The first time I met Everett was not by choice.  He was a patient in one of the wards I served as Resident Chaplain of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.  I was referred to him because the staff were fed up with his attitude.  He was verbally abusive, sexually inappropriate, and he was resisting treatment.  Everett was a middle-aged man, a diabetic, and lived on disability in a filthy rooming house.  Everett had stubbed his toe in the shower.  His toe became infected and turned gangrenous.  Because he hated doctors as much as he hated social workers, he told no one.  He admitted himself to Emergency when the pain of his rotting toe overcame his fear of the hospital.  The infection had gone too far and the entire foot would have to be amputated.

I had only been at St. Michael’s about a month, but I had started to notice a curious trend.  We chaplains were sent in to the most difficult patients.  We were the intervention of last resort.   After they had run out of options, they called the chaplain.  I’m not sure why they thought we would make a difference.   Would the aura of religious authority help us succeed where others had failed?  I’m not sure.  Regardless, our referral boxes were often filled with little pink slips of desperation. 

The staff hoped that my visits would help him calm down, and that I would convince him to agree to the amputation.  You see, Everett had other medical issues and he would not likely survive surgery using general anesthetic.  They would have to use local anesthetic which meant he would be awake during the amputation.  No wonder he was being difficult!   He was in a place he hated, in horrible pain, and facing dire circumstances.

Not surprisingly, I was pretty nervous as I went to visit him.  I’d talked to the staff and they had filled me with horrible stories of what he said and did.  They also tried to prepare me for the smell, but nothing really could.  It was hideous.  I entered his room.  It was dark and small, the tv was blaring, and he was laying in a badly tied hospital gown with his foot encased in sterilized bandages. 

“Who are you?”

“I’m the chaplain!”

“What do you want?”

“Well, the staff thought you might appreciate a visit!”

“Oh I bet they did!”

And with that, he began to rant about how horrible the staff was and how he was sure they could fix his foot. I just sat there trying to deal with the stench, and trying to listen over the blaring TV. It didn’t feel like I was making a difference at all. When he stopped yelling, I said I needed to leave, and asked if he wanted me to visit again. Surprisingly, he said yes, that would be great.  The next time I visited, he seemed happy to meet me, he even turned off the tv, but again, he ranted about his miserable life.  I thought to myself that he was a very unlikable man. Every time I tried to steer the conversation to a deeper level, he pulled it back to his complaints. When I managed to get out of the room, again, I doubted that I was making a difference and went to talk to my supervisor. And he said something I never forgot, “We have no idea of the impact of our simple presence.  In this hospital, everyone runs. You stand still. Everyone else comes in to him with their agenda. You come seeking his agenda. Keep going.”  

And so I kept going, trying to trust that by just sitting there and listening, I was making a difference. One day, I stepped in his room prepared to encounter his angry spirit. But that didn’t happen. He was pale and shaken. All his bravado and anger was gone.  In a halting voice, he told me that he had agreed to surgery, and that he was terrified. And then, he asked if I would go with him into the operating room so that he would have someone there during the surgery. 

Indeed, we have no idea of the impact of our simple presence.  

This sermon is about “Radical Hospitality,” and by radical hospitality I don’t mean throwing exceptional dinner parties. By radical hospitality I mean a deep openness and an ability to receive, and to be truly present to another human being. 

Radical Hospitality is the cornerstone of our religion. In Unitarian Universalism we are proud of the fact that we welcome diversity.  We accept that we live in a religiously plural world. Most issues of substance are not black and white, there is no either/or ethical code, because there is always something we do not know. Many of us come into Unitarian Universalist churches seeking a kind of deeper acceptance than we may have ever had in our lives. We bring our children here because we want them to grow up experiencing this deep acceptance and learning how to give it back to others. This is something to be proud of. It truly sets us apart from the religious landscape of our day and answers a deep spiritual need. 

But sometimes, I watch us, I watch myself, and I realize that the kind of radical hospitality that we strive for is something that does not come naturally. It is something that we learn. And ironically, sometimes learning radical hospitality is about unlearning other ways that we engage each other.

The man who sought to buy those twenty onions was being invited to unlearn how he engaged with other people, and to relearn how to be present to life. The doctor, the minister, and the magician had to unlearn what it meant to be helpful, and relearn how to really be there for that little girl.  When I sat there uncomfortably with Everett, feeling absolutely useless, I was being asked to unlearn my understanding of what it meant to make a difference. It meant backing away from doing and learning how to simply be.  And this is not easy.  Because in our society, we are taught that we help by doing. And not only that, but we are taught that our worth as people is tied to how much we accomplish in our doing. And so we aren’t programmed for radical hospitality.  We are programmed for radical productivity. And there is a big difference. 

I think this is important because if we are to truly value pluralism, value diversity, value the differences between us, we have to be able to stop the cycle of addictive productivity and make the time to truly live in the pluralism, to truly live in the diversity, and to fully experience the differences between us. When we’re too busy doing, we’re too busy to be our religion.

You might be asking the question, well, what’s wrong with wanting to do?  What’s wrong with wanting to be useful or productive? Well, there’s nothing wrong with that! The need to do, to be useful, to be productive, is a healthy need that can give us a lot of energy to do great things for ourselves and for others.  But I think we have lost our balance. We’re focused more on being productive than on simply being. And that means we lose touch with who we are, and become defined by what we produce, accomplish, and create. 

I know that many of you have careers with a great deal of responsibility, where you are expected to achieve significant results. Some of you are in school, and you know how much you are pushed. If you’re not achieving what you’re supposed to achieve, you just work harder. I often see how our culture of productivity is transferred to this church. We are also very much focused on doing, and no doubt, there is much to do around here. And so we focus an incredible amount of energy on getting things done, and to do that, many of you simply ratchet up your productivity level to make it happen. You’re doing the same thing here that you are expected to do at work and at school. But you know, I’ve noticed something. When that happens, the anxiety level increases markedly.  And when the anxiety level increases, your relationships with each other grow strained. 

I actually felt the anxiety level the first day I came here, and have spent most of the last year trying to figure out what’s behind it.  It’s like a hum in the air.  And I have to be honest, sometimes it drives me crazy. Sometimes I feel like the most important part of my ministry here is to sit still, like I sat still with Everett. In the face of a church where so many people are running around, I try to consciously empty myself and be present to who you are. Because if I ran all the time, I would never be able to know you. 

Now there’s nothing wrong with making things happen. If we stand still we go backwards. And that’s true whether it’s this church or our personal lives.  And there’s nothing wrong with a bit of anxiety. Used constructively, anxiety can be energy source for accomplishing great things. 

But I ask you, when in our busy lives do we just get to be?  When do we extend to each other a radical hospitality, where we empty ourselves of agendas, and prepare to sit in the presence of another.  We are a religious home, and so we are more than goals and tasks. More than projects. We are a people of the spirit hungry for that deeper level of acceptance and freedom.  

As I was preparing this service, I started looking for opportunities to be rather than to do. On Thursday, Victor Paglisotti, a member of this congregation, came to put out the garbage. Victor has done this for a long time because he lives just around the corner.  Well, I saw him outside the window as I was working. And I could feel a pull inside me. I wanted to go say hi to Victor, but I knew that I had this sermon to write. And I thought to myself, “I’ll just keep working.  I have so much to do.”  But then I found the reading about the onions. And I realized that I was choosing to sell onions rather than live my life.  I was choosing productivity over community. And so I got up from my desk and went outside to see Victor, and I’m so glad I did.

There are other places in this congregation where we are practicing radical hospitality. I think of our covenant groups. Covenant Groups are small groups open to everyone, whether you are a member or friend of Emerson.  Whether the group focuses on discussion or an activity, the central feature of the covenant groups is a promise you make to one another to build trust, share openly, and care for one another. We started these Covenant Groups last spring, and I have already noticed a difference in the depth of our congregational life. Long term members are replenishing and deeping. Those new to Emerson have a place to bring their big questions, and are making lasting friendships.

Radical hospitality is about creating more of those places in our lives.  It is about emptying. Emptying of agendas. Emptying of pride. Emptying of all the little ways that we distance ourselves from one another. And you know what’s amazing. It may feel like we are accomplishing nothing, that by becoming empty we make no difference, but the fact is, much more can happen from that place of emptiness than from a place of chronic productivity.      

There was a reason that as chaplains we could bring people to places that no one else could. We weren’t there to get anyone to do anything. We were there to meet people where they were at and to walk with them on their journey until they arrived at where they needed to go. I couldn’t push Everett to be nice to anyone or to agree to the surgery. But I could be there to listen to him as he found his way to some kind of acceptance regarding his situation. It wasn’t easy. What I was asked to do went against every grain of my being.  And I was shocked when the resistance melted away. 

Now you may be wondering, did I actually go into surgery with Everett? No, I didn’t. I decided it was too much for me, and I needed the room to say no. It was time to give myself a bit of radical hospitality.

Let us give ourselves the freedom to empty. Let us allow the burdens of productivity to slip for a while from our shoulders. Let us be open and patient when we’re not quite sure how to do that. Because, there is no telling what wonderful things will come our way.