The Table of Hospitality

Romans 12:9-21 CEB

9 Love should be shown without pretending. Hate evil, and hold on to what is good. 10 Love each other like the members of your family. Be the best at showing honor to each other. 11 Don’t hesitate to be enthusiastic—be on fire in the Spirit as you serve the Lord! 12 Be happy in your hope, stand your ground when you’re in trouble, and devote yourselves to prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of God’s people, and welcome strangers into your home. 14 Bless people who harass you—bless and don’t curse them. 15 Be happy with those who are happy, and cry with those who are crying. 16 Consider everyone as equal, and don’t think that you’re better than anyone else. Instead, associate with people who have no status. Don’t think that you’re so smart. 17 Don’t pay back anyone for their evil actions with evil actions, but show respect for what everyone else believes is good.

18 If possible, to the best of your ability, live at peace with all people. 19 Don’t try to get revenge for yourselves, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. It is written, Revenge belongs to me; I will pay it back, says the Lord. 20 Instead, If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. By doing this, you will pile burning coals of fire upon his head. 21 Don’t be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good.

INTRO

This morning, we begin a new sermon series called Come to the Table. This sermon series will draw us to the center of our theological and spiritual awareness that the good news of God is spread and provided for us at the table. It’s a call to gather around the Table of Grace, where Jesus himself shows up and invites us. It’s a call to gather others around our tables in our homes and in our church. Each week, we will explore a different aspect of the Eucharistic Table. As we are moved deeper into relationship with God and with one another, as we learn more about the Table of God, our lives begin to be shaped and formed so that the tables of our lives begin to look more and more like the Eucharistic Table.

Have you ever listened to the moment when the service of the table begins? So often, we believe that our worship is centered around the Word of God, which is proclaimed every Sunday, but on Communion Sundays, that is not necessarily the case. The service is actually listed in the United Methodist Book of Worship as “A Service of Word and Table.” In part because we are naming that something extraordinary happens at the Table. It is the space where God invites us to retreat, spiritually renew, and be empowered to live out what we receive from God at the table, and it all begins with an invitation. “Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him.”

We are invited to belong to something that is greater than ourselves; we are challenged and invited into a life that is beyond ourselves and drawn together as a body into the presence of God. The power of hospitality found just in the opening lines of the Eucharistic liturgy is hard to ignore. It stands as a stark reminder that this table is not ours; it is not set by or even provided by us. It has been set by God, who welcomes all, no matter who you are. At the table, God does not care about our gender, our sexual orientation,

our political, or theological beliefs. God doesn’t care about our theological disagreements.

God doesn’t desire for us to figure out exactly who to exclude. In a few minutes, we will sing the great hymn of the church, “Come, Ye Sinner, Poor and Needy.” In the last verse, we will sing, “Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream; all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.” If you need Jesus, come. Lay aside your differences, lay aside your burdens, and come to the table. For the Holy Spirit works in all who come to God’s table.

This is Paul’s desire for the church at Rome. Paul begins our text from Romans by talking about Genuine love. “Love should be shown without pretending.” Notice the language that Paul is using is not that of a command. Paul is not telling the Romans what to do. Rather, throughout the text, Paul is describing love and urging the Romans to practice genuine love for others. Not only does genuine love reflect that of Christ, but it is also a call to take the initiative. To “be the best,” to “outdo,” and “anticipate” one another in showing honor is to take the lead in seeking the needs not of oneself but of the other.

To honor someone is to respect another; it is to hold one in high regard. To honor someone is to be concerned with a person's well-being as they are held in such high esteem. To honor one another implies that we must be in relationship with one another in such a way that we walk alongside each other through the ups and downs of life. This kind of genuine relationship, this kind of invitational vulnerability, is only possible because of Jesus Christ. The more God transforms us, the more we embrace our brothers and sisters through genuine, empathetic love. As we embrace this love, we cease being envious of others, and we cease taking pleasure in others’ pain. As this genuine love grows in our hearts, we only want the best for the other. To honor is to be people of hospitality where we share and offer ourselves to the other, where we pray for the other, walk with the other in their pains, and challenge them to be all that God calls them to be.

So often, we think of the church as “called out” or “set apart” from the world. When we use this language, we run the risk of believing that we are meant to be separate from the world. The church is here, nice and safe in our building, and we are separate and apart from what is outside our doors. We use this as a means of making ourselves feel superior. We are the “ones” who proclaim Christ and embody God! People need to come to us; we don't need to go to them. We are the ones with the knowledge of salvation, grace, hope, love, and peace…if people want to know about Christ, they are welcome to come into our space. This is not hospitality, nor is it the hospitality that Paul speaks of in the scriptures this morning.

“Contribute to the needs of God’s people and welcome strangers into your home.” We are supposed to resist the powers and principalities of the world while still offering a word of love. One commentary notes, “Even when the church resists cultural values, they should not do so in a way that deliberately disrupts the peace of their social world.” Paul’s warning does not eliminate the need to protest, strike, or participate in civil disobedience in order to bring about change. However, he does call us to the mind of Christ. To filter our words, actions, and our behavior through love. We are always called to create space to be in a relationship, to offer hospitality, and to honor the other.

The word hospitality is translated from Greek as “love of strangers.” It means to hold the stranger in high regard, to honor them, and to care for them holistically: to feed, clothe, and offer space to the stranger in one's home. Henri Nouwen writes that hospitality is “the creation of a space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.” Despite the scriptural and theological call to true hospitality, we must acknowledge that real, genuine hospitality is hard.

This type of hospitality is difficult because we live in a world where we build higher fences and lock our doors. We see increases in gated communities. We quote Robert Frost and say, “good fences make good neighbors.” But it isn’t just the culture of our world. We are hardwired in our brains to automatically fear things that feel “different.” When we are young and learning how to survive in the world, this serves an important purpose. However, as we grow older, this fear of the other becomes more and more ingrained in us and is reinforced by the culture around us.

Our call this morning is to resist the temptation from the ways of this world. In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus tells the disciples, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” In other words, we must die to ourselves. We must give up the ways of domination and separation. We must begin to embrace the true practices of hospitality that Paul talks about this morning. If we truly live into the image of the crucified Christ, we must embody the values and practices of true relationship with the world.

You see, the church is set apart. We aren’t set apart physically from the world. We are set apart from the world in the ways we choose to embody the love, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ to the world. We are set apart in the ways that we honor others by practicing radical hospitality to others. Theologian Kathryn Tanner puts it this way: “We are the body of Christ only with his Spirit. And the proof of that Spirit is our coming to exhibit the shape of Christ’s own life and death, for example, by dying and rising with him as participants in the Father’s mission of love to the world.”

Our text this morning begins by calling the church to honor one another and then calls them to the deeper work of honoring those who are not within the four walls of the church. He calls for that love which dwells within the fellowship of believers, that love which cares for the other whereby we pray for one another, hold one another up in times of need, build one another up, and love one another as we love our own families, as we hold all things in common, and to share it with the world. To truly welcome others in by honoring them for who they are in Jesus Christ.

Wesley often reminded the church that honoring others comes naturally if you really look for the good in others and if you are honest about your own sins and shortcomings. To see another person as sacred to celebrate their humanity with thanksgiving! Christ does this for us at the table. The call, the invitation of Christ, is not just to feed us physically and spiritually but an invitation to dine with us, to draw us in, to embrace us with holy love, and to build relationships between friends, family, and strangers. Where in Christ we will see one another as beloved because Christ has invited all.

I love the Great Thanksgiving found in the Eucharistic liturgy. “The Lord be with you! And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise.” The back and forth of the liturgy found within this section of the Great Thanksgiving exemplifies the hospitality of the table. We are lifted up and honoring the goodness of God in the other; it is about coming into the presence of Jesus with our whole hearts; it is about embracing the warmth of God’s love as we eat and dine with the savior, and then we are sent out into the world to share that same hospitality with others!

You see, hospitality is a defining characteristic of the church of Jesus Christ! This hospitality is the means by which the church stands or falls. Hospitality is the way in which we truly live out and embody the things that we say that we believe. Just as we are not only fed but offered a place at the table, so too are we called to invite people to the table of hospitality where they may be fed and included. But it doesn’t stop there, for it is at this table where our Savior shows up, and all of us, friends and strangers alike, are not just invited, but our very being and presence is justified through the grace of our Savior. May this presence of Christ consumed and felt at the table. That presence of warmth, welcome, and hospitality becomes the outer life of Christ in us as we learn to lift others up in holy and unfiltered love so that all may be welcome and loved in this place.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.