s character.  

Hesed, as you might have guessed, is a Hebrew word and it isn’t easy to translate.  In the Hosea passage it is translated as Steadfast Love.  When Jesus uses Hosea’s words in today’s Gospel it gets translated as Mercy.  In other places it might be translated as compassion, righteousness, loving-kindness or faithfulness, just to name a few.  All are correct.  None are complete.  It’s a word that’s used to describe what God is like… which is probably why we have trouble pinning down it’s full meaning.   

But Hesed is the way God works in Creation.  

Hesed is how Jesus dealt with the tax collectors and the sinners… and even the Pharisees.

Hesed is how Jesus cared for the hemorrhaging woman.

Hesed is the way Jesus cared for the devastated father whose daughter had died.

Hesed is how Jesus cared for his dead little girl.

And HESED is how God deals with the likes of you… and even the likes of me!  

God deals with us, exclusively with steadfast love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, healing and life.  Giving more generously than Oprah ever imagined giving out cars!  

God deals with us this way NOT because of who WE are, but because of WHOSE we are… Because of WHO God is.    

WE are God’s beloved and we remain God’s Beloved, no matter how many times we wander off to boogie… in spite of our chronic drought of gratitude… in spite of our profound shortage of “redeeming qualities”… God loves us.  God refuses to let us go.  God comes and finds us when we’ve gotten ourselves hopelessly lost.  God lifts us up when life face plants us in the muck.  God will spend any amount to buy us out of our stuck-ness.  AND God will do all that… all of that… REGARDLESS of our response!  Because doing HESED is the very core of God’s true character!  

We live in a time where people invoke God’s name but insist that God acts in ways directly opposed to God’s true character.  We live in a world where God’s name is used to insist that compassion is weakness, cruelty is power, and our fellow human beings only have value if they can be monetized. 

Hosea is here to remind us what God is REALLY like.  Who God REALLY is.  Hosea is here to remind us that God is full of compassion, full of loving kindness, full of steadfast love and full of mercy for ALL of creation… EVEN for the parts of creation that make themselves the most difficult to love.   

God has, and always will, shower us with Hesed… regardless of  how we respond, because THAT is God’s true character.  As we grow in the understanding of the enormity of that gift, we have the opportunity to emulate God’s character ourselves, and show Hesed to the people WE meet each day.  When we are able to do that… and granted, the world makes that a very challenging ask… but when we can do that, we do nothing less than show the world the true face of God, and THAT is a face this world is desperate… desperate to see.  Amen.