When Margaret asked me if I would preach at this service, my first thought was "I'll be surrounded by strangers, but I'll bet some of them are cousins."

I grew up overseas, where my father was a Methodist missionary. But he was born on the Walker family farm in Browningsville, just west of Damascus, where his mother grew up, and I learned from my grandfather a love of genealogy. My ancestors included Days, Walkers, Bealls, Purdums, Boyers, Lewises, Brownings, and Kings, and they were mixed up with Burdettes, Mullinixes, Warfields and others. In 1976 I wrote a book with a soft green cover tracing all the descendants I could find of my great-great grandfather James Day. Some of you might have seen it.

Almost a year ago I was asked to be interim pastor of St. James United Methodist Church in West Friendship for several months and while I was there I stopped by the home of one family named Day to see if they might be related. The husband wasn't home, so I never did trace him, but his wife's maiden name was Mullinix and it wasn't long before I figured out she was a third cousin.

So I'm sure I'll meet some cousins this morning, and that will take the edge off of being strangers. In fact, when I looked up the Scriptures in the lectionary this morning, I discovered that each one had a theme related to strangers. The key verse is Hebrews 13:2: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. I must have first learned this verse back in the days when everyone used the King James Bible, because what I actually remember is "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

Well, this is not really about entertaining visiting preachers! Welcoming new people in the pulpit is pretty easy. But when we take a look at the range of people in the world around us, we realize what a challenge God has given us, and yet the rewards that await us as well.

The first group of people are those who have never been strangers to us. Family members. Close friends we have known forever. Most small churches are filled with family and friends. We know the others around us, the relationship is comfortable, we have a hard time remembering when anyone was truly a stranger. We can remember when other adults were children in Sunday School. We take care of each other like we were family -- and, really, we are. This is one of the primary blessings of a small church. Even the family tree relationships that I find so fascinating are not really the main thing. The main thing is the connection that's formed over the years. The closeness we feel to people is based on friendship over time and shared values, and if others are second or third or fourth cousins, that is a matter primarily of curiosity.

For this group, the Hebrews message is a piece of cake. Forget about angels unawares -- we know we're entertaining angels, and we're glad to do it!

A second group of people didn't start out as strangers, but they have become strangers. That's something that carries a lot of pain with it.

In this morning's Jeremiah text God's people have become strangers. Jeremiah portrays the experience from God's perspective. The people of Israel have gone off on their own. God is feeling abandoned. God is asking "am I to blame, have I done something wrong that these people have wondered off and spent their resources for things of no value? What made them forget the great things I did for them in the past. Why on earth has someone who has known closeness chosen to become a stranger?

We can identify with God's experience and God's pain. There are people who have grown apart from us. We can remember when they were not strangers, but now they are. Children who have moved away and fallen out with us, husbands and wives who are now divorced from us, friends with whom there has been a falling out. Over time, cousins become strangers -- I guess we can keep up with only so many at a time! When I was researching the Day book I was talking with one family and mentioned that there was another Day family down the road. Were they related, I asked. "Well," the husband answered, "they might be, but we never claimed 'em." As it turned out, I did figure out that they were related. They were related, but strangers. I didn't realize it at the time, but that book I wrote was a means of hospitality, as people looked through it and realized who they related to, it restored some sense of family.

Vietnam veterans returned from the war unaware that they had changed and the country had changed and now they were strangers to each other. It was a painful shock. They could not simply go back to hanging out with their friends at the drive-in as if nothing had happened. And their loved ones who stood to welcome them back discovered in many cases they were welcoming back strangers. The parades and flags of patriotism, the call of duty, didn't warn us that war is not only a dangerous place where people are killed, but an experience that turns us into strangers to each other. Showing hospitality to strangers could mean saying the "Welcome home" that a veteran has been waiting years to hear.

Other traumas also make strangers of us. Whether the trauma is domestic violence or child abuse or rape or terrorism or holocaust, it damages our ability to trust other people, and when we don't trust people, they have become strangers to us. Showing hospitality could mean developing the slow friendships through which the ability to trust is restored.

Mental illness affects most families in one way or another, and part of the pain of mental illness is the pain of feeling that those who were once totally familiar to us now seem like strangers. Those with mental illness feel the pain most, for they are often conscious of having become strangers to themselves. Showing hospitality could mean a church congregation joining the United Methodist Caring Communities Program through having an educational program about mental illness, passing a covenant statement welcoming persons with mental illness and their families into the life of the congregation, and letting the community know of the church's welcome.

Priorities make strangers. In many ways our nation has become a stranger to its roots. President Eisenhower warned us against allowing a military-industrial complex to dominate us, but now, 12 years after the end of the cold war, we still madly pursue military spending as the largest item of our national budget. We now have American military training missions stationed in over 100 countries and experts debate whether we should formally declare that we are now an Empire. Echoing through the centures, the prophet Isaiah (55:5) still asks us, "why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? Priorities have made us strangers to what we once hoped to be as a country. Showing hospitality to strangers could mean bringing to light the old ideals that have now become strangers to us and welcoming them back into our life as a nation.

There are certain persons that will always be strangers. Legal persons, the lawyers call them, or corporations. Corporations are formed for the purpose of making profits for their stockholders and that is their only purpose. But to make profits, they often pretend to have the qualities of human beings. We hear the advertising - this company, this employer, this hospital, cares for you. How can something which is not human care? It is like saying, this watering can, this barbecue grill cares for you. Corporations are like fire -- inthe right setting, with the right regulation, they can do great things for us, but like a fire, once they are let loose they are mostly destructive. Our corporations are fairly well controlled domestically, but much less so overseas, and so we hear reports of our oil companies involved in killings of civilians in Colombia, Nigeria, Indonesia and Burma, and Cococola arming paramilitaries in Colombia. When you look at the news and see our heroic firefighters battling forest fires out west, think of corporations that are out of control.

We show hospitality to such strangers by keeping ourselves free of illusions in our dealings with them. Expect them to do what they are supposed to do, make a profit for their stockholders, and don't expect them to do what they cannot do, which is to express feelings or loyalty or virtue. Like fire, a corporation can be our servant, but never our friend.

Corporations are made up of people, and it is the people who can show hospitality to strangers, and a smart corporation will encourage its people to do so. I had a small surgical procedure last year at St. Agnes. If you've been through that sort of thing, you know you check your human dignity at the door. I'll always remember the kindness of the staff, who did what they could to make the experience easier, and even sent a card a week later. I was a stranger, and the corporation made its profit, but the staff welcomed me and they were angels unaware.

There are some situations where people insist on staying strangers, and Jesus illustrates one in this morning's Gospel. First, we're told it was the sabbath and Jesus was going to eat a meal with a leader of the Pharisees. Then, we're told that when he got there he noticed that the guests were all selecting the places of honor. The more we think of it, the more we realize what an unpleasant scene Jesus was portraying. If Jesus wanted to be there, it was for work, not fun! Instead of the warmth, and camaraderie that we would hope for a meal with family and friends, we get a picture of competition and rivalry, with everyone jockeying for position.

Time out, Jesus tells us. Even if you think selfishly, this doesn't work. Seeking the place of honor just sets you up for humiliation when the host tells you, "Excuse me, but that seat is reserved for someone more important than you." Be smart in your selfishness, Jesus says, and take the seat in the corner, so your host will say, "My friend, what are you doing there? Come up here with the others."

The genius of Jesus' instruction is that even if we follow his advice out of selfishness, we are creating a setting in which the competitiveness and jockeying for position subsides. Hospitality becomes possible. When our host comes to move us to a better place, our host is actually saying, "you're not as much a stranger as you think - come be with those of us who are your friends!"

Through everything we say about hospitality to strangers, the line from Hebrews comes back to our minds again and again: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hebrews is referring to Abraham entertaining strangers before the destruction of Sodom. They turn out to be emissaries of God. The same theme continues in Genesis with Jacob's encounter with the stranger overnight by the river Jabbok; the stranger turns out to be God. Jesus builds on the theme in Matthew 25 with the parable of the last judgment in which those who have treated strangers poorly or well discover that they have in fact been interacting with Christ the King. What these passages from the beginning and end of the Bible are all saying is that hospitality to strangers is not just a good thing to do-something we must do because we have been told to - but it is a spiritual experience because in meeting strangers, we meet God. We encounter God in the stranger, and because we are strangers to the other, they encounter God in us. What we are hearing is, "If you want to meet God, find a stranger."

In the second part of this morning's Gospel reading, Jesus tells us in fact to give preference to doing things for strangers rather than for friends, because strangers can't pay us back.

This morning kicks off Open House Month in United Methodist Churches around the country. It marks the beginning of our Igniting Ministry advertising campaign in which we let the strangers around us know that our churches have open hearts, open minds, and open doors.

Jesus' words about giving preference to the stranger strike me personally when I sit as a member of my home congregation. During the service I'll think of something I may want to say to another member. When the service is over, I make a point of finding that other member to have a conversation before they slip away. Jesus is telling me, no, give priority to the stranger. If I miss the church member, I know her phone number. But if I miss the chance to show hospitality to the stranger, that chance may never return.

And as the Hebrews verse reminds us, a missed opportunity with a stranger is a missed opportunity with God.

As we move toward the Sacrament of Holy Communion, we are surrounded by the imagery of all the times Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a great banquet. When Jesus wanted to portray something about God's love he spoke of a banquet. When Jesus wanted to portray how broad God's hospitality is, Jesus spoke of a banquet where messengers went out to the highways and byways and the houses of the poor and rejected to make sure all the seats were filled. The communion imagery is one in which none of us remain strangers. For that reason we practice open communion: if God has taken the far off and brought them near, if God has made you welcome and included, if God has found you a stranger and called you a friend, who would dare to say there is no place for you here?

There is a Jewish tale in which some villagers approach the rabbi to ask his opinion. "Rabbi, how can we tell when the dawn has arrived? Is it when you can see a tree on the horizon? Is it when you can see enough to thread a needle? The rabbi answers, "It is when you can look at the horizon and see a stranger -- and know that it is your brother or sister. When there is enough light for that, then you know that the dawn has arrived."