Being the Church: Fruitful Hospitality Leviticus 19:33 34, Romans 15:7 Sermon Series on Robert Schnase s Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation Sunday, June 23, 2013 Rev. Stephanie Swanson FBC Smithville Pulpit Leviticus 19:33 34 33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Romans 15:7 7 Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. I came across an enlightening little story the other week. It begins with a county agent who is headed up to a farm in his jurisdiction to discuss matters of county business with the owner. As he drove up the dirt road to the farm he noticed several signs posted like: Keep Out This Means You! Beware of Dog! Trespassers will be shot! As he approached the door, concern swept over him. He wondered just who this farmer would be and if those signs held any truth. Much to his surprise though, he found a warm, smiling farmer at the door, happy to have a guest in his home. As the county agent prepared to leave the farmer told him, Well come and seem me again sometime. I don t get many visitors up this way. The county agent s thoughts as he drove away were much like our own upon hearing the story. Well, of course he doesn t get visitors! Any one of his signs would have been enough to turn away someone approaching the home. Nothing about the entrance to his land suggested that visitors would be greeted warmly. 1 As much as this story might give us a little chuckle, it s a rather close parallel for some churches. Like the farmer, they want visitors. They want to grow and they keep asking the pastor where all the new members are. Why aren t the doors flooded with visitors? Why don t people come back a second and third time? But also like the farmer, they haven t done much to communicate to visitors that they are a welcoming and friendly group. The church may not go as far as to put up no trespassing signs or something to that effect, but she does fail sometimes to put forth much effort into making people feel welcomed. That desire for inviting people into the body of faith is not always conveyed in the way we hope. We may think it s flowing naturally out from us, but that is not always the case. The ease with which we can get comfortable in our surroundings and in the already established relationships can sometimes make the newcomer feel like an outsider, even when it is done unintentionally. Consider this, a young family, new to town, decides to visit a new church one Sunday morning. They tentatively walk inside, not quite sure if they ve entered the correct door, 1 Paraphrased story from sermon by Dr. William O. (Bud) Reeves. Radical Hospitality: Excellent Churches Welcome People Well. First United Methodist Church, Hot Springs, AR. January 18, 2009. 1
2 but breathe a sigh of relief as they see the sanctuary just a few feet in front of them. As they near the pews a greeter offers them a bulletin and a quick distracted hello seeing as someone they seem to know well, another church member the new family presumes, has them deeply engrossed in a story. They pick an empty pew and slide in, all the while wondering if they ve taken someone s spot. They ve been in churches before where people were very possessive of their pew; it s almost as if some churches have assigned seating charts like elementary school. Unable to know for sure if they ve picked a good pew, they settle in and get their children situated with the 3 year old beside dad and the baby still snuggled up against mom while he finishes out his nap. Knowing the baby will be waking soon, the Mom battles an inner fear that she ll get dirty looks if her young son cries out in the service. She realizes she never asked where a nursery was or anywhere she could escape to if she needed to feed her son or change his diaper. And now, saddled in the pew, with the music beginning, she realizes there s no going back. Hopefully the baby won t make a fuss, leaving her lost trying to figure out where to go or what to do. As the pastor gets up and offers a brief welcome to everyone present, singling out the visitors, the new family notices a few folks turning around in their pews and peering in their direction. Hopefully those glances will be followed up by a few words or handshakes after the service has ended the Dad thinks. Oh well, here goes. It s a story all too familiar to many a person. The details may be different, but a great number of folks have experienced such a time in visiting a church. It wasn t that anyone went out of their way to ignore them, but it wasn t that they went out of their way to welcome them either. Over the last two weeks we ve looked at two of Robert Schnases Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations: Intentional Spiritual Development and Risk taking Missions and Service. This morning we move on to one of the three remaining practices Radical Hospitality. Some of you joined us a couple months ago during Sunday school when we talked about how we could be a more hospitable church. Our intentions, at that time, were to improve upon some of our hospitality efforts to bring about a fresh desire for welcoming visitors at our church. Any church experiences this need for a renewed welcoming spirit at some point. I m happy to say though that after our little Bible study session, there was a clearer sense of the need to be more intentional in how we welcomed guests. It was as if a switch was turned on and the next Sunday you could sense a friendlier spirit in the air as members went out of their way to focus more of their energy on the new friends that had entered the sanctuary. One lesson though on any topic of our faith, particularly the very basic foundational practices that undergird who we are as Christians, is never enough. So we look to hospitality once again and this time we will consider it at an extreme level a radical one. Now these are not two terms we often see together radical and hospitality. But when paired with one another, they challenge us as the church to go beyond the norm and to think creatively in the ways we receive others. Webster s dictionary defines radical as very different from the usual or traditional; favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions. Now when we look to Jesus, we see this radical hospitality lived out. He did defy the traditional. He did have different views and habits when it came to interacting with God s children. He truly was radical in his ways in his day and time, and if we re honest with ourselves, some of his ways are still radical today, pushing and tugging at us to welcome and receive individuals, all individuals, in a most gracious way.
Through hospitality we practice the very gracious love that Christ has shown us. Perhaps we need to hear that verse from Romans as a mantra in our head: Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. 2 Welcome others as Christ has welcomed you. Do you remember when you were first welcomed? When you came to the realization that God loves you? Do you recall the individual that helped you along in that process, showing you the love of God and welcoming you into the body of faith? Without the hospitality of someone else we would not belong to the body of believers. And as we join the faith community, as we become disciples of Christ, the practice of hospitality becomes a practice of our own. As followers of Christ we are tasked with the responsibility of welcoming and receiving others, of caring for them and letting them know that God loves and values them. We are couriers of God s welcoming grace. And this spirit of hospitality we see in Christ that we try to model is one that knows no limits. No one should be beyond the reaches of our hospitality. Jesus challenges us to love our neighbor, and that refers just as much to the folks that are different from us as the ones that are just like us. I know that this can be challenging for some of us, particularly those of us that are more introverted, but keep those words from Paul with you Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you. Welcome as you have been welcomed. Maybe hearing those words in your heart whenever you have the opportunity to welcome or reach out to one of God s children will give you the strength and courage to take that challenging step. Hospitality is not always easy. It takes work and practice; it requires prayer and attention. If we want to continue in the practices of Christ, inviting others to know the grace of God, then we need to work at it. It s not something we can just toss aside because it doesn t come naturally to us or because it s not something we like doing. It s a joy and a challenge placed on all our lives as we are motivated by the love that we have received from Christ. Through our faithfulness to God, we are further inspired to be a part of expanding the body of Christ, helping others come into relationship with our Lord and with a faith community that can care for and encourage them in their own journey. But being radical about it adds a distinct flavor to being hospitable. It suggests that the age old practices of hospitality are not enough. That maybe we need to go above and beyond; that maybe a culture of hospitality in the church needs to push us into unchartered territories as we think creatively about how we can better generate a welcoming environment for newcomers. We understand why people need the church because we re familiar with that very need. We need the church because it helps us understand and know the love that God has for us, it gives us a sense of purpose as we understand that we are valued by God, it lets us know that we are not alone in this journey and that we have others to lean on for support, it gives us a place to call home and to find grace and forgiveness when we feel as those the world is closing in upon us, it introduces us to the peace of Christ that is deeper than any absence of troubles we could come upon. We need the church just as we need Christ and we understand that others do to. But a lot of times, others don t realize how much they need it, how much they are in need of God s love until they have fallen right into it. And that s where we come in, inviting, welcoming, receiving and gracing others with God s love in even the most radical ways so that we can touch them at their 2 Romans 15:7 3
4 inner core and help them recognize their desire for Christ s redemptive presence in their lives. It s not a recognition we can force upon them, but it is one we can invite them into. A couple years ago a young mother in the church where I served at the time approached me and a few of our other ministers. She had a good friend named Claire that was looking for a church home and she wanted to invite her to worship with us. There was one hang up though. Claire had visited several other churches before and had yet to experience a welcoming atmosphere. In fact, in some churches she had been spoken to rudely and even asked to leave. Why you ask? Well there s something I haven t told you about her. Claire, a divorced mom of two, had full custody of her children and her youngest son, Blake, had been diagnosed years ago with aspergers syndrome. When Claire had visited other churches with her two sons, the other children were often mean to Blake, not knowing why he had trouble interacting with them socially and she rarely saw the adults correcting the behavior or treating her son any better. Blake would often speak up, during inappropriate times, calling attention to himself and she had watched this happen more than once during worship. Sometimes he would call out something very blunt and honest in the middle of a sermon, one time even saying loudly towards the preacher that he didn t like him. Rather than loving Claire and her family for who they were and thinking creatively as to how best to minister to them, several churches ignored them or even subtly ushered them out the doors. Some even were bold enough to ask them to leave so that Blake wouldn t interrupt the people trying to worship. The young mom in our church hoped that things would be different if Claire and her family came to visit us. Knowing that we even had a specific Sunday school class for over forty years for two of our fifty year old members who were both mentally challenged, she had high hopes we would extend the same love and care to her friend s family. But she wanted to be sure our pastor wouldn t get upset if Blake yelled something out during his sermon and that our children s minister would lead by example in showing the children how to love Blake. Saddened to hear of Claire s heartbreaking experiences at so many churches, we quickly urged our member to invite Claire s family to worship. The next Sunday all three of them showed up at church and scooted into the pew with their friend. The worship service went along smoothly and after it was over all the ministers took time to greet Claire s family and welcome them just as we did with all our visitors. They headed up to Sunday school and our children s Bible study teachers warmly welcomed Blake, being sensitive to his needs and caring for him just as they did the other children. Things continued to go well over the next several weeks and we got to know their family well. Then one Sunday in the middle of the sermon, Blake boldly got up and began marching down the aisle toward the front of the sanctuary. He moved so quickly Claire couldn t pull him back into the pew and she wasn t sure what to do. Surely she grew nervous again about how people would respond. About halfway down the aisle as our pastor finished his sentence he looked toward this young man and said in a warm and friendly tone, Hey Blake, how are you doing this morning? Blake stopped short and looked up at him, answering that he was good. Then our pastor said, I know I ve been talking a long time, Blake, and you re probably getting tired of listening to me. I bet a few other people in here would agree. But if you can just hold tight for a few minutes and sit with your Mom I ll finish up here and then we can all stand up together and sing. I know how much you like that part of worship. Blake smiled at our pastor and headed back to his mom. You could see the relief rush over her as well as the thankfulness for such a loving
and considerate pastor and community. They joined the church just a few weeks later and not only was our church a nurturing home for Claire and her family, but their family breathed new life into our church. We were graced by their presence. Hospitality began to flow in both directions as they became a part of us. Now that s radical hospitality. That s extending the love of Christ to others just as it has been offered to us. That s the mark of a true disciple, of a follower of Christ. Being able to welcome people as they are, to love them uniquely, is a sign of a fruitful church. As we come to the table of our Lord this morning, sharing in the practice of holy communion, may we not do so lightly, but may we remember the grace and love that has been extended to us through Jesus Christ our Lord and let s ask ourselves, how can we be more radical like Christ in inviting others to join us at the table? Amen. 5