Proper 17 - 2025

Sermon for Proper 17, Year C
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty

First, Just read that passage from Hebrews. There ya go, that's your sermon. Have a good rest of your day.

If we just listen to these words from Hebrews, really read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, we have more than enough to shape our lives for a week, a month, a lifetime. So let’s do that. Let’s just sit with Hebrews.

Let mutual love continue.

That’s where it starts. Not with a complex theological argument, but with a simple, urgent command: Keep on loving each other. This isn’t a feeling. It’s an action. It’s a choice. It is the bedrock of a Christian community. The author of Hebrews was writing to a community in danger—a community facing persecution, fear, and the temptation to just give up and drift away. And the first thing he says to a community under pressure is: Hold on to each other. Let mutual love continue.

And how does that love express itself? Immediately. We’re told,

"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."

I would bet that we have all encountered angels when we didn't realize it- perhaps just to late realizing that the cashier at the grocery store really did just turn the rest of our day toward the better when they really, truly wanted to know how we were doing. Or how a dormant friend reconnects at the perfect time to to lift you up...

Hospitality. This isn’t about throwing a perfect dinner party with the right china or perfect McCarty pottery. This is about 'couch-surfing Christianity.' It’s about opening our homes, our lives, our pews, to the stranger. It’s a radical, risky openness because we never know who God is sending our way. We might just be hosting a divine messenger.

Then it gets even more practical. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.

This is the logical extension of mutual love. It is empathy made real. It is solidarity. It is seeing the suffering of another and not looking away, but rather, choosing to remember them, to pray for them, to advocate for them, as if their chains were our own. This is what it means to be a community in Christ.

And then comes the line that should shake the change out of our pockets and the love out of our hearts: Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

The author of Hebrews teaches a community in danger that our faith is not a private spirituality. It is a shared life. We share our love, we share our solidarity, and yes, our surplus. Because what we have is not truly ours; it is God’s, given to us to share. This is our sacrifice. This is our worship.

It requires that we get over ourselves. We have to spread the Good News. Invite people to church, just as Jesus describes inviting those to a banquet.

The most natural thing in the world, when you have found a place of love, a place of welcome, a place where you are fed, is to say to someone else, “Hey, come with me. I found something good.”

This is the difference between Hospitality and Seeking to Serve. Hospitality can be passive—the door is open if someone finds it. But seeking to serve is active. It is going out. It is looking for the stranger, the lonely, the untethered, the hurting, and actively saying, “You are seen. You are welcome.” I challenge you this week to so and be a hidden angel. See what God does.

The world changes. Our circumstances change. Our fears change. But Jesus does not. He is "yesterday, today, and forever." His love for us is constant. His grace is unwavering. His promise is eternal.

And that is why this Table is set. This is not my table, or your table. This is the table of that same Jesus, whose love never changes. This is the Feast of Grace and it is for everyone. The instructions for today are simple: Receive this gift. Be fed by this constant Christ. And then, go-

• Go and let mutual love continue.
• Go and show hospitality.
• Go and remember those who suffer.
• Go and share what you have.
• Go and invite someone to this feast.

The sermon’s over. The work is beginning.

Amen.