Dearest family,

The ‘discipline’ that we considered on Sunday in our summer series was ‘hospitality’. Perhaps you thought it strange that these two words would be coupled. Doesn’t that take all the fun out of hospitality and make it sound onerous? Only if you have a wrong understanding of discipline. Several factors affirm the need to understand hospitality as a spiritual discipline, including that fact that it is exampled and commanded in the OT in the life of Israel, and in the NT in the life of the church. On Sunday, we also saw that given the nature of the church as a household, given the nature of the Lord’s Supper, given the way that hospitality images are used to present the nature and experience of our salvation – hospitality is fundamental to the life of a disciple. We saw that Jesus was utterly dependent on it, and that in his roles as guest, host and invited stranger, the welcome of God was expressed in hospitality terms.

In an attempt to begin a brief theology of hospitality we observed the following points: (listen to the download for details):

Hospitality is the non-negotiable presentation of the gospel and the basis for our understanding our communion and community with father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Hospitality is the non-negotiable means for the proclamation and propagation of the gospel (see Gospels and Acts)
Hospitality is the context for discipleship and training
Hospitality is the key means to build relationships within and outside the church
Hospitality is an ethical issue for all believers, not just an elective possibility for some. It is the non-negotiable means for the expression of our faith through love. (1 Pet. 4:9; Rom. 12:13; Hebr. 13:1-2)

But as well as all these observations, we are more than aware of the many obstacles and hindrances to hospitality, that require the discipline of obedience to continue to practice it. What things run interference with hospitality in your life and home?

Busyness resulting in lack of time
Desire for privacy: home time as down time as my time
Weariness leading to: can’t be bothered, lack of motivation, lack effort, energy
Lack of money: widow of Zarephath was commanded by God to show hospitality to Elijah at a time of famine. As a result, her flour and oil jars did not run empty. We are just called to give what we have. This is how we learn like the widow that we cannot out-give God.
Too much work, too much trouble
Self-isolation
Laziness, selfishness, slovenliness
• Perceived lack of ability: we are not asked to be Iron Chefs.
Shame (mess, circumstances); house proud (don’t want any mess)
Lack of self-confidence, insecurity.
Bad past experiences: personal, familial
Bondage of temperament (shy, un-assured, fearful of intimacy, rejection, vulnerability, fear of failure)
More influenced by familial or cultural norms than Christian truth

These hindrances explain why hospitality is a discipline. Hospitality is a conscious decision because it involves a conscious obedience, and a conscious commitment and a conscientious effort. We should begin by asking for two things:

For a prepared heart for Christ’s concerns and affections and perceptions 
For a prepared home – for others, not just oneself, and not just for those that we want to entertain, but those who need more than food (company, encouragement, touch etc.)

When Jesus commissioned his disciples to go into the nation and preach and heal he added this instruction: “Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave.” (Mt. 10:11) Hospitality was the sign of receptivity. When you get to Acts and the account of the growth of the church, it is impossible to ignore how hospitality is vital to the story. It is the hospitality of a Gentile to Peter the Jew that breaks open the mission to the Gentiles. At a time when we are engaging the sin of racism in our country and the dire consequences of racial irreconciliation that impact all of us, I hope you took to heart the point about hospitality being a key, a bridge to racial reconciliation. It was in the context of hospitality in the home that the greatest irreconciliation of Jew and Gentile was overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit. Hospitality shatters social and racial boundaries, and invites a deep sharing of our cultures and personal lives, as expressed in how we live and how we eat and what we eat, and how we decorate and what we hang on our walls, and what stories our photographs tell. It is about dignity and equality, about transparency and vulnerability, about giving with no expectation of return. (If the church is meant to be a reconciled community, no wonder hospitality is a non-negotiable qualification for spiritual leadership – 1Tim. 3:2 and Tit. 1:8) How can we underestimate this earthquake of salvation deliverance that rocked the world when Gentiles showed hospitality to Jews and they ate the hot-dogs and the shrimps from the barbecue! Enjoying the hospitality in Joppa, Peter went for an afternoon prayer and sunbathe. It says he got hungry and wanted something to eat. Guess who acted as the waiter and chef? God dropped a sheet full of meat on him in preparation for his next experience of hospitality that would usher in a brand new transnational community of faith that would see the dividing racial barriers of centuries broken and destroyed. Again, the church was born in hospitality. It says that Peter stayed with them for “a few days.” He then walked straight into a storm of criticism with the circumcised believers. Why? “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” And talking of world-shaking breakthroughs that began with hospitality, it was in the home of Philemon that reconciliation was effected when a slave became a brother. I’m going to be teaching two or three messages out of Philemon in September but note that it was hospitality that was the wedge that pried open the slave-master relationship to bring down empires of injustice. It started with hospitality.

From the Garden of Eden where God invited our first parents to eat all the food provided, to the marriage supper of the Lamb in Rev. 19, from Jesus asking us to open the door of hospitality to him in Rev. 3:20 to his description of his heavenly work as preparing a place for us, the call of scripture to us is to have a hospitable heart to Father, Son and Holy Spirit so that we have hospitable homes to those both in the church community and outside it. When it comes to church growth, hospitality is the program. My heart and my home become the building blocks of the church. It is hospitality and not the building fund that accommodates the work of the church. How accessible are our homes. Can people come in? Are people invited in? The location of our home is no spiritual accident. Do we have a theology of place? “He determined the exact places where they should live…” (Acts 17:26) Have we read Jn. 1:4 recently? “The word became flesh and moved in to the neighborhood.” What would your definition of a hospitable person be? Do you meet your definition? John writes in his epistle “we ought to show hospitality”. If our heart and our home was the norm for the community, what would be the health of the community? If everyone in the community was just like us, what would be the state of hospitality? If the church had no building and just our home, would it grow if our home was typical? Would it be able to meet there? If not, why not? I’m suggesting that it is no good just talking about community as if it only has to do with what happens in the building we call the church; if it is only about what the church corporate does to foster, develop and nurture relationships. Given that God’s house is actually our house, it is fundamentally about our heart and our home and its response to others, especially the household of faith. Again, the discipline of hospitality is the program. Cheers!

Pastorally yours,

Stuart