Homely Hospitality pt2

Title: Homely Hospitality pt2

Text: Luke 10:38-42

D.T Oftentimes hospitality is best practiced by being present

Introduction: Today we continue our “Welcome Home” series. The purpose of this series is to strive to make Central Church known as a welcome home in the community. Every week we discuss principles which will help us accomplish this goal. These principals make up the pillars which hold up a welcome home. Today we continue our discussion about hospitality. For many the idea of providing hospitality can be a daunting task. Why? Because when you are trying to be hospitable, it often means you are trying to meet both needs and preferences. Meeting needs can be hard enough, but meeting preferences? How can you expect to be hospitable when people's preferences are so diverse? Preferences like butter? (Tell story of rock solid refrigerated butter) However, at the end of the day, did I feel like the family that hosted it was inhospitable? No. Despite our clear disagreement on butter, I still felt welcome in their home any time? Why? Because treatment is more important than preferences. The backbone of hospitality will always be the way we treat others. We tend to make hospitality overly complicated because it’s easy for us to forget this truth. Today we are going to take a brief detour from the book of the Philippines. Instead we are going to examine a story which involves 3 characters. One of the characters is Jesus. The other 2 characters will focus on being hospitable to Jesus. One character will approach hospitality by focusing on preferences. The other character will approach hospitality by focusing on treatment.

READ Luke 10:38-42

Luke 10:38–42 ESV

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

It doesn’t take long to see the difference in philosophy regarding hospitality. Martha valued preferences as she worked tirelessly to try and be accommodating to preferences. Mary instead focused on treatment, she chose to ensure her time with Jesus was quality time.

Martha was quickly becoming overwhelmed in her attempts to be accommodating for Jesus. When she notices Mary sitting at Jesus' feet she becomes angry. She pleads with Jesus to have Mary assist her. Martha obviously believed that Jesus would side with her, however that’s not what happened.

In Jesus' response we learn alot about how we should handle hospitality.

When this text is preached on, it’s often viewed through the perspective of busyness. Which is appropriate, this passage certainly teaches a lot about the dangers of busyness.

However, what fueled Martha’s busyness? I think it’s clear that her philosophy on hospitality fueled their busyness.

Mary wasn’t simply not busy. She was spending quality time with Jesus. Which seems to be the way Jesus WANTED to be treated. This isn’t to say he didn’t want to have his preferences accommodated. Instead he was more concerned with how people treated him while he was there.

Not only did Mary treat Jesus in accordance with his values. Mary’s actions teach us a great deal about hospitality. Mary shows us that Oftentimes hospitality is best practiced by being present. Mary wasn’t particularly active in her interactions with Jesus. Instead she was present in the moment. This is often an overlooked detail, but it’s something which make Mary’s actions all the more noteworthy

If you were to ask people which is more important to hospitality, the way we treat others, or the way we accommodate preferences. Many people would acknowledge the way we treat people is more important.

However that doesn’t mean they are practicing hospitality through being present. The art of simply being present is often lost on us. This notion of being present can often prove difficult, and something in which we often fall short.

We often get so focused on trying to fix the problem, that we forget to simply be present.

We get so focused on finding the right answers we forget to be present.

Most of the time, when people are hurting, they really just need us to be there. They need us to be present.

In the book of Job, three of Job's friends seek him out to investigate what they’ve heard. When they saw him they didn’t recognize him because his suffering was so great. This is how they responded (READ Job 2:12-13

Job 2:12–13 ESV

And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

Job’s friends simply choose to be present. Ironically enough when they open their mouths and speak, they quickly become a problem rather than helpful. However in this moment Job’s friends are showing him the best hospitality they can by simply choosing to be present in his time of need.

Trying to find and provide the answers for those who are suffering can be incredibly stressful, it can be a deterrent. People may avoid showing hospitality to people because “they don’t know what to say” Let’s not focus on that. As we seek to become known as a Welcome Home in our community let us focus on hospitality. Let us be hospitable by simply being present.