Invited Into God's Presence

Genesis 2.8-17

⁸ Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) ¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

This coming Sunday we will be looking at hospitality as a practice of our life of faith.  In creation God places us in the garden.  We will look at this more deeply Sunday, but we see the origin of hospitality in creation.  The variety of trees with fruit for our nourishment.  The abundance of water to sustain life.  The minerals that we see as useful and valuable.  The freedom to live and eat, even with the one exception.  Everything we ever needed was placed before us; it surrounded us.

The opposite of this is what we see in the treatment of people today.  Ways in which those who have much keep it to themselves as much as they can.  Seeing that the ones with an abundance continue to exploit the ones who have little or nothing.  Instead of imitating the hospitality of God that invites us all into his abundance, we see that our society only invites the few to the real table and leaves a few scraps for those we see as outside.

How will our abundance be used to show hospitality?  Where will we stretch our sense of hospitality to allow the world to enjoy the abundance of God’s grace in all its forms?  God still places so many of us in the midst of abundance.  Yet we leave so many in places of scarcity.  We take our steps into hospitality by seeing how we can invite and welcome the world into God’s place of abundant grace.

Prayer

God of all nations, God of all children, we ask for your mercy on behalf of all the children who do not run in the sunshine but live out their lives in dark corners.  Forgive us for not seeing; forgive us for not looking.  Be with us as we search for new beginnings in caring for these children.  We pray that one day every child might sleep through the night in peace.  Amen.

Song – All Are Welcome