Radical Hospitality #1

Judges 19: 15-21

Hebrews 13: 1-2

Luke 14: 7-14

Radical Hospitality

If we keep our eyes open, we can sometimes see people who are radically hospitable around us. Rob, the owner of a restaurant named Saul Good, is someone who is radically hospitable. By his example, by the way he lives and works, he teaches without realizing it that radical hospitality is seeing everyone as Jesus’ guest. One example should suffice.

Not too long ago, Rob made a mistake. Now, this is a rare occurrence, he doesn’t make many mistakes.  He received a phone call of a party of 17 that was hoping to eat dinner at Saul Good for that evening. They told him 6:45. In the rush of what all was going on at the time, he wrote down 7:45. You can see the problem coming, can’t you? They show up at 6:45 to a crowded restaurant with no room for 17 anytime soon. Rob, who cannot interact with them personally because of the other needs of the restaurant informs others to take care of this group and buy them drinks and appetizers.

To make a long story short, there was some confusion, and this group of 17 walks out and goes to another restaurant down the street. So, an hour later, once things have settled down, Rob gets the whole story and thinking from a radical hospitality perspective does something nuts. He goes down to the other restaurant, finds the group, talks to the leader of the group, and he does not give out free appetizer or discount coupons to Saul Good, so that they will come back later. He does not offer for them to come back to Saul Good, and he doesn’t just offer to buy them desert. He doesn’t blame somebody else. He does the radical hospitality thing, and he buys 20 dinners for them at the other place. He finds them and takes cares of them where they are.

Now, where are these people more likely to eat at next? The place where they were served and probably served well, or the place where the owner found them and took care of them at a great cost. This is radical hospitality.

Radical Hospitality- Going above and beyond to love others into the family of Christ. Doing something at great cost because it benefits someone else. Doing something without assurance of getting something back in return. Just as Jesus loved and served others with no strings attached.

Radical hospitality is not coffee and donuts. It is not a greeter at the door. It is not a warm hello to someone visiting at church. It’s not a pot luck attended by church members, friends and family. It is not saying to someone, “Come to church sometime.” It is an orientation of our very being that sees everyone, inside and outside of church--especially outside the church--as a valued person of God.

Jesus often showed some pretty radical hospitality. Every healing Jesus did was an act of radical hospitality. Read the scriptures carefully. Jesus did not have to do those healings. He took risks doing them.  In Luke 14, he commands us that when we are to have a dinner, do not invite your friends or the rich folk, but to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

This is both a practical command, so that if we are the church, we are to love and invite those people who are outcasts of our societies and minister to them, but it is also a statement of humility. Showing hospitality means that you see those people who others see as outcasts, you see as family. Not the second cousin twice removed that you have only seen at a few funerals kind of family, but the spouse or child type of family. Radical hospitality has that sort of views toward persons. Radical hospitality means we do not see strangers, but family that we have not had the privilege to meet yet.

People who operate out of a perspective of radical hospitality, do not have a tight hold on “their” church. This is God’s church to which they are called to be a part, but they understand they are merely stewards of this church that exists for both the people who are inside the walls and outside the walls of the church. Thus, people who are radically hospitable are willing to embrace change for the sake of others outside the church.

Being radically hospitable simply requires sacrifice. If you want to talk about radical hospitable, think Jesus, who showed the most radical of all hospitality by the incarnation, the coming of Christ on Earth. Philippians 2 communicates it beautifully, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. That is radical love, radical hospitality.

Creativity and prayer are needed for us to make daily expressions of Christ’s love.  Rethinking church is needed for this. Rethinking church means seeing church not as a building but as a verb, an action, something we do beyond Sunday morning. Rethinking church means practicing radical hospitality after we leave on Sunday morning, and go about our daily lives, extending ourselves to those un-served by church. Rather than seeking out people like ourselves for mutual support, they seek people who consider themselves beyond the reach of organized religion.

To do that we need to develop relationships of trust and caring. People do not care what you believe, until they believe you care. Care about them as they are, not as we wish they would be. Seven months ago you all put names of at least four people in our prayer box, and committed to praying for them daily, and taking opportunity to develop a caring relationship with them. If we do this, then a time will come when they will be willing to accept an invitation to come with you to a church activity.

It is essential to remember that an invitation means “Come with me”.  Unless you ask the person to come with you, unless you are willing and offer to pick them up and bring them, you are just informing them, not inviting them, and it will increase the likelihood they will NOT come, or be inclined to accept your invitation at another time.

We need to take a good hard look at our congregations and our churches. What has been done in the past has not been working. We cannot survive with the status quo. Jesus only takes a paragraph to define "church" to his followers. He defines church as a place of radical hospitality and goes on to define the role of each member of the church. In his definition, there are no commentators or spectators. He commands us to be on the streets offering radical hospitality.