John 6:1-15; Hebrews 13:1-3
‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’
It is a joy be able to join you once again here in Lübeck and to share in fellowship with you. I bring you greetings from the worshipping community at Durham Cathedral where we were delighted to welcome Pastor Margrit to the Installation of Rick Simpson as Bishop of Durham just last month.
In addition to my greetings, I also bring you our Cathedral Choir, and I want to thank you on their behalf for all the warmth and hospitality you have offered them. The Choir last toured here in the year 2000, and I know they are delighted to be back. You are not entertaining angels, but you do have some very grateful guests nevertheless!
That lovely quote from Hebrews 13, with which I started my sermon, is one that gives rise to a number of questions. It seems to reflect back to the story of Abram and his guests by the oak tree at Mamre, but it also invites us to reflect on what might drive such behaviour of hospitality and generosity, of mutual love and care. Is it simply a sense of moral duty or does it flow from somewhere else?
I would suggest that it does. The whole tenor of the letter to the Hebrews, which has built up to this point, has been one of joy and hope: joy for all that Christ has done in being the one perfect sacrifice, offered once for the sins of all people; and hope for the access which has been granted, both now and eternally, into the heavenly temple where we can come with confidence before the throne of grace.
Joy and hope: these are the two notes which have sounded deep and long through the letter so far. The readers have been reminded, in deep and imaginative ways, of all that they have been given in Christ. If they are to show mutual love, if they are practise hospitality, if they are to care for those in need, it is on the basis of a deep appreciation of what they have already received.
Hospitality is not the way Christians earn God's favour. It is the way people behave who know they have already received everything from God.
But if Hebrews invites us to live generously because of God’s gracious provision, John's Gospel addresses the obvious follow-on question: what exactly has God provided?
Our gospel reading today, from John 6, colours in the picture of God’s provision in memorable ways. The feeding of the 5000 is a story not only about the provision of bread and fish, but also about the provision of God’s own self as Jesus goes on to link the bread he provides with the bread of his own flesh, which he will give for the life of the world. God provides, both physically in necessary food, but supremely in the spiritual food found in Jesus Christ.
The way John narrates this episode carries clear echoes of Holy Communion. For John has no account of Jesus taking bread and wine at the Last Supper in the way the other evangelists do. Instead, many commentators have noticed that chapter 6 makes a similar theological point, leading us to reflect on Christ as the true bread from heaven.
I know that here in the Nordkirche the sixth and seventh Sundays after Trinity are seen as ‘Sakramentssonntage’ when the Church is invited to reflect on the meaning of baptism and Holy Communion for our life in Christ. I think the message is something like this. In Holy Communion we are invited to reflect on all that we received in Christ: love poured out of the cross and spiritual food for our daily walk with Christ. And it is this awareness of provision that the life referred to in Hebrews 13 is to be lived out. In other words, love, hospitality, generosity, care are to flow from a deep appreciation of what we have already received in Christ.
Let me give you an illustration from when I first lived in Germany, in the Sauerland in the mid-1990s. I was 20 and teaching in the local Gymnasium. The Sauerland was a prosperous area at a time when the German economy was at its strongest. And I did receive invitations out for fine dinners from colleagues at the school. But the hospitality that impacted me most was the invitation to lunch I received Sunday by Sunday from a family at the local ecumenical free church I attended in a nearby village. In many ways they had less that most people in the area: they didn’t own their own home and materially they did not have as much to spare. But what they did have was a deep sense of all that they had received in Christ, and that flowed over into the hospitality they offered in their daily lives. They could imagine what it felt like to be a 20-yr old who was still new to the Christian faith and in an unfamiliar place. Nothing elaborate—simply lunch after church—but week after week they made room for me. I wasn’t an angel, but I certainly have never forgotten the deep sense I had of God’s love flowing through them.
We might bring that story up to date by reflecting on the cultural challenge which faces us in both the United Kingdom and Germany. It is remarkably easy in both our societies to measure our lives by what we have lost. We remember stronger economies, greater certainty, fuller churches, trains on time and more confidence about the future. And once we begin counting what we no longer possess, generosity always becomes more difficult.
Now I am not suggesting there are easy answers to these complex social challenges, but a Christian contribution is certainly to remember first all that we have received, which is more than we often think. Instead of focussing on what we do not have, we can focus on what we do have. As I said earlier love, hospitality, generosity, care are to flow from a deep appreciation of what we have already received in Christ.
Indeed, we can go further and reflect on the two examples provided for us in Hebrews 13. Instead of judging the prisoner and ignoring those who are mistreated, being aware of the story of Jesus Christ invites us to take a different position. If we remember our own sin and the forgiveness we have received from the one whose body was offered on the cross, we will view those in a prison in a different way. Yes, they are serving a penalty but none of us comes before God except through mercy. And if we remember all that Jesus went through for us at the hands of cruel Roman soldiers, we will be able to imagine all the more readily what those who are being mistreated are going through.
I want to suggest, therefore, that Holy Communion can serve as an orientation point. It invites us to be reminded of all God’s gracious provision of us – yes, food to eat but, above all, love and grace poured out in the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ. But it also invites us to see others differently. For we are to live as people who have been satisfied, and therefore we are called not to hold on tightly to what we have but rather to share with those in need, keeping before us the example of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It will be my privilege to share in Holy Communion with you gathered here this morning. For the hospitality you have shown to me and to our Cathedral Choir is itself a sign of the love you have first received in Jesus Christ. In an age when division between nations are growing rather than declining, I thank God for all that we share in Jesus Christ, for we come together as sinners forgiven, as children loved and as people called to live that love in our daily lives.
‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’
I can’t help feeling that the writer to the Hebrews knew that every act of Christian hospitality is really an echo of a much greater welcome—the welcome God has shown to us in Jesus Christ. And today, as we gather around the Lord’s table, we who have been welcomed are called to welcome. Amen.
Very Revd Dr Philip Plyming / Dom zu Lübeck / 19 July 2026