Moss

Gospel Reading: Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23
(Click HERE for last Sunday's readings)

Decatur Island is a mossy place. Actually everything's pretty mossy out here in Seattle (that's where I am right now for some continuing education). You know about the famous Pacific Northwest drizzle. Moss is no surprise in a place like this.

I was admiring the moss as we were hiking in the woods of Decatur Island, out in the San Juans. It came in all shades of green. It clung to stones, tree trunks, and anything else that sat still long enough in the Decatur damp. Some mosses looked like tiny ferns. Others like a thin, short fur. Some moss was nothing but a faint hint of color, as if sprayed weakly from a near-empty can.

The presence of all this lovely moss made perfect sense, until my uncle bothered me with a few strange facts: The average annual rainfall in Seattle is about 37 inches, 11 inches less than Little Rock. And on Decatur Island, it's about 20. Go figure.

The lush fauna of the wet Northwest gets by on not much water by taking it a little at a time.

I heard last week's gospel read at Christ Church, Seattle soon after our return from the island. With that strange, ceremonious shaking of foot dust that Jesus recommends, he makes it clear that Seattle wasn't where the disciples were to find these inhospitable houses. Dust accumulates only indoors here.

But in telling his friends to head off without proper provisions for their journey, he sent them off depending on the hospitality of the people they would meet. And walking on Decatur island was a reminder to me that the sustaining kindness we depend upon need not be much if it comes often.
This harsh gospel reading serves as a reminder to me that our lives are caught up and held up in a great web of hospitality. And sometimes we need to be reminded of our dependence upon the goodness and gifts of others. The small, regular sustaining gifts of the people around us.

The small gifts of simple meals or rooms swept free of the day's dust. Small gifts of a look in the eye, or a well chosen word. We don't need such things in torrents. We need them just a little at a time, but often. Taken individually they don't amount to much. Even taken together their quantity may seem small. But drop by daily drop the fullness and health of our lives depends upon those hundreds of nearly invisible hospitable acts. From friend, stranger, child, spouse, neighbor. Whatever is green and growing in us is sustained by the hospitality of these others.

Jesus told the disciples to be harsh in their judgment of the inhospitable and he told them God would too. But he was talking to people from whom he was removing all illusions of self-sufficiency. Taking no gold, no copper for their purses was surely for the disciple's formation, not for the judgment of those hypothetical unworthy houses.

The disciples, like us, needed to see that their lives are like moss. They depend on the goodness of others. Not great bursts of philanthropy. But on the simple sustaining acts that are all around us. Our lives just need a little hospitality. But they need it all the time.