August 31, 2025 – The Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost

Entertaining Angels Unaware

This morning’s Gospel places us at a dinner table—a place of nourishment, conversation, and fellowship, but also a place where power and status often play themselves out. Jesus is dining at the house of a leader of the Pharisees. He notices how the guests are jockeying for places of honour. And, as he so often does, Jesus tells a story that turns human ambition upside down: “When you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place… For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The letter to the Hebrews, which we also heard today, makes a similar point but in more practical terms: “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it… Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Both readings push us to consider a question: What do we do with what we have—our place at the table, our wealth, our gifts, our time, our very lives?

Richard Rohr, in his book Breathing Under Water, reflects on recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, and he names what he calls “the four paradoxes of Christian discipleship”:

1. We surrender to win.

2. We give away to keep.

3. We suffer to get well.

4. We die to live.

Each of these paradoxes is profoundly biblical. Each captures something of Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, where the last shall be first, and the meek shall inherit the earth.

This morning, I want to focus on the second paradox: We give away to keep.

At first glance, it makes no sense. Surely if I want to keep what I have, I need to hold onto it, defend it, store it away. Yet the Gospel, and our own experience when we’re honest, tell us the opposite. We only truly possess what we are willing to give away.

When Jesus tells his host not to invite friends, relatives, or wealthy neighbours who can repay him, but instead to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” he is not just offering etiquette advice. He is teaching us the paradox of the kingdom: generosity that expects nothing in return is the only generosity that really keeps anything.

Wealth hoarded is ultimately lost. But love shared—especially with those who cannot repay us—multiplies, deepens, and endures.

Think about it: Have you ever noticed that the people you admire most are not those who accumulate the most but those who give the most? We remember the teacher who gave their time, the parent who gave their patience, the friend who gave their listening ear. Their gift remains with us, even after they are gone.

This is what Jesus means: we give away to keep.

The writer of Hebrews echoes the same truth: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

To share is itself a kind of sacrifice. It means letting go of control, loosening our grip on our possessions, our time, even our own plans. But when we share, we discover that our lives are not diminished—they are expanded.

Hospitality is one of the deepest expressions of this. When we open our doors and our tables to others, we discover a communion that is larger than ourselves. We may, as Hebrews suggests, even “entertain angels without knowing it.”

Rohr writes that in recovery programs, those who have found sobriety keep it by giving it away. They sponsor others, they share their stories, they walk alongside newcomers who are still in pain. They know that if they hoard their healing, it will wither, but if they share it, it will grow stronger.

That’s not so different from Christian discipleship. We don’t keep faith by locking it up in private devotions or protecting it from the world. We keep faith by giving it away—by teaching, by mentoring, by inviting, by loving, by serving. The Church only remains alive when it gives itself away.

This is why mission, service, and generosity are not optional extras of the Christian life; they are the very way we remain faithful. If we try to keep the Gospel to ourselves, we will lose it. If we give it away, we will discover that Christ multiplies it in abundance.

I once heard someone describe generosity like a candle. If you keep your candle hidden, it burns down all by itself, and when it is gone, there is only darkness. But if you use your candle to light another, and another, and another, you do not lose your own flame. In fact, the room grows brighter, and your own light seems stronger.

That is the paradox of discipleship: we give away to keep.

So what does this mean for us, practically?

• It means we examine how we use our resources—not only money but time, energy, and attention. Are we hoarding them? Or are we giving them away in ways that build up others?

• It means practicing hospitality in small, concrete ways. Not only inviting those who can repay us with friendship or status, but reaching out to those on the margins, those who are lonely, those who may never repay us at all.

• It means mentoring, teaching, and sharing our faith with the next generation. Parents and grandparents, godparents and teachers, choir members and altar guild members—all of us are called to hand on the flame.

It means holding our life itself as a gift to be poured out in love, following the pattern of Jesus, who gave himself away fully on the cross and in so doing won life for us all.

Of course, the other paradoxes tie into this one.

We surrender to win: We give up control, and in doing so find true freedom.

We suffer to get well: We acknowledge pain and walk through it, and in doing so find healing.

We die to live: We let go of self-centredness, and in doing so discover eternal life in Christ.

But all of these find their daily expression in the rhythm of giving away to keep. This is not only a strategy for sobriety in recovery; it is a way of life for every Christian.

And ultimately, all of this points us back to Christ himself. Hebrews reminds us: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” He is the one who gave himself away fully, taking the lowest place, humbling himself to the point of death on a cross. And because he gave himself away, he was raised, exalted, and now draws us into eternal life.

We follow him not by climbing the ladder of success or securing the places of honour at the banquet table, but by taking the way of humility, generosity, and self-giving love.

Friends, the table is set. Jesus invites us not to scramble for the best seats but to take the lowest place, not to invite those who can repay us but to welcome those who cannot. He invites us to live the paradox of the kingdom: we give away to keep.

May our lives be marked by that kind of generous love. May our church be known not for what we hold onto but for what we give away. And may Christ, who gave himself away for us all, continue to nourish us with his life, so that we may go forth to share it with others. Amen.