When we got married, our first apartment was a rather funny little place. We had three rooms. You entered into the living room, which was also our study, with a desk and shelves for our books. It was also our bedroom, with a hide-a-bed sofa that we pulled out for sleeping. There was a short hallway connecting the living room to the kitchen with a bathroom on one side of the hall. The kitchen wasn’t very big, but it had room for a small table with four chairs. The apartment had been the space for the “dorm mother” when the building had been a dormitory. When we lived there, it had been converted to offices. The Montana Association of Churches, the Montana-Northern Wyoming Conference of the United Church of Christ, and a couple of other church organizations occupied the rest of the first floor. There was a commons area and bathrooms on the first floor. In the half-buried basement was a mechanical room and a large room that was used as the meeting place for a new Presbyterian Church that was being formed. Upstairs the dorm rooms remained and were used for visiting guests. We traded janitorial services for our rent.

Sometimes, when nothing else was scheduled, we were allowed to use the commons area to entertain guests. The reception following our wedding rehearsal was held in that space.

We also would invite individuals and couples to our apartment for simple meals. I think spaghetti was a common menu item when we entertained guests.

It was our home for the nine months of our senior year of college. After living in Kimball Hall, we moved to half of a small cabin at my folks’ summer place and from there to a one bedroom apartment in Chicago.

One of the important tasks of every home that we have had is hospitality. Home is not just a retreat from the world, it is also a gathering place where friends meet. Our teacher Ross Snyder described it this way: “a meeting place for the gathering of friends from around the world for the interplay of mind upon mind, living toward world humanity.”

Today our home will be a place for our daughter and son-in-law to come after their adventures in Montana and Yellowstone National Park on their way towards their home. And we also will have guests from Australia. The Rev. Dr. Tony Floyd is the director of Multicultural and Cross Cultural Ministry of the Uniting Church in Australia. He is at the center of producing resources, hosting conferences and workshops, meeting with congregations and helping the church to live its faith in the diverse and multicultural setting that is Australia. The Uniting Church has congregations from all over the world. Immigrants from Indonesia, Vietnam, Samoa, and other Pacific Islands as well as other places have come to Australia and formed congregations that are a vital part of the Uniting Church.

Tony is also a seminary classmate and friend of 40 years. He, his wife Shirley and children Leanne and Michael were among the first people we met when we moved to Chicago. During the two years that we studied together, we formed close bonds by discussing theology late into the night, sharing meals and numerous cups of tea, and more than a few meals. We traveled together during school breaks and their family spent one Christmas break with our families in Montana. After Tony completed his doctoral program and they returned to Australia we kept in touch with letters and later e-mail and occasional phone conversations. Tony and Shirley have traveled to the United States several times and we have been able to host them in each of the homes we have had since graduating from seminary. They were visiting when we moved to South Dakota and helped us move into this house. They came again for a visit a decade later and now are making their third visit to our home here. We were able to spend a month together touring Australia including a trip to Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Alice Springs.

Receiving guests is one of the reasons we have a home and we are joyful and excited to have everyone arriving later today. The next few days will be a great time of showing our church and the area to our guests. It will also be a time to renew friendship, to share stories and to exchange ideas.

It is simplistic to say that we speak the same language. Of course our accents are different. There are even a few vocabulary differences between Australia and the Midwest of the United States. But we shared the same teachers and studied the same subjects in Seminary. We followed the same degree paths, though our educational focuses were different. We shared a deep admiration and garnered inspiration from a common teacher whose life and work has been a constant companion through four decades of ministry not just on our two continents, but also in Africa, Europe, South America and Asia as well. Perhaps we are participating in that “living toward world humanity” about which our teacher wrote.

I have a busy day ahead. There is a wedding rehearsal and a wedding. There are worship bulletins to prepare. There is a meeting of the Department of Stewardship and Budget in the early evening. But when I get to the end of the day, I know that there will be a pot of tea and perhaps some “biscuits” waiting. More than the refreshment of food, however, will be the refreshment of hearing stories of life and ministry in Australia and seeing the connections between our churches and our lives.

The gospel of Matthew ends with these words, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This great commission has empowered the church for millennia. Tonight we will taste the fruit of its fulfillment when we share good conversation and faith with friends from another nation, whose discipleship journey crosses with ours again and again.

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