Guest User 10/20/19 Guest User 10/20/19

Radical Hospitality

There’s this phrase: What would Jesus do? It’s a good phrase; but one of my friends says it’s totally insufficient and actually a really heavy burden if we just leave the question like that. He says the true questions is: What would Jesus do if he were me, and he lived in the context that I live in today? It’s a little longer thought process, but it’s more valid.

Marty Caldwell
Series: Church Around the Table

Ryan Romeo:

Good morning, Living Streams Church. David is out. He is in his second home, if you know David. He is in Belize right now, a place he loves. We always joke on staff. We feel like we’re one of two kids he has, and Belize is like that second kid. He’s over there, which is awesome. We’re so excited for him. He’s going to be back here next week.

Right now it’s my pleasure to introduce our guest speaker, Marty Caldwell. Marty’s with Young Life. He’s been to over eighty countries. He travels the world talking to young people. If you know anything about Young Life, for us it’s such a big deal. We love Young Life. I was a big part of Young Life growing up. So please join me in warmly welcoming Marty Caldwell.

Marty Caldwell:

Thanks, Ryan. By the way, David was part of the seeds planted that helped us get Young Life started in Belize. And they had their first weekend camp just a few weeks ago. There’s an inner connectivity in all of this.

Good morning. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. I do want to say this: If you’re going, “I am not thinking that’s going to come out of my mouth, it’s not in my spirit. There’s a sadness, or there’s a loss, or maybe there’s a sickness in me.” — I want you to know, in the kingdom of God and in a family like Living Streams, when you’re on this side, this is the day that the Lord has made, “Let us lament and have peace in it” is equally important.

It’s not a smiley face on the lament. If you read the Bible, there’s a lot of lament in the Bible—sadness and sorrow. And we’re not afraid to enter into that. And we’re not afraid to welcome you into that. If you’re in here and, “This is the day the Lord has made and let me lament,” you get to lament. Because this is part of God creating larger hearts, a more compassionate people. And even the ability to have both of these things: joy, celebration, worship and victory—absolutely. Equally: compassion, gentleness and lament.

We are a people that God is making to have bigger hearts. We can do both of these things at the same time. But usually, it’s a little more one or the other. I just want to say one thing: If you’re here with a spirit of lament: welcome, welcome, welcome. Holy moly. You got out of bed this morning and you went to church in sorrow. That’s courage. That is courage. And I just want to say I’m impressed. Welcome. You don’t have to raise your hand. You just sit with this.

But if you’re here on this side, I mean, same thing. There’s no greater welcome over here or over there. The Lord has made this day and we are gong to rejoice and be glad in it. But we are not afraid to enter into the lament and show compassion to those who are in that spirit today. That’s the reality of the kingdom of God and Living Streams is a place to express that. Welcome into it.

This morning, what I want to do is to talk about the radical hospitality of Jesus. I don’t know. Hospitality is one of those words that needs a better marketing group. Because, for the most part, hospitality is one of those boring, ordinary words. Well, yeah, like some flowers or candles, you know, maybe some cookies, baking, sort of ordinary. By the way, I think actually there are lots of elements of hospitality that are ordinary; but in today’s world, which is so divided, so polarized, so “us/them,” that the radical nature of the hospitality of Jesus, and the radical nature of the hospitality of the body of Christ, is absolutely, stunningly subversive and radical.

So it may have some ordinary actions to it, but it is always a response of our hearts realizing that the God of the universe welcomes us. So if you would, pray with me:

Lord, we’re so glad we get to be here this morning—together. You welcome us. You want us. You love us. You like us. You want to be with us. Well, this is just stunning, because you are God! You made all time, all geography, all universes, and you want to be with us and you welcome us into your presence. Wow! Help us to capture that but also to be captured by that, so that we may express radical hospitality in our own lives and our homes, our places of work, school, restaurants, neighborhood. Because we want to do your work your way as an expression of knowing how much we are loved. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

A simple definition of hospitality—I looked it up in the dictionary. I didn’t like it, so I made one up:

Any action or set of actions, or words, or experiences, or touch, or smell, that says to another person or group of people, “I am so glad you are here. Come on in. Let’s be together.”

And really, for this morning, if you’ll allow me, I’m going to use hospitality and belonging and welcome almost interchangeably. I think hospitality is kind of the inner core—the dynamic—but the expression of hospitality is welcome and belonging, belonging and welcome.

The first one, of course, to express that is the God of the universe. He says that to you and me whether we’re broken, whether we’re falling away, whether we’re joyful or lamenting, or absolutely in prodigal country. He says to us, before we behave and before we believe, that we belong. This is the radical nature of the gospel. It is not like any other religion. It’s not like the rules and regulations that we would set up, that we would expect: Well, you have to have the belief test and then the behavior test and then you get to belong because you’ve learned the secret code. You’ve learned the secret belief. You’ve learned the secret behaviors, and then God says, “Ok, now you belong with me.”

Christ most expressly says, “You belong with me.”

“Well, wait a minute. I don’t know the belief system.”

“You belong with me.”

“I certainly don’t behave.”

“You belong with me.”

This is the hospitality of God. If you don’t think that’s radical, just read the newspaper. Actually, just look at your own family. This is not how things work. This is how the gospel works. The gospel is this radical person, Jesus Christ, who expresses to a broken and hurting world, “You belong with the God of the universe.”

Stunning. Really. That God is radically hospitable to us. And if you believe this, if you have this at your core, you are most free then to express radical hospitality to others; which is most simply expressed in the second greatest commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. Ultimately, hospitality, welcome, belonging are of the same kind. They are “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is it. Sounds so ordinary. Sounds so every day. It is. It is ordinary. It is every day. But if you think it’s easy, your life is not like mine. This is hard work. This is costly work. This has to be a practice.

Here’s what Paul says in Romans 12. He’s kind of riffing.

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

This is getting harder as we go.

11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.

And this just stands out there, screaming at me:

…Practice hospitality.

And this is what I would like to inspire you to. Practice hospitality. I really like the language of that because it’s a little bit better for me than “be hospitable.” Because what if I can’t be hospitable? Well, okay, good. You can’t. But what if you practice? Okay, I could try that. Practice. I’m not good. I have this muscle of hospitality right here. Here we go. Try to lift it. “I can’t lift it.”

“Okay, get something lighter. Practice.”

So this morning, what I’d like to encourage you in, is practice hospitality. Young Life is really kind of a laboratory for this with disinterested, lost teenagers here and around the world. I have a picture of a greeting. This is Tanzania, so this is probably mostly muslim kids. These are kids with no background in Christ. We set up a welcome for them. The little three wheeler coming down, and these are flags of all of these nations, back behind here is a wedding band and about a hundred people that are saying to teenagers that don’t feel welcome in their neighborhood, don’t feel welcome outside of their neighborhood, often not in their own family, maybe nowhere, not in their school, this is a hundred people or so, singing, dancing, screaming, flag-waving, “We are glad you are here!” It’s beautiful chaos. This would be like any Young Life camp anywhere around the world. This just happens to be Tanzania.

A really iconic moment for me of hospitality, and the importance of welcome happened a few years ago, kind of our first camp in Tanzania. All of the kids had come. They’re already here. This is kind of the start and this is the finish. One kid had missed the bus. So he missed out on the greeting.

And I kind of go, “Well, you know, we’ve got to get dinner going. It’s a little bit late. I’ve got to button things up. But just have him come and he’ll walk into dinner and somebody give him a high five and it’ll be great.”

The Africans go, “Oh, no, no. We do the same greeting.”

I go, “Wait a minute. For the one kid?”

“Yeah.”

So he gets on the bus by himself. We’ve got to all wait out there for about thirty minutes. He comes down that road. It’s hilarious. It is a bus driver and one kid. But by that time, all the kids that had been welcomed had joined us. So now it’s about 350 people and they have set up a gauntlet for him. And he is being greeted like he is a rock and roll star. High five and he’s disoriented. I think what he had felt was the shame of missing the bus, the “maybe I shouldn’t have come,” the “maybe I don’t belong.” And he is overwhelmed.

And what’s interesting to me is, not just the believers who had done the first welcome, but now everyone’s in on the welcome. There is something fundamental that God has wired to us in Genesis 1 and 2, that is to be welcoming. And then there is something fundamentally broken from Genesis 3 on that says, “Play small, play safe, guard, don’t share, be in the background, be with people like you.”

There’s you know, 150 muslim kids and then 50 atheist kids and 50 nominal Christian kids. And they’re all welcoming this one kid. No duh. Did that kid meet Christ? Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. He met Christ. He hears the gospel. He’s experienced the gospel because he’s had a whole world welcome. “You belong. You belong. You belong.”

“Well, wait a minute! I’m late. I missed the bus. I probably shouldn’t be here.”

And this expression—and believe me, this is loud as any proclamation could be—it’s as fine-tuned and powerful as any sermon could ever be. So when you think about the radical hospitality of God, the radical hospitality of, “You belong with me,” also think about your own chance to express that gospel message to others who feel like they don’t belong. To say to them, with your words, with your actions, “You belong. You are welcome. We are so glad you are here.”

Luke 15:

15 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Which of course, in the Middle East a couple thousand years ago, and still today, if you come into someone’s home and you share a meal, often hospitality has to do with food. Good. Something fundamental going on here together. Always has to do with conversation. Also has to do with eye contact, learning names, to say with our body, with our words, with our actions, with our very spirit, “I am so glad you are here.”

And really, when you think about that, I think this is generally true with Living Streams, as David and I talked about this a few months ago, the idea of radical hospitality and that being one of the dynamics of Living Streams, we really did think we’re going to hire a high school band for the parking lot. And then we’re going to get a bunch of people to come in early to create a gauntlet so that everyone coming in got a high five, or a hug, or a “We’re glad you’re here.”

We were defeated by the logistics, but the heart and the idea were good. But just imagine you coming in this morning and there is a band in the parking lot, and they’re wailing out some John Philip Souza tune, and they’re kind of marching, and you’re all, “What’s going on?”

And then somebody says, “Oh! They’re here for you.”

“Huh?”

“Well, yeah. That’s the welcome band. They’re here playing so that you know how welcome you are.”

“Wow.”

Then you walk into the foyer and bunch of people are high-fiving. They’re here for you. This is the kind of place this campus desires to be.

But here’s the cool thing. What if we brought the marching band to your neighborhood, or your house, or your back yard. And really, the marching band is probably some great barbecue, probably some great drinks, probably some fun and games in the back yard. And you’ve got some neighbors coming over and they feel this welcome. They are treated with “We are glad you are here. You belong.”

“You’re one of those weird-o religious people.”

No response needed. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

Okay, did they make the direct connection of, “Oh, I bet God’s glad I’m here”? Of course not. But hospitality is an experience of the good news that we belong with God in relationship. It’s an experience. It’s the beginning of what I call the non-verbal proclamation of the gospel.

Think about your own life. There were things that happened around it that told you you belong, that brought you in. You just didn’t know what they were. What you said was, “I want what they have.” Because hospitable people create a curiosity—especially in today’s divided world. This is a very subversive activity.

Luke 19:

19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.

Think about this. We’ve got Zacchaeus. He’s a turncoat, he’s a tax collector, he’s stealing from people, he’s a liar and a cheat, he may live in a big, empty house on a hill and—ha ha!—he’s also short. And I think what you must imagine is a powerful, wealthy, but isolated, alone individual. And he wants to see what sort of person Jesus was. He didn’t really want to meet him. He doesn’t want to go hear a lesson, he wants to see what sort of person he is.

4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately.

I mean, Zacchaeus knows his internal life. He knows what he’s done. He’s going to spiritual prison and here’s the religious guy, the country rabbi that’s calling him out. He didn’t have that in mind. He climbed the tree because he wanted to see what sort of person Jesus was. Not to meet him. Not to talk to him. Not to get a lesson from him. But just to see him. Kind of a curious guy. Remarkable to me. Jesus knows his name.

By the way—become good at names. Know the names of your neighbors, the names of the people you sit next to in school. Go to one Starbucks. Learn people’s names. Go to one grocery store. Learn people’s names. Got to go shopping with my wife sometimes to get one gallon of milk. It’ll take an hour because she’s got to talk to everybody in Safeway. The guy that cuts the meat, the guy stocking the shelves, she knows all of the people that are checking the groceries. She walks in. They stop her. “Susan! How’s your mom?”

I’m going, “Give me the milk. Let me out of here.”

She’s one of my teachers in hospitality, welcoming and belonging. But just think about how crazy that is. It’s a subversive act. Go into the Safeway and learn people’s names and honor them for their work and ask them questions about their life. I promise. Experiment. Practice on this. Just try this for a couple of weeks. Same grocery store. Learn people’s names. Validate their work. Ask them questions about their life.

It’ll be a little weird at first. They’ll go, “Oh man. There’s a weird-o here. Better call security.” But they’ll get over that pretty quickly because that’s one human being validating another. And the human being that knows Jesus saying to the other one—regardless of where they are—“You belong. You are loved. You matter. Your work matters. I see you.”

A lot of hospitality is seeing, noticing, watching, sometimes the sad one, sometimes the isolated one, sometimes the one celebrating, but no matter what, an outward expression of the love of Christ is to notice. This means we have to slow down a bit. You know, you’re really not noticing people when you’re doing this (on phone), you’re doing that. It’s not happening. The idea that hospitality is cheap and free is incorrect. It’s actually pretty expensive. It costs time. It costs money. It costs some comfort. There’s a little bit of discomfort related to hospitality. But this is the whole subversion of the kingdom of God. It starts with Christ in the middle.

Matthew 25:

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

This is Jesus speaking.

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

I’ll stop there.

Luke 19:

5 …“Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

That Jesus. Doesn’t he know? The religious. Powerful. “We have a reputation to guard here and now you’re going with Zacchaeus? He’s the enemy. He’s been trying to destroy our town.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Like, even just being welcomed, your name is used, “Come down, I’ll be with you.” His life goes upside down from everything he’s ever known. I have to think that comes from a vacuum of not belonging. But this belonging and the special nature of Jesus to notice, to “I see you, Zacchaeus,” is the thing that flips his life upside down.

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

The very purpose of God: seek and save the lost. And this is why broken people are so quick to be sought and to find Jesus. In self-sufficiency, “Everything is going my way,” it’s a heck of a lot harder to find Jesus. You find him most often in desperate moments, in lonely moments, in broken moments, in recognition of, “I don’t have it.” Yeah. You don’t. Me neither.

So what do we do? We’ve got a Savior. Died for our sins and rose to offer us life now, in hope and freedom, enjoying everything good.

Back to Matthew 25:

36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Wow. So when serving and giving our lives away to those who are lost or broken and lonely, and maybe different from us, maybe we have to enter into a little of our own discomfort to express the love and the knowing and the “I see you” and “you belong” and all of those things, what happens is, Jesus says, “Yeah. You did that to me.”

“But no, I thought I was doing it to them.”

“Yeah, anytime you’re doing it to them that way with your hospitable heart, this is what you’ve done to me.”

The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.

The practice of hospitality begins in the human heart. We realize that God has been hospitable to us, so 1) we are grateful. If you realize how hospitable, how “You belong, Marty, with all of your stuff,” the natural response is gratitude. We can express that in worship. We can express that in prayer. We can express that in generosity. We can express that in service. But a heart that is grateful is a heart that is true; because it recognizes what God has done and what he has said to us and how he activates that within us.

Then it causes us to begin to practice more hospitality. It frees us up. Hospitality is a subversive and courageous action in a divided culture. Actions, words, memories, smells, even touch. You’ve got to be careful in the climate today. But read the signals. You can tell if someone’s a hugger. Hug them. You can tell if they’re not a hugger. Shake their hand. But just pay attention. See, look. A handshake can be very welcoming to a person that needs a handshake. Maybe you shake the hand in a different way. Maybe you put the other hand on there.

In Ethiopia—this is so cool, so humbling—any older person, a younger person comes and shakes hands and they always put their left hand and they lift it up, because the young person does not want to be a burden on the older person. For once to lift their burden. Is that cool? Like a cultural hospitality. A sign of respect. A sign of eldership. A sign of “I want to be last. I want to be a light to you.” And you see this all over Ethiopia. It’s intentional. It’s thoughtful. We think about what will help them feel welcome most often in the home, but it really can be everywhere, noticing, affirming blessing.

I want to tell you about one of my hospitality heroes, Holman Mendoza. I brought a picture of him. It’s a picture of my job with Young Life. Rapha Allejo, the Director of Young Life in the Dominican Republic, Carlina Poe, Director of Young Life in South America, and Holman Mendoza, Director of Young Life in Nicaragua. If you know anything about the politics in the eighties, the Sandinistas were being fueled by the Russian government; whereas the United States was funding the Samosa government. I’m not going to get into the politics, because there are two stories worth telling on both of those sides.

But Holman was born in the eighties. He was raised as a revolutionary. I’ve seen his textbook. He showed me his second grade math textbook. One AK47 plus two AK47’s is how many AK47’s? This is how he’s learning math. Two hand grenades plus two hand grenades is how many hand grenades? The Sandinistas realized, “If we don’t start raising up revolutionaries, that will want to join our army and kill the enemy, then we’re going to lose this war.”

So Holman was raised to be a Sandinista revolutionary and his weapons were really going to be hand grenades, AK47’s and whatever he could make available to do violence to the enemy—until a guy named Emerson who played basketball, didn’t speak Spanish very well, walked into his neighborhood and said, “Do you want to play basketball?” Holman and his friends started playing basketball again and again and again. His Spanish wasn’t very good and neither was his basketball. But he had one and they didn’t have a basketball and they loved to play. They played everyday until Emerson said, “Holman, I want you to come to this Young Life camp with me.”

Remember, he’s consorting with the enemy. “I’m supposed to hate you. You’re supposed to hate me. But we’re playing basketball together. I’m really not sure about this.” But he just caught him on a whim and he doesn’t have something better to do, to go to this Young Life camp. He meets Jesus. He eventually becomes a volunteer leader, he gets a college degree, eventually goes on the Young Life staff. This is about fifteen years ago.

But he told me a couple of years ago a thing that really flipped me upside down. He goes, “Marty, I was raised to be a revolutionary. My weapons were going to be those of destruction.” But he said, “I’m still a revolutionary at heart. So I have new weapons, because I want to change my nation. I want to change Central America. I want to change North America. I want to be part of God’s changing the world. My new weapons of revolution are love and service and prayer and hospitality. But I want to fight with the same passion. I want to love my enemy. I want to welcome those who feel like they don’t belong into the welcoming arms of the family of God.”

This is the subversive nature of the simple but radical, ordinary hospitality. And really, my admonition to everyone here today: practice. Just do something. “Okay, I’m going to practice that. I’m going to learn a name. I’m going to take a little more time at Starbucks. I’m going to have my neighbors over—my actual, real neighbors, the ones that live next to me. I’m going to invite them over for a barbecue.”

Well, yeah, should you have a Bible study right away? Yeah, I kind of don’t think so. Have a barbecue. Make good barbecue. Find out the beverage of their choice. Serve that beverage. It might not be your beverage. But this is the idea of hospitality, that this tribe, Living Streams, would be those who are most hospitable. And there really isn’t something that’s more hospitable or expresses hospitality better than breaking bread. That this is our symbol in the body of Christ. It’s actually a revolutionary act to break bread together.

You can pass out the elements. When you think about this, this is God welcoming you to his table. Why? “I don’t know the theologies or I don’t know the doctrines, or maybe I do but I forgot them." Or maybe, “I’m not living them.” “I know them but I don’t live them.” No matter what, the welcoming nature of God is expressed most regularly and most simply in the act of communion. That God says, “You belong with me. You are mine.” We are brothers and sisters.

I would propose to you that not only is taking communion together an act of hospitality, it’s also an act of revolution. We are not going to live by the world’s values. We’re not going to think it’s about stuff or achievement. We are going to think about the love God, experience his love, and love people.

This is the place within the church, the tribe of the church, that we come together and God expresses that belonging. I actually think the most stunning thing about communion was the first one, when Jesus offered communion to Judas. I can’t believe this. He knew the betrayal. He knew what was going to happen, and he still says to Judas, “You belong with me.” So what this says to me is, no matter how far you have drifted, no matter how far you are, if this is your first time in church in twenty-two years, God says, “Glad you’re here.”

I mean, it’s nice that we say, “Glad you’re here.” But it’s a little bit nicer and lot more powerful that God says, “Glad you’re here. Welcome home, welcome home. Let’s share a meal together.”

And so communion expresses this idea of hospitality so beautifully. Theologically commanded in Scripture, and also it is an action, seemingly ordinary, but, like hospitality, subversive, powerful and a lot more than the sum of the parts.

On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread. He gave thanks and he broke it. He said to his friends, “This is my body broken for you.” So let’s take and eat the bread, the body of Christ.

And likewise, he took the cup, pretty ordinary in its day, always an expression of hospitality, always an expression of, “We are friends in this together.” And in particular, that this is all new to you, this is the blood shed on a cross for your sin and mine and an offer of sweet forgiveness forever. Not just the past stuff, but the today stuff and that tomorrow stuff which will come. Forgiven once and for all and again and again and again. And it’s why he has commended communion to us—so that we would remember that well. The blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sin, the new covenant. The old is passed away, behold, the new has come.

If you feel like you don’t belong, I have failed. Please don’t let my failure become yours. You belong. The whole Bible, all of God’s history, every one of his expressions is to say to you and to me and to call us by name, not some generic somebody, “Hey, Dude,” but to say to us, “You belong. You’re with me. We are together in this thing called life and I want you to have it in abundance.”

And for that very reason, you belong. We belong. Why? Because that’s what God wants. And he has a way of getting what he wants. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank you for your hospitality toward us. We’re a little bit nervous about being revolutionaries, but we can certainly invite our neighbor over. We can love them and we can pay attention. We can get to know the guy at Starbucks and remember his name, the gal at the bank that cashes the check, the guy at Safeway that’s mopping the floor, our neighbor, the one that’s next door and behind us. We ask for the gift of names and we ask for the practice of hospitality, that we would always be known as “those weird-o’s that welcome everybody. They’ve got something different.”
Indeed. The Holy Spirit indwells and expresses itself most beautifully in receiving God’s love and expressing his love by loving other people. We just admit, Lord, we need help on this. Probably going to fumble a few times. But that’s not news to you. We ask for help. We ask for your fruitfulness and your thriving in our lives. I pray in Christ’s name, amen.

©️2019 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Guest User 10/13/19 Guest User 10/13/19

The Practice of Hospitality

David Stockton
Series: Church Around the Table

We’ve been trying to unpack this concept of Church Around the Table. We’ve been spending a lot of time talking about Jesus, which is a good thing. We talked about Jesus’ Last Supper and what was really going on in that moment. We are trying to get into us as Jesus’ followers 2,000 years later what Jesus was trying to get into his disciples in that last culmination meal with them, those last few hours he had with them.

We’ve been taking it really seriously and diving in. And we are going to continue doing that a little bit today. But today will be a little different. I’m trying to just make sure we don’t get all this stuff in our heads, but we’re going to have some pauses in our time together. I’m hoping that stuff will get distilled down into our hearts a little more today. So this might be a little bit slower. If you fall asleep, that’s okay, we’ll just go straight to your heart. We don’t need your brain anyway.

We’ve shared some concepts in this regard. We’ve shared some inspiring stories. But what I’ve been praying is that God will help you understand how this applies to you in your daily routine. There’s this phrase: What would Jesus do? It’s a good phrase; but one of my friends says it’s totally insufficient and actually a really heavy burden if we just leave the question like that. He says the true questions is: What would Jesus do if he were me, and he lived in the context that I live in today? It’s a little longer thought process, but it’s more valid. Because you are you and you are facing the things you face. You have the job you have and the calendar you have.

I want us to figure out what it could mean for you. At the end of this thing, I’m going to pray that Jesus would just show us what the next step is, because we are following him. He is leading us from being one thing to something much greater. It’s just one step at a time. So we’re going to try to do a little bit of that in our message today.

Luke 4 is where Jesus comes on the scene and he sits in the synagogue with all the other believers at that time. At one point he is called to the front and he’s given a passage from Isaiah and he reads it:

18
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And then he sits down and says,
21 …“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

He’s basically saying, “From now on you can judge everything in my life based on this criteria. This is what the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to do. Proclaim good news to the poor. Set the oppressed free, to heal people, to help people, and to let them know how much God loves them, that his favor rests on them.”

That’s what he said. And then, a little later on, John the Baptist—who was Jesus’ cousin—was trying to figure out, “Jesus, are you really the whole thing? Or are you just part of it?”

And Jesus said to him, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who doesn’t stumble on account of me.”

Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the poor and to heal people.” And then, later on, John the Baptist was saying, “Jesus, is it really you?”

And Jesus said—same test—“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the poor and to help and heal people. And if you’re seeing these happen you know the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”

Then, as we get to that Last Supper, Jesus is basically saying to his disciples—in John 13; he washes their feet, John 14, 15, 16, is the discussion they had in that time, recorded for us. Jesus is saying, “The same Spirit that is on me is going to be on you. Therefore, the same measurements are going to be applied to you.”

The Spirit that is upon Jesus caused Jesus to walk in the way that he did. And the same Spirit now rests on us, thanks to the resurrection. And so the Spirit of the Lord is upon you and me to do what? To proclaim good news to the poor, and to help and heal people. That’s the transfer that was taking place in that moment. We’ve talked about that, leading up to this.

As we’ve gone through, we’ve talked a lot about the life of Jesus showing up. We’ve talked about a lot of giving body and blood and washing people. But this one phrase is constantly jumping out at me, saying, “Don’t forget me.” And I go on to the next one and, “Don’t forget me.” Because when we talk about Jesus, we have to remember that, one of the main things that he was about was proclaiming good news to the poor. Proclaiming good news to the poor. So, if you want to follow Jesus, then one of the things that should show up in your life, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis—however you measure your life: proclaiming good news to the poor. That’s what it means to have Church Around a Table. To proclaim good news to the poor.

So we’re going to unpack that a little bit; because, obviously, good news is kind of a funny word, and poor can be defined in a lot of different ways. First of all, let’s define the word poor. Matthew 25:31-40 in the Message translation (MSG):

31-33 “When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.
34-36 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’
37-40 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King…

The Lord, as Allan Meyer talked about last week. The Lord of all.

…will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’”

So, in this definition, the poor would be those who are overlooked and ignored. I married a lady fifteen years ago, in Brittany, she’s my wife. I live with her still today after fifteen years, which I guess is progress, something to celebrate in our world. But I live with her and I link my life with her. Prior to marrying her, I was not married to her for twenty-seven years. Seventeen of those years, I really, really loved myself. I thought a lot about myself and I considered myself more highly than I ought. I was just absorbed with myself. I really was. I thought I was great and if everything was going my way then everyone should be happy. And if they weren’t, I didn’t even know, because I didn’t think about them at all. It’s true. Just very arrogant, prideful, selfish, self-absorbed.

Then, at seventeen, Jesus started messing with my life. He started to say that he wanted to do a work in my life. I thought, Cool. You want to care about me? Well, I care about me, you care about me, this is going to be great. I’ve got God now thinking about me, and what I want, and how important it is.

But it didn’t happen that way. He actually saved me. When I talk about the salvation that Jesus brought into my life, yes, it’s true, he saved me forevermore. Yes, it’s true, he saved me from living a life not knowing my Maker, knowing my Father. He saved me from so many things that I didn’t know about; but, in that moment, he saved me from my selfishness and pride. And he started to all of a sudden make me care about other people. It was a radical thing for me. I really did, I started to care more about other people and the stuff they were going through than even the stuff I was going through.

I don’t get it right all of the time. But that was really important because then I got married. And I married someone who also cared about herself and not me. We kind of had this tug-o-war, where all of a sudden I had to care about her all of the time. She had feelings about everything all of the time. I didn’t have much space in my life for all of her feelings about what she was going through; because I had all my feelings about what I was going through.

So that was a big trip, and in some ways I would say she saved me again. God was saying, “Okay, David, it’s not working just me and you. I’m going to bring Brittany.” And Brittany is strong and powerful and she won’t put up with crap. I remember her just sticking up to it, and me having to adjust. It’s been an awesome thing.

All of that is to say that Brittany is someone who cares for the overlooked and ignored. She has taught me this in such amazing ways. And it’s funny because, sometimes it comes out where she doesn’t really care that much for people who aren’t overlooked and ignored. If you’re someone who’s not overlooked and ignored, sometimes you’ll be like, “I don’t know how she feels about me.” Just keep it there. Who knows? She doesn’t hate you or anything. Her life is just so driven towards the overlooked and ignored. She loves them and cares for them. I always describe my wife as, she’s like the real Peter Pan. She’s just looking for lost boys so she can teach them how to fly. It is absolutely true. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.

I feel like God has been constantly trying to teach me these lessons. What I’m sharing with you today is just from the deepest parts of me. I’m wrestling with this all of the time because I’m so prone against it, but I’m so in love with what Jesus is trying to teach me. And Jesus has been teaching me for years. He’s a great teacher, and I’m going to try to jam it all in and I’m not that great. So just bear with me on this. I’m going to try to give us some pictures, trying to distill this for how this can be expressed in your life.

I married Brittany, and we ended up building this house together. We moved in about 30 months ago, so we were building it before then. I remember her praying that this house would not just be used for us, but that it would also be used for others. I didn’t really know what she was talking about and didn’t care that much about it at that time. I just thought, “Whatever, as long as we get to live there it will be better than living in this master bedroom with all five of us.”

Just last week I woke up to lots of barking dogs, because we have a lot of them. And I was thinking about our situation. I remembered her prayer. Because, right now we live in this house with our three daughters, which is a lot of her fault, some of my fault but a lot of her fault. So there’s all of us living in the house now. We also live with two foster boys, which was a dream and a prayer of hers all of her life (and it became one for me, too). We also live with her mom. Her mom’s cool, so there’s no problem there. And then we also live with her sister, and she has a husband and they have five kids. Okay. You know? They have two dogs, the mom has two dogs, and we have two dogs. That’s not that abnormal, but that’s six dogs when you bring them all together.

And this guy, he’s working with the kids upstairs. I could understand if you don’t feel comfortable with this, but this kid is nineteen years old. He lived in California. And for some reason, he wanted to move in with us. He’s been with us a few months now. I’m trying to find something wrong with his brain. But he wanted to move in with us. So he lives in this little garage side room thing at the kibbutz that we call home. He’s loving it.

We have a chicken. We used to have eight, but we have coyotes that come around, so we’re down to one. It’s not funny. We also had a goat at one point. And to describe my wife even more—somewhere in Phoenix there was a goat that was born to a mama goat and the mama goat rejected the baby goat. Which is sad, right? And the person who was there to witness that, for some reason in her mind thought, “I should call Brittany.” I still have no idea how that happened; but all I know is this goat was overlooked and ignored, literally, and this person said, “I’m going to call Brittany.”

And I came home one time and there’s a little baby pigmy goat. For the next two weeks, every two hours, the goat needed to be fed. So all throughout the night, “Here you go, baby goat.” So God is just laughing at how self-centered, self-absorbed and prideful I am, and here I am, years later, at 3:00 a.m, feeding a baby goat a bottle inside my house. And loving every minute of it. Not true. Loving when I’m in the right mind, ever minute of it.

I’m not saying that this is what the Lord’s calling us to. Please. Do you hear me? Do not do this! Do not do this. But God has led me step by step on a journey to where now I can check off some these. Somehow I’m learning and I have to rely on the grace of the Lord. We have to take breaks from time to time.

We were sitting with our daughters last Sunday night and they’re saying, “Hey, you know. Whenever this works out this way, can we just take a break for a little bit?” I was telling them, in thirty months of living in this house, twenty-six months we’ve had someone living with us. That’s only four months of building this house and getting to enjoy it just ourselves. And then I told my wife to stop praying. No, I didn’t. I didn’t say that. Thought it. But didn’t say it.

Caring for the overlooked and ignored, even baby goats sometimes.

Isaiah 58 (MSG) is the Old Testament perspective, but it’s kind of saying the same thing:

6-9
“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:

So the people were fasting with no food and thinking that God was so pleased with them because they weren’t eating. And God was saying, “Look, if you want to know what really is important to me, it’s not that you don’t eat food, it’s this:

    …to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
   putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

So in this passage, “care for the poor,” is care for the exploited, the oppressed, the hungry, the homeless, the cold, the in-debt, and also those maybe in your household that are overlooked or ignored or neglected, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.

So what we’re going to do right now is to be quiet for about forty seconds. And I just want to see if God might be able to bring to mind someone in your life that could be described as overlooked, neglected, or any of these other things; and for you to take a mental note of what God might be speaking to you. Maybe someone’s already come to mind. That’s fine. Just begin to pray for the person and begin to ask God, “What can I do?”

I pray Lord, that we really would hear from you. Amen.

So now that we’ve described who the poor might be, I want to talk about how do we present good news to those people? Is there some way we can learn what might be a first step or a simple step—or start the creative process between the Spirit of God and you, and maybe your wife, or your roommates, or whatever, how we can begin to walk this out.

Hebrews 12:18-24 (TPT) is going to be the beginning of diving into this. We’re going to take some more distilling moments as we go through this, as well. This is good stuff right here. You should read this every day, or at least every time you’re sad.

18 For we are not coming, as Moses did, to a physical mountain with its burning fire, thick clouds of darkness and gloom, and with a raging whirlwind. 19 We are not those who are being warned by the jarring blast of a trumpet and the thundering voice; the fearful voice that they begged to be silenced…

This is the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament harkening back to the library of Scripture where we learn that Moses was out at this mountain called Sinai one time, and God came near to the people of Israel. He came as this big fiery cloud that sat on the mountain, and he spoke in this powerful, thunderous voice out of the cloud and spoke to the people. And all the people were like, “Ahhhh! This is freaky!”

And God was saying, “Come up to me. Come up here.” And the people were like, “No! Moses, why don’t you go up there, because it’s scary up there.” And then Moses went up there, and we learn in Exodus 33 and 34 that Moses had this deep, intimate, powerful moment with God. For forty days he was with God experiencing the love, compassion and kindness of God, in the midst of all the power and wonder that was taking place.

So he’s saying “We’re not this, where we need to be afraid. What we have come to is this:

22 …we have already come near to God in a totally different realm, the Zion-realm, for we have entered the city of the Living God, which is the New Jerusalem in heaven! We have joined the festal gathering of myriads of angels in their joyous celebration!

This is what heaven is like. God is not super concerned about the election cycle that is happening. Heaven is not going, “Oh, yi yi yi.” I know we are. But right now, in heaven, the holiness of God is being celebrated because nothing on earth could never change that.

23 And as members of the church of the Firstborn [Jesus] all our names have been legally registered as citizens of heaven! And we have come before God who judges all, and who lives among the spirits of the righteous who have been made perfect in his eyes!

We are being made perfect in his eyes. Yes! And then this:

24 And we have come to Jesus…

Not to that scary mountain. We’ve come to Jesus.

…who established a new covenant with his blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat; blood that continues to speak from heaven, “forgiveness,” a better message than Abel’s blood that cries from the earth, “justice.”

So how do we preach good news to the poor? We’re able to come to them and speak out a message of forgiveness. Forgiveness instead of justice. Contrasting that Mount Sinai mountain with all that power, we have the babe of Bethlehem, that was born into this world soft and kind. And then he walked among us, not with heaviness. Full power though, but the power was not to condemn. The power was not to provoke. The power was not to hurt or punish. The power was to heal and to forgive.

In Isaiah, it speaks of Jesus. It says “as a smoldering wick he would never put out and a bruised reed he would never break. He came with a softness and lightness and a kindness to the poor—whether they were poor in their relationship with God, poor financially, poor physically, poor in their righteousness. Whatever they were poor in, he would come around them with kindness and a message of forgiveness. It wasn’t a forgiveness that forsook justice. It was a forgiveness that was born out of him laying down his life to produce justice.

In that moment when he took on all the sins of all humanity—the most disgusting, horrific, murderous, raping sins—he took them on his body. Out of that came a message of “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Preaching good news to the poor is coming around the poor. They already know that they’ve failed. They are already wallowing in their own shame and guilt. They don’t need us to point it out. They need us to come and show them a path of forgiveness.

There are these two books that have taught me a lot along these lines. One is called Tattoos on the Heart. It’s a Jesuit priest. If you want to check it out later, the story is amazing, the writing is beautiful. In it, he says,

“Here is what we seek: A compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.”

I would add just one little phrase:

And then we should lend our own shoulder to carry the burden for a while.

Because, as we go to approach the poor, which we know Jesus wants us to do, the Spirit of God is upon us to that end. We shouldn’t look at the poor and see them in their sinfulness, see them in their poverty, see the bad decisions they made, the way that they’re carrying themselves, the way that they are speaking out. We have to come to them and not judge them. God’s the judge.

We come to them and we provide forgiveness. We come to them and we stand with them in their poverty. Instead of saying, “Wow. Look at all that heaviness all over you. You’re not carrying it right, you should carry it like this;” we just say, “Hey. Do you want me to carry a little of that on my shoulder for a while? Let’s walk together.” This is what it means to preach good news to the poor.

There’s this phrase I’ve been chewing on: “Empathy must be stronger than condescension.”

I’m a master at condescension. I am. I’m awesome at it. Always have been. I have to fight it all the time. I’m so good at it. I can just see it coming. It’s something the Lord is constantly having to work on in my life. It’s something that I basically have a limp that I’ve had to learn to limp with, and make sure I don’t live into it. The opposite of condescension is empathy. Empathy is foreign to me. Empathy in the sense of being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes to feel what they feel from their point of view.

Just last night one of my kids was having a real pathetic moment. And I was just like, “I don’t want to feel what you’re feeling, because you’re crying and moaning and groaning and whining. I want you to feel what I’m feeling.” But that wasn’t true because I was actually starting to get stressed because I was like, “I’ve got to preach tomorrow and I’ve got to get my message together and you’re over here moaning and groaning.”

And I just felt like the Lord was saying, “Go there!” I was like, “Argh!” And I did a horrible job of it. But I tried. I just sat on the bed and said, “All right. Tell me what’s going on.”

“You don’t care.”

Already? I haven’t even started! “I want to hear what’s going on.” It’s crazy.

Here’s a few more things to finish. This comes from a different book called The Gospel Comes With a House Key. That’s pretty good. In this book, this former lesbian, now follower of Christ, Rosaria Butterfield, is describing some of her experiences with something she calls radically ordinary hospitality. This is good stuff. These are meaty, so you’ve got to buck up. Everybody sit up straighter a little bit—if you need to stretch a little bit. We’ve got some long phrases here, but it’s the distilling process.

“Living out radically ordinary Christian hospitality means knowing that your relationship with others must be as strong as your words. The balance cannot tip here. Having strong words and a weak relationship with your neighbor is violent. It captures the violent carelessness of our social media-infused age. That is not how neighbors talk with each other. That is not how image bearers of the same God relate to one another. Radically ordinary hospitality values the time it takes to invest in relationships, build bridges, repent of sins of the past, to reconcile. Bridge building and remaking friendships cannot be rushed.”

“Just get better.” “Stop feeling what you’re feeling.” No! But taking the time. Here’s another one:

She’s describing the first moment she encountered what she called radically ordinary Christian hospitality:

“I breathed hard and hoisted myself out of my truck, nursing a tender hamstring from my morning run. I waded through the unusually thick July humidity to the front door of these Christians and I knocked. The threshold to their life was like none other. The threshold to their life brought me to the foot of the cross.”

Hallelujah, right?

“Nothing about that night unfolded according to my confident script. Nothing happened in the way I expected. Not that night or the years after, or the hundreds of meals we had together, or the long nights of Psalm singing and prayer, as other believers from he church and university walked through the doors of this house as if there was no door. Nothing prepared me for this openness and truth. Nothing prepared me for the unstoppable gospel and for the love of Jesus made manifest by the daily practices of hospitality undertaken in this one simple Christian home. Long before I ever walked to the doors of the church, the Smith home was the place where I wrestled with the Bible, with the reality that Jesus is who he says he is and eventually came face-to-face with him on the glittering knife’s edge of my choice sexual sin.”

Way to go, Smiths! Way to go, Smiths! Way to go, Smiths! And the last one:

Radically ordinary hospitality describes those who see strangers as family and neighbors as the family of God. They recoil at reducing a person to a category or label. They see God’s image reflected in the eyes of every human being on earth. They know that they are like meth addicts and sex trade workers, they take their own sins seriously, especially the sins of selfishness and pride.
They take God’s holiness and goodness seriously. They use the Bible as a lifeline with no exceptions. They practice radically ordinary hospitality. Those who practice radically ordinary hospitality do not see their homes as their own, but as God’s gift for the furtherance of God’s kingdom. They open doors. They seek out the underpriveleged. They know that the Gospel comes with a house key.

And one last thing from Acts 28 (MSG) as we close:

30-31 Paul lived for two years in his rented house. He welcomed everyone who came to visit. He urgently presented all matters of the kingdom of God. He explained everything about Jesus Christ. His door was always open.

Again, I’m not telling you to do something specific here. I’m just saying that we’ve got to begin to understand what this means to live out radically ordinary hospitality. To live out the love of Christ in this world. To proclaim good news to the poor.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, I do pray in this moment that you would continue to distill some of this. Not only would you bring to mind the people that you have given to us, that you are putting on our radar, that you are assigning to us, just like you assign people to Jesus. But Lord, I pray that you would also stir in us some creativity of how we could begin to be hospitable, be empathetic, be compassionate—not just concerned, but compassionate. And you’d help us know that it’s going to take time. There’s no quick, easy way to do this.

I wrote this during the music time during first service. I just want to share it, in case it applies to some of you. Not only are we called to do this, but the beauty is that Jesus has done this for us. He left glory to come and enter into our pathetic state, and to feel our pain.

“The blood of Abel and all the others cut off by the knife of sin or burned by the fires of injustice cries out because the guilty are left unpunished and wrongs are not made right. But in Christ crucified, forgiveness and justice happen. All the wrongs are made right by the forgiveness and healing released by Jesus’ sacrificial love. You might think today that no one cares about you or loves you or whatever sacrifice for you, but the scars in Jesus’ hands and feet speak a different word.
There will come a day when you and I will see those scars. The Bible teaches we will see Jesus as a Lamb who has been slain. But you can feel his love today and forgiveness and healing can start right now.”

Jesus, please come close to those who don’t know you. Lord, please, for those who are willing to admit that they are poor in their relationship with you, they are poor in righteousness, they are poor in so many ways, I pray that right now they would cry out to you and you would answer with the full weight of your love and salvation would come. And they would become new creations, robed in your righteousness, and they would really know what forgiveness is. I pray this in your name. Amen.

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