Hospi-Table

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bake sale next week

No Sunday school

Family Sunday School after that

SHAPE seminar next Saturday, sign up in back of room

Grad acknowledgement

Sermon

Oops Hospitality is a word that is bigger and more important than we think

Question for you

What word is spelled incorrectly in every dictionary? - Incorrectly

How would you describe someone who doesn’t have all their fingers on one hand? - Normal, you’re only supposed to have half your fingers on each hand

how did A man go out in the rain but not a single hair on his head got wet? Yeah…the advantages of no hair.

Trick questions are fun, sometimes maddening, but fun.

Our one another for this morning contains what feels a bit like a trick question. Like at first glance we think we know what we’re being asked, but a careful look shows we’re missing something

1 Peter 4:9 “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.”

Yesterday we had about a hundred people come over to our house.

We provided water and lemonade, snacks, and a chair in the shade…

was that hospitality?

My in-laws came in their RV for the past ten days, plugged into our power and water, eating with us, hanging out together

Was that hospitality?

What about the hospitality “industry”? How does that fit in? Is it hospitality if you pay for it?

Let’s do a very brief dive into the language of this verse

Ugh It is vital we understand and practice if we are going to follow Jesus

Hospitality comes from a greek word that means “love of strangers”

So not friends over for dinner?

Woah, Turns out the hospitality industry might be closer than my other examples than the others…

Though it is for profit, the hotels, restraunts, and attractions we want to return to have that in common, THEY MAKE US …as strangers…feel loved.

We had dinner at Beaches for my in-laws anniversary…wow are they good at that.

Years ago, the Tennessee football team came to play Oregon. The previous year, Oregon had played in Chattanooga. Oregon’s radio guy, Jerry Allen made a real point to pressure Oregon fans to roll out the red carpet for the Tennessee fans.

Because when Oregon went there, if they were walking through a neighborhood with a bbq going, they were invited over to join.

They barely could pay for their own meals,

Leading up to a football game, fans found friends in a “foriegn” land.

wow, that’s a different definition than hanging out with friends and family at home… but wait… let’s read our verse again.

1 Peter 4:9 “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.”

To One Another…

Love strangers to one another?

You see why the trick question comes up?

Which is it? To extend a welcome to the stranger, or to welcome one another?

Who are we inviting to the hospi table?

Who is Invited to the Hospi Table?

Aha! There are many ways to look at it. All are worth whike, but Peter gives us some powerful reasons and an example in the context

Jesus seems to agree with the first half.

Luke 14:12-14 “He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.””

So the first answer to our question is:

The Stranger

Not simply the stranger, but the one who can’t give back.

The Tennessee fans did that for sure. Even if every fan in Eugene took them in…could a bbq in Eugene ever match a bbq in Tennessee? I love my home town, but let’s be real. The South just knows how to do some things better.

In the PNW we do coffee right, we know how to cope with pollen and rain better than anyone, and we can do pretty good at the Q, but…c’mon.

Let me linger on how important this is for a moment by returning to the words of Jesus. He doesn’t use the word, “hospitality” but I bet you can hear it in between the lines if you listen.

Matthew 25:31-36 ““When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. “ ‘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 took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.’”

They are confused, and he says, whatever you did for the least…you did for me. And to the goats, he says…you didn’t…not for the least, so not for me.

Going back to Peter, we find the context gives us some clues Peter may have been thinking about Jesus’ words. We find this line in a bigger section looking at how short time is, and how we need to use it well.

There’s almost a fruit of the spirit recepie book here. A few verses before he outline they way they used to live, then he says:

1 Peter 4:4-5 “They are surprised that you don’t join them in the same flood of wild living—and they slander you. They will give an account to the one who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.”

in other words, you used to this, but now…

And then rather than give the traits like Paul “Love, joy, peace, etc”

He gives short examples of what it looks like when those things are happening.

In fact Next week…we’ll be in the same passage…because there is another One another here…

But in this list of things that matter because there will be an account given, is hospitality.

But that doesn’t sort out our question yet…strangers, or one another?

John gives us a different picture in his 3rd letter

3 John 5-8 “Dear friend, you are acting faithfully in whatever you do for the brothers and sisters, especially when they are strangers. They have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such people so that we can be coworkers with the truth.”

Here is a wrinkle:

Kingdom Strangers

I spent years as a camp counselor. Years more directing camps. In both roles there was a clear goal.

Make sure these kids know they are loved.

Most of the kids came from Christian homes, but they all needed to see a picture of Christian hospitality.

On mission trips to Mexico and Guatamala, the groups I was with were shown great hospitality by strangers, who only knew we served the same Lord. That was enough for them to stuff us with food, and give us rest.

I’ve heard one of the hesitations on getting in a Life group is not knowing anyone…

Everyone is a stranger first…maybe that’s part of the challenge of figuring this out.

You might have to be the stranger shown hospitality first so that you can be the one another giving and receiving hospitality. Or you can be the one who shows hospitality to a fellow believer first, and the receives it later.

Let’s keep going here, there’s more to unpack.

How important is hospitality? It is actually a character requirement to be a leader in the church!

To Set An Example

Check this out:

1 Timothy 3:2 “An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…”

Titus 1:7-8 “As an overseer of God’s household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not hot-tempered, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled…”

There’s more, but Paul hits it in both his lists to his pastoral students, an elder, practices the love of strangers. Period.

WHY?

Church leaders are not meant to lead by domination. Jesus and his early followers got that. Instead, they were to follow Jesus, who lived out God’s Love to live, and lead others to do the same.

And as one of my mentors loves to say, you can teach what you don’t know and you can’t lead where you won’t go.

This isn’t a message for our elders, well, us too, but for all of us, when we practice love of strangers, in the faith or out, we set an example for the church to follow Jesus.

In the beginning God created a world that had and was enough for humanity. God’s goodness and generosity was sufficient for all our needs.

Genesis 3 the serpent convinced us that God was holding out. And from that moment, we treated God like he wasn’t enough. We began to horde for ourselves and our tribes.

The Bible project has a great video on generosity that animates that idea, well worth watching.

Shows it like a party. The host turns his back for a moment, and all of a sudden we wonder if the mozzarella sticks are going to run out…so we take them and hide them in another room.

Then someone else wants one, so we either barter for the jalapeño poppers, or there’s a conflict.

If you look at this part of human nature, all the world’s economics and wars can be distilled back to this way of seeing. there is only so much, so get yours.

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.

Heller responds,“Yes, but I have something he will never have — ENOUGH.”

But God Intended it more like that

We were supposed to give and receive freely and without fear. No one with too much, no one with empty hands.

Jesus lived that way.

Following Jesus’ Example

Fed 5000 and then 4000 with a snack to remind us who God is.

Restored life and body to men and women to remind us who God is.

Proved God’s love and generosity, by ultimately allowing us to put him to death.

The powers that be couldn’t stand for someone who put their bank accounts and powers at risk, and so they killed him.

And if we would have been in their position we would have done the same.

What they didn’t know, couldn’t have known, because we forgot how to think this way…

Is that it is in God’s generosity that he reveals his power most fully.

2 Corinthians 5:14-21 “For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” He made the one who did not know sin to be sin that we might become the righteousness of God.

Having experienced God’s hospitality, his overwhelming generosity, his deep love for us at our worst, we are compelled to put ourselves aside and follow his lead.

So Paul tells Timothy and Titus, make sure the people you appoint to lead are setting the example of what following Jesus looks like.

Show outline

So maybe the question of strangers or one another is moot. The answer is yes.

Yes we invite the stranger into our homes, our lives, our resources, our relationships.

Yes we invite friends and family into our lives fully and with transparency to do life connected.

Yes we invite those serving the Lord to share what we have so they are able to do what God has called them to.

Yes, we live our lives as if we knew that the universe was created and sustained by a God who is and can give enough, trusting that he will multiply fish when needed, forgive unfailingly, love without measure or end.

But we do that knowing we live in a world that doesn’t know the God who loves like that.

So Peter says in the same context:

1 Peter 4:12-16 “Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening to you. Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed. If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name.”

When we live like that, it won’t always work out the way we’d like.

we may be unappreciated, misunderstood, taken advantage of, and treated poorly

But that’s ok. Because the larger joy is what we wait for.

Whee! How do we do it?

So Let’s get practical, how can we live out the life of Jesus in our hospitality?

Pray for your neighborhood, school, work, wherever

Go out of your way to connect with strangers, at work, where you live, at school, and ask God how you can love them.

Practice hospitality with “ONE ANOTHER”

if we can’t do it with one another, are we going to do it with others?

But treat it like practice. Not to go overboard on the sports metaphor, but I will.

Practice with one another, but practice like you want to play, and then get in the game. Don’t just practice. Use that one another time to show hospitality to the stranger.

If you are in a life group, pray together and then take action to invite others.

Life groups were designed to grow and multiply. But we get very comfortable…choose discomfort like Jesus did.

Think about the last time you had an non-believing neighbor over for a meal. Not family, but a neighbor. Do you have non-churched friends? Do you invest in them? Are you showing them what life with Jesus looks like?

Jesus asked us to pray, “God, your kingdom come, your will be done, on EARTH as it is in heaven.” Well, God’s radical hospitality is a Huge part of God’s will.

There could be a college major on God’s kingdom as hospitality as shown in the OT… That course would be enlightening, but not nearly as exciting as making it happen…here.

What could God do with a church that practiced this kind of hospitality in ever growing measure? . . . Let it linger. . .

hmmm…

What changes? Will we?

We tend to focus our spiritual thoughts on the big sins, or the big virtues. I think too often we forget that God puts an emphasis on simple life and love.

You don’t need a theology degree to show the love of Jesus in a meal.

And you don’t need to be the picture of sin to completely ignore God’s heart by refusing a meal.

And we barely notice.

When we think of Sodom and Gomorrah, we think of extreme, big sin. The sins we would never do.

But what does the word say? In Ezekiel 16 we read:

Ezekiel 16:49 “Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy.”

Who are you inviting to the table?

Can I offer you a specific challenge for this summer?

Three times this summer, put it on the calendar, invite someone you don’t really know from church to have a meal with your family

One of those times, invite a neighbors family to join you

Play a game, share coffee, laugh together, find common ground

And maybe go nuts and do it 5 times, or ten. Block party, bbq, get creative.

Make this summer count for Godly hospitality. loving the stranger and one another.

Let’s pray