October 12, 2008 Message

Genesis 18:1-8; Romans 15:7; Luke 7:36-47
“Radical Hospitality”

This morning marks the seventh day of our 35-day church-wide initiative based on The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. And this is the first of five weekly sermons focusing on each of those practices. If you haven’t already done so, you can pick up a copy of the devotional booklet Cultivating Fruitfulness after the service. Read it with your family each day; be part of a study group this week to discuss the five practices; or simply be here each Sunday morning to hear the sermon. These are definite ways you can participate in response to God’s call to be an active member in the body of Christ.

We believe that, as a church, we are created by God to be the body of Christ in this community and in the world. We have everything we need to participate in the mission of the church: to make disciples of Jesus Christ, helping people connect with God in ways that change individual hearts and relationships – even change groups of people.

We believe that God has created this church to participate in this mission of discipleship and transformation in distinct ways. We are not exactly like other churches. We are unique in our gifts and graces needed to fulfill this mission. Our vision is that we will live our individual and communal lives the way Jesus would live them if he were here.

We believe that this season of church-wide study and worship is absolutely vital for our congregational vision and life. It provides an opportunity for us to learn a common language and to consider how God continues to call and equip us for ministry beyond these walls into our communities and even the world.

In his book, Robert Schnase identifies five characteristics that are consistently and persistently practiced in congregations that are vibrant, fruitful, and growing: Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission & Service, and Extravagant Generosity. As we learn more about these practices each week, we will want to remember that our practice of each one emerges from our understanding of who we are and the particular time and place in which we live.

In fact, that is our question for today: Given who we are as a unique congregation, how can we demonstrate radical hospitality?
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Bishop Schnase says we demonstrate hospitality by our “active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ.” For this hospitality to be radical, we are called beyond a warm friendliness to a willingness to accommodate the needs and receive the talents of others. Melissa Bailey-Kirk, United Methodist pastor of Chesterfield, Missouri tells this story:
A teenager entered the sanctuary of a church. His parents were members of the church, in fact, they were there every time the doors opened! In his mind, they were there too much. As he slumped down in the very back pew, as far away from the altar as possible, he pulled his ball cap down over his eyes, dropped his head into his hands and settled in for a nap. He thought to himself, “Why am I here? I’d rather be anywhere than here. Church was such a drag—to his way of thinking, only focused on its own survival and uninterested in people like him.
Just as he was about to go to sleep, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the face of a woman he did not know. Great, he thought, I must be in her seat. She can have it! I’m going home.
But she didn’t ask him to move. She simply placed a bag of butterscotch candies in his hand and said, “I’m so glad you’re here this morning. I bought this for you because I heard that you really like butterscotch. I do, too! There aren’t many of us around.”
He didn’t open that bag of butterscotch for a long time. In fact, he hung it on the wall of his bedroom right beside his heavy metal posters, his guitar, and his poems of emptiness and longing. For him, a reminder of grace and a sign of Radical Hospitality.
Years later, and in his early twenties, that same young man entered a different church. He was okay with being there, although he wasn’t there for the sermon or the music. He was there because a close friend had asked him to come for a special day. He had got up early, showered, put on his blue jeans and a T-shirt, and pulled back his long hair, anchoring it with a ball cap.
As he stood outside the sanctuary, waiting for his friend before going in, he heard someone say. “Young man.”
He turned and extended his hand in greeting, but was surprised when his hand was ignored.
In fact, he was speechless when the person behind the voice continued. “Young man, you either need to take off your hat or leave the building.”

The truth of our humanity is that we each have the capacity to be the butterscotch lady or the hat man, to be hospitable or not. Within us, we have the ability to be warm and open to those for whom church is a foreign and strange land, even when their values or thoughts about church are different from our own. Yet sadly, we also have inside us the ability to withhold hospitality in order to protect what we incorrectly imagine to be “our own”—our own church, our own class, our own place.

During the First Century, the apostle Paul wrote to the Christian Church in Rome about various aspects of church life through the lens of this basic truth: Our salvation—the possibility of our living liberated lives—is tied to our faithful response to God’s prior act of grace. At the end of his letter to the Church in Rome, Paul addresses the issue of hospitality, particularly as it relates to the inclusion of those who come with different backgrounds, stories, beliefs and practices. What does Paul tell them? He writes:

Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Romans 15:7).

What would it mean for our congregation to welcome the stranger in the same way that Christ welcomes us? What would it mean for us to tie our acts of hospitality to our response to God’s gracious activity in our daily lives and in the world?

Chances are it would mean we are to be radically invitational in every part of church life. Radical hospitality means we invite others to what we do in our church. There are amazing, life-giving and life-changing things going on in our church. Maybe you have experienced them for yourself in this congregation and your life has been enriched, your faith deepened. How then will those who are strangers experience those things unless someone, like you, invites them to what our community of faith is doing here?

Have you ever invited someone who is not part of a congregation somewhere to a service, ministry, or activity of this church? If so, how did it feel? If not, what kept you from inviting them?

You are here this morning because someone at some time or another invited you to experience some part of church life. Perhaps, you came for the first time with your parents, as many of us do, but even then someone invited you later on to become more involved. Praise God for that person! Give thanks for their courage and hospitality, and pray that God shows you how to extend the same genuine invitation to someone else.

Radical Hospitality involves extending an invitation. And when those invitations are accepted, welcome to what we do in our church follows. Welcome can be found in a lot of things - such as fellowship time, in our greeters, when we introduce ourselves to newcomers, and in answering their questions, just to mention a few.

Do you remember walking into this congregation for the very first time? What was it like? Who was it that reached out and welcomed you?

The ministry of welcome is something that belongs to all of us, and it belongs in every room and corner this building—as well as in every gathering, every activity and every service project of this church that move us beyond these walls. Radical hospitality means we welcome others to what we do in our church.

Radical Hospitality includes invitation and welcome, which are so important. And yet, some of us can remember times, perhaps during a worship service or a Sunday school class, maybe during a service project or mission - when we have felt totally excluded or ignored or at best tolerated. We were definitely the outsider. Who wants to go back after that? How can we explore faith in God, how can we become a disciple of Christ, when the community representing God is closed and there seems no room for anyone else?

Bishop Schnase points out there are times when a church’s greatest strength can in fact be an obstacle to radical hospitality. The very things we celebrate - friendship, intimacy, and love for one another – can often get in the way of including others. He says people get so comfortable, form such close relationships, in the group they are in at church that there may not be room for others. If that is the case, we will need to mix things up a bit. Maybe even change our behaviors and attitudes so the circle can be opened up to make room for others. Radical hospitality means we include others in what we do in our church.

Radical Hospitality calls us to be invitational, welcoming, and inclusive in every area of spiritual life. Radical Hospitality also calls us to support others, perhaps in new ways, as they explore a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Pastor Bailey-Kirk uses the phrase “tummy-time” to illustrate this point in a similar message. Tummy time, she says, allows babies who are put to sleep on their backs adequate time during the day to help them find their heads, to use different muscles, to develop awareness and muscles that aren’t developed when they are on their backs. She went on to say, “As persons discover a safe faith community, they need to be supported in their unique faith development. People need safe and open spaces for spiritual exploration. Some newcomers will need tummy-time. Others will need to practice back-time. Some will simply need to be held for a bit.” Radical hospitality means we support others by what we do in our church.

As a fruitful congregation, we can demonstrate Radical Hospitality by our invitation, welcome, inclusion, and support. Ours would be an invitation that is more than sincere, a welcome that goes beyond a smile, inclusion that exceeds filling vacant seats, and support that extends beyond emergencies and crisis.

Becoming a fruitful, vibrant, and growing congregation may require nothing less than adaptive change – a change of attitudes, practices, and values. Our growing expression of Radical Hospitality will call for a change in our behaviors in order to accommodate the needs and receive the talents of others - not only on Sunday morning but throughout the week as we engage in the making of disciples for Jesus Christ. What then might those things be… and how are we going to do them? Those are the questions we must answer if…

We are to welcome others as radically as Jesus the Christ welcomes us.

Based on a sermon, “Opening the Circle” by Melissa Bailey-Kirk, United Methodist Church of Green Trails, Chesterfield, Missouri