The Address of the Conference Minister

Connecticut Conference, United Church of Christ
2003

Hospitality as a Sign of Hope for the World

Davida Foy Crabtree

Have you ever visited a church and felt less than welcome? Ever stood in a coffee hour wondering whether anyone would speak to you?

This past summer David and I took a four day vacation to another area of New England. While there, we decided we wanted to visit a particular church in a thriving small city on Sunday morning. So on Friday afternoon, I called the church to find out the time of services. The telephone rang and rang. No answer. After repeated attempts, I gave up on that approach, and tried the local newspapers. No listing. So we decided to head that way for dinner and see what the sign said. The church was shrouded in scaffolding and no sign was visible.

Finally on Sunday morning, I decided to make one last attempt and reached the minister forty-five minutes before the service began. So we went. Somehow, we had managed not to get the message! We did find a parking place, but only after driving around the building twice were we able to tell where one should enter, given the construction. As we went in, a woman handed us a bulletin with a smile on her face and pointed us toward the sanctuary. We sat near the front because of our hearing challenges. Most everyone else was to the back or side, but there was one pewful of people nearby. The passing of the peace came, and one woman reached across the pews and greeted us, saying, "It isn't usually this empty." At the close of worship, we walked down the center aisle to greet the minister. People were standing all around talking with one another. Finally when we got to the last pew, one man stepped out and greeted us. The minister walked away before we got to him.

Now I was getting very interested in just how far this would go. So I said to David, "let's go to the coffee hour." He made a stop on the way, so I went alone, got a cup of punch, and stood by myself in the middle of the room, looking a little lost yet interested. That didn't work. I went to the display about the construction work. No takers. So I went over to a kiosk with displays about the church's many activities. I halfway expected a sign to declare, "First Congregational Church, the friendly church"! By now David had his coffee and had joined me. No one else ever did, and we left, knowing that was one place we'd not be likely to return.

What an experience that was! I surely hope it cannot happen among us, yet I know that portions of it do happen every Sunday across our Conference. They happen when we are not intentional about the ways we receive visitors, and not committed to the sharing of the gospel through our life as well as our words. They happen when we forget the words of Hebrews 13:1: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it"

Contrast that experience, if you will, with an evening visit I made recently to First Church in Danbury, where the church council all had nametags on and people greeted me warmly. They even have a tradition of escorting visitors to the parking lot afterward and being sure they know how to get back to the highway!

Or contrast it with First Church in Mansfield Center, where I arrived very early for my preaching engagement, was greeted by several people in the parking lot, shown my way into the building, and invited to listen to the choirs rehearse while other preparations were being made. Their worship on world communion Sunday was engaging, dynamic and multicultural, with a drum choir as well as a voice choir, a processional of elements and a circular tablecloth made by the children of the church with people of many colors joining hands around its perimeter. Youth joined adults in every aspect of worship, including the serving of communion. What a welcoming, reconciling and joyful spirit there was that day!

Hospitality. It is at the core of Christian identity in many respects. Yet it is not just about the way we receive and welcome people, not just about friendliness. When I was young, I associated the word hospitality with entertaining people in our home or our church, with fancy little sandwiches and silver tea service and silly little aprons. As I begin, I invite you to empty your minds of all such associations!

The hospitality I mean is about the way we worship and what our worship says to people of all ages, races and conditions of life. It is about the way we talk with one another about difficult matters, the effort we make to reach out in evangelism, the freedom we experience in our new life in Christ. It is about the mission and ministry we share as we seek to be signs of hope in an increasingly hostile and despairing world.

Christian hospitality is a radical disposition toward the world that runs against the kind of exclusion and judgment that so pervades our culture. Deep hospitality is about the ministry of reconciliation Christ gives us to live. After all, it is Christ who is our host at the table, Christ who forms us into community, and Christ who enables us to be mutual guests and disciples of one another. Every encounter with the living Christ graces us with strength to live the reconciling and healing love he makes available to us. True hospitality transforms life for both those who give and those who receive as well as for the community at large and the world around us.

Hearing One Another

At this Annual Meeting, as delegates you will be addressing a number of difficult concerns. So as I address the theme of hope and hospitality tonight, I charge you to remember that you are the Body of Christ assembled in this place. You are Church. You are the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. As such, we are together responsible to extend hospitality to one another. That means, to my mind, that we will honor the differences among us, listen thoughtfully to others, speak with care and loving honesty. It means that we will remember that when votes are taken that are not unanimous, we can easily hurt one another by our response. Hospitality is challenging, as it means earnestly seeking the good in the other. It also means we need to be authentic in our expression so that the real me is meeting the real you.

One of the privileges of being the United Church of Christ is also its burden. This is one place where we really do live in community without a human authority over us. Since this is a rare experience, we are out of practice. Yet we need practice in these days. Your Conference staff is observing strange conflicts and behaviors among our people. We see anxiety and irritability at new highs, with people leaning toward ultimatums as they try to exert their power or overcome their powerlessness. As the economy turns down and insecurity rises, as people are unemployed and underemployed, they tend to live all this out in the life of the church. So more and more of our churches are developing behavioral covenants that address the way they will live together as a faith community. Conference Annual Meeting is a good time for us all to put our learnings to work.

It is tempting and easy to let hospitality be a gloss on life, a superficial coffee and biscotti sort of thing. Yet I believe we all know that we are here seeking the mind of Christ for our time, awaiting the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. More than anyone else, it is Christ whom we need to receive with a spirit of hospitality in these three days. I would remind us that though it is one and the same Christ whom we encounter and know, our way of experiencing Christ differs and we have much to teach and learn from one another. So we come with open minds, believing that God is still speaking ... in our age... to our times...and to us.

Welcoming One Another

In Christian hospitality, we are motivated not only by scripture's call to us, but also by the seed of caring that has been planted in us by our baptism. We reach out in loving welcome because that is Christ's expectation of us and because we are so grateful for the embracing welcome we have received that we want to share it with others.

What are the ways we express the hospitality of Christ? Through refugee resettlement in our local churches and nationwide. Through starting new churches of many cultures. Through advocacy on behalf of and with immigrants. Through evangelism that tells the story of Jesus and his love to the unchurched. Through ministries that build and manage affordable housing and through other ministries with the increasing numbers of poor people in our nation. Through open and affirming ministries that assure gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people that God and the church love and accept them. Through seeking to embrace one another despite our theological differences. Through expansion of the numbers and kinds of worship services in our churches. Through Silver Lake Conference Center. Through gifts that strengthen other churches in our partnership through Our Church's Wider Mission.

Through all these and hundreds of other ways, we live a ministry of Christian hospitality.

Yet Christian hospitality is not uncritical. Within the loving embrace of the community of faith, we are held accountable for actions that harm the wholeness of the Body of Christ. We seek to balance a loving welcome with discernment about participation that is healthy and builds up the Body, and participation that harms it. Every one of us needs both loving embrace and caring discipline for the sake of our own growth as well as the wellness of the Body of Christ.

At our last Annual Meeting, I spoke to you in part about the toll racism takes on our life together. I had hoped that we would be able to begin some long overdue work among our churches and in our Conference. Here is part of what I said (and for those who were not here last year, copies are available at this meeting): "Racism abounds - around, among and within us. It abounds not only as personal prejudice, but in its institutionalized forms as well. It abounds not only in relation to African Americans, but also in relation to Latinos and Latinas, to Asian and Pacific Islanders, and...Native Americans. If we want to be a church for the future, we must find creative and persistent ways of addressing racism in our day - and eliminating it!" I went on to propose that some among us work on developing resources for study and for worship, that some form a focus group on racism, and that every church work with its members on teaching about racism because that work can affect entire communities and workplaces as well as our churches.

Then in the months following Annual Meeting, events developed at Silver Lake, with Conference finances, and with unexpected searches for staff that required an extraordinary investment of time and energy, and we had to delay other work. One might say it has been a case of the urgent having overwhelmed the important, except that work on racism is urgent, and these other matters are important too.

As we went into each successive search, I had great hopes that we would be able to expand the diversity of our staff. We recruited candidates actively nationwide, worked hard at having a diverse pool, ensured that each search committee itself was inclusive, and yet we did not succeed in adding any persons of color to our staff. We continue to believe that in order for the Conference to serve all of you well, we need a multicultural and multiracial staff. In my frustration, I talked with two Conference Ministers who are themselves persons of color, and asked for their guidance and feedback. Each in their own way shared his frustration as well, one of them saying, "Don't beat yourself up, Davida, we weren't able to do it either." I try not to beat myself up, but on the other hand, I do hold myself accountable for this failure, even as I know how hard we all tried.

Having said that, I also need to say that I have great confidence in the staff whom we have called to serve among you, knowing that each of them is profoundly committed to work against racism and for a transformed and transforming Connecticut Conference. We can't do it as well as we could if we were more diverse, but we will do it as well as we can.

Feeding One Another

Prophetic hospitality may seem to some like a contradiction in terms. Yet in important ways, authentic Christian hospitality is always prophetic. We seek to be a place of "extravagant welcome", to quote our General Minister and President, John Thomas. The welcome we extend is not just for "our kind of people", as I have heard it described, though I must admit I never know who that is. Rather, as a people of God we try to nurture a home for dissent, a spiritual place where those with no homes and those with too much home can come together, where those who suffer and those who are lilting through life can love one another into new depth, where those for whom God is more real than food can join with those who have serious doubts.

Prophetic hospitality is rooted in the vision of Matthew 25: we inherit God's true world when we feed the Christ who comes to us in others, when we give drink to the Christ who comes to us thirsty, when we welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned. It is in our being the hospitable community that we learn to ask the hard questions of which prophetic stance is born. From our service in the soup kitchen, we begin to ask how we can live in a society in which the poor are increasing at such a rate and the disparity between rich and poor grows each day. From a visit to the prison, we ask, how is it that a disproportionate percentage of the prisoners are African American and Hispanic and poor? And in the asking of the questions, we become more deeply hospitable, not only to those who are disenfranchised, but also to the Spirit of Christ himself.

Learning to live prophetic hospitality is fundamentally a matter of being secure in our faith, not necessarily certain, not necessarily absolute, but secure. Secure enough to be open. Secure enough to be passionate. Secure enough to challenge. And secure enough to welcome those who think differently than we do.

For in these days of serious economic suffering, when food pantries cannot keep their shelves stocked, and winter approaches without enough shelters, in these days of ever increasing violence in the world around us, what is the community the church needs to become? When the material security so many have counted on now seems elusive, and relationships are falling apart, what do we need the church to be? People seem to be searching for places with spiritual depth and richness, places where they can be fed both literally and metaphorically, and where they can participate in feeding. We yearn to be that kind of community.

Thousands of people are hungry for a faith community that will teach them how to live in this strange new world we now inhabit. They are troubled by the silence of so many of the churches in the face of our nation's use of military power in many areas of the world. They are looking for another way to live, one that has integrity with their core spiritual values, and for a faith community that will support them in their search. I, for one, am bold enough to believe that we can be that for them!

It requires two things of us, however: first that the pastors and teachers among us commit to studying nonviolence as a Christian discipline; and secondly, that we overcome our shyness about telling our story as the United Church of Christ.

Most clergy have studied the teachings of Gandhi and Dr. King and have a working knowledge of the principles. Yet the need is so profound now, that I do not believe that background is sufficient. If we will provide a spiritual home for these thousands, we need to deepen our understanding and our conviction that Christ offers another way through life than that propounded by the world around us. To that end, I invite our clergy to consider becoming a part of a new effort that will be led and taught by the Rev. Allie Perry specifically focusing on the theological and spiritual base of nonviolence in the Christian tradition. Allie has taught this discipline at Andover Newton Theological School for several years now and her course is acclaimed by her students. It carries many implications for our life together as well as our witness in the world. I hope that many of our pastors, and ultimately our churches, will have the benefit of her gentle yet convicted teaching.

Imagine churches all across Connecticut that live out a deeply rooted commitment to nonviolence, churches that work locally to dismantle racism and its effects, churches with labyrinths, global music, and prayer communities, churches that foster environmental concern with theological depth. Churches where members have no trouble articulating the connection between their faith and their daily work. Churches where children and youth are integrally part of the whole life of the church. Imagine churches where God is worshipped with awe and joy. All of this makes for a deep prophetic hospitality, a radical welcome that transforms people and their lives.

It takes courage as well as security to offer that kind of ministry. It doesn't come easily. Resistance is strong among many of our people because in order to usher in this kind of transformation, leaders need to be willing to lead differently or get out of the way. Pastors need to be able to articulate the vision with confidence and not fear. Yet it is worth the daring!

Yet being that kind of church and offering that kind of ministry is self-serving at best if we do not invest ourselves in communicating who we are and what we stand for. It may not be quite as true in Connecticut as it is in other parts of the country, but the United Church of Christ is one of the best kept secrets of Christianity. We do a disservice to the very people we would serve by not overcoming our shyness about evangelism and our reluctance to speak of ourselves and what we have to offer. All around us are people looking for this kind of church, but they are not willing to take the risk of crossing the threshold for fear of what they might encounter. Tell the story, my friends! Reach out and share your joy! God is still speaking, and we are still listening!

There are churches among us who can teach the rest of us about how to become this visionary church. Many already have glimmers of what such transformation can mean. I've witnessed it as I've visited among you and so have the rest of our staff. Yet it requires amazing discipline and persistence to pursue. We who are your staff stand ready to assist because we believe this is what needs to lead us through this new century.

Sustaining One Another

A similar commitment and similar courage is required if our Conference is going to step up to the challenges of this time. We need to continue strengthening our ability to network you together so that you can teach and support each other. We need to discern what it means to offer Conference services to the churches as we enter a time of challenge for our way of being the Church of Jesus Christ. We need to find among you those prepared to lead as we set about becoming a truly multiracial and multicultural Conference. We must increase our support of scholarships to attract the best theological students. We must uphold the highest standards of ethics within the lives of our churches and ministries. We must bring Silver Lake up to code, make it handicapped accessible and invest in it so that future generations will benefit from it as we have. We must address the tremendous disparity of opportunity among the youth of Connecticut and enable our churches to make a difference among them. Most of all, we need to be a flexible, strategic, and bold set of God's people in this place and time.

During this meeting, you will need to decide the level of support you want to give to the Conference. In essence, you need to decide who we will be together and what we will do. That is by no means entirely a question of finances. There are substantive ministry questions before us. The Board of Directors and the Senior Staff are beginning this fall a process of engagement in exactly these issues of transformation and their implications for our ministry.

Part of the question facing us together is how do we receive and respond to one another's ministries? How does your Conference staff receive and support the ministries of your church? How does your church receive and support the ministries of your Conference? How do we in Connecticut receive and respond to the ministry of the national setting of the church? What would it mean for us to exercise radical and deep Christian hospitality? Hospitality is of course, one aspect of covenant - a readiness and eagerness to receive the gifts of the other, an awareness that we need one another and are less than God needs us to be when we isolate ourselves, whether that be out of fear, out of impatience, or out of ignorance. Mutual hospitality in covenant is our calling, our polity, and our identity.

We are in a different era. That is being signaled all over the church and all around the world. Where once the church was a major institution in every community, now it can seem invisible in many. Where once the tried and true forms of worship drew people in, now they keep many away. Where once a denomination was a source of identity and loyalty, now people shift that identity with every move and have little concept of loyalty, even to the local church. A colleague Conference Minister commented last week that while the Constitution of the United Church of Christ declares the local church to be the basic unit of the denomination, the truth is that in this era, it is the individual member who has become the basic unit. The radical individualism of our culture has crept into the church and taken it over. Our reliance on covenant is one of our great strengths and makes us truly counter-cultural. Yet without intentionality in teaching about that covenant and the mission we share, without our living it, we will be unfaithful to both our heritage and our future.

The deep hospitality I see as a sign of hope in a fractured age is a dynamic, enriched covenant that always calls us beyond ourselves and our comfort. That is because this covenant, this hospitality, is born of the triune God. We are given to one another by God as gifts for our mutual upbuilding. There are some among us who are strong and do not believe they need the rest of us right now, but in the past and most likely in the future, they have needed and will again need the strength of our relationships. There are some among us whose very existence is threatened, and we are here to stand with them and support them, just as they have supported others in the past. Perhaps it is the nature of human institutions that our memory of need is weak and our self-reliance always seems perpetual. As a student of the history of the churches of this Conference, however, I can tell you, every church has its day of need and every church is called to faithfulness in this covenant we share.

We cannot offer our ministry of deep and prophetic hospitality to the world unless we passionately claim the movement that is the United Church of Christ. And the world needs us. The people of Connecticut need us. We need one another.

And so I give thanks to God for the Connecticut Conference, for all 258 of its mission outposts known as local churches. I praise God for churches like Mystic, Wapping, and Southington where seekers' services and exciting new programs are underway; for preachers like Lillian Daniel, Barbara Headley and Ron Evans and so many others, for churches like Greenfield Hill and Second Church in Greenwich, whose responses to the events of the past two years have been faithful and creative; for First Church in West Hartford, where they have turned the front lawn into a memorial garden with a labyrinth.

And I sing a song of joy, knowing that the General Synod of the United Church of Christ will come to Connecticut in just four years, and give God praise that you are the churches who will extend to them the deep hospitality of which we in Connecticut are so capable.

May God bless us as we grow in Christ's Spirit, and strengthen the bonds among us!

Davida Foy Crabtree
Conference Minister
Connecticut Conference
United Church of Christ
October 17, 2003

[Annual Meeting 2003]