Messages from the Body

Here is a sampling of some of the messages that have made a special impact at CCiPH, and that have been transcribed or written in manuscript.

Most weeks in our equipping assembly, at least one man has been asked to prepare a message that will build up believers. Often, the message is taken from the liturgical Gospel reading of the day, or it is a life message that God has been working into the fabric of that man. It is included here to build you up.

The Call to Hospitality

Message from Ken Read in August, 2004

Hospitality

Lately I have been reading a book about hospitality by Christine D. Pohl, entitled Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. This message is a reflection and report on material from that book.

We have often talked about hospitality around here, so it is not a new subject to bring up. But hospitality is so crucial that I want to continue to explore the subject this week and next.

Did you know that the Bible is full of references to hospitality? Being hospitable to a stranger is far more crucial than most of us would realize. Abraham welcomed three strangers and found them to be angels from the Lord. The widow of Zarephath by faith fed Elijah and found that God provided for her miraculously each day. Elisha was welcomed into the home of a Shunammite woman, who built a special room for him, and her son was miraculously healed, perhaps because of their relationship.

On the other hand, deliberate acts of inhospitality brought judgment to Sodom and Gibeah and Nabal. God told Israel that they were to remembers the aliens in their midst, because they too had been strangers and sojourners in a foreign land.

The New Testament has even more instruction about hospitality. Jesus told us to invite the poor and those who cannot return the favor in Luke 14, and he said that whatever we do to the “least of these” we have done to Him (Matt. 25). Jesus described them as the poor, maimed, blind and lame, as those in prison or in need of food and clothing. Mother Teresa called this seeing Jesus “in distressing disguise.”

Paul said to pursue hospitality (Rom 12:13 ), and not to neglect hospitality (Heb. 13:2). Peter tells us to offer hospitality ungrudgingly (1 Pet. 4:9). Hospitality is a requirement for elders (1 Tim. 3:2), and women were also to focus on it (1 Tim. 5:9-10). Hospitality is not an option for Christians, and it is not to be offered only to believers, or to those whom we think will soon be believers. We are to “do good to all.”

Our culture leaves people isolated and alienated. Especially in the city, afraid of terrorists, we protect ourselves from strangers. But rather than run and protect, I think the Lord is calling us to not be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. Let us be welcoming, without hidden motives of power or repayment or advantage or even evangelism. Do not grow weary. In due season you will reap if you do not give up.

What Happened to Hospitality?

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is surprisingly full of references to hospitality. It was a crucial practice of God’s people. But over the years, the word has come to mean something different, and we can learn from history.

In the first two centuries, virtually all Christian hospitality was done in and through households (Gk. Oikos). The church was made up of households, but it was also itself a new household, God’s household of faith, and believers were family to one another. Offerings for benevolence were also taken up, the gifts placed at the feet of the presiding elders, and distributed by deacons to those in need (first to believers, than to anyone in need).

In this way, the household of God imitated God’s own character, as the One who opened His own household to welcome Gentiles into the inheritance of Israel . The early church was multi-ethnic and known for their love.

With the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century, the location of Christian hospitality expanded. Rather than Christians being persecuted and underground, they found it their place to actually shape their society from a position of influence, and they developed institutions of care. These institutions were viewed as “public service,” and were far-reaching and significant sources of blessing to society. For example, Christians established many hospitals to care for strangers, but particularly for poor strangers who had no other resources, and for the local poor. Inns and hostels and monasteries were formed to provide shelter and food for travelers.

Within a century, however, Christians began to view hospitality as being the responsibility of the programs of the church. Rather than personal and face-to-face, the pull toward impersonal “efficiency” began to compromise the original intent of God’s instructions for believers. It was becoming the work of clerics, not the joyful work of the households anymore.

With the Reformation came another major change in the emphasis of hospitality. Now that Christendom was denominationally divided into mutually mistrusting groups, hospitality ceased being so open. Those within the persecuted sects took care of each other, but stranger ministry was largely lost in the sometimes-deadly denominational competition. In the meantime, institutional hospitality was increasingly secularized. The same pattern has been repeated within the last century in America .

By the 1700s, the term “hospitality” had become a word with almost negative connotations. It had been reduced to refer to wealthy people who invite other well-to-do people over for an impressive meal. And today most Christians rely on hotels, hospitals and other secular, profit-driven institutions to take the place that was originally filled by Christian household hospitality.

Let us rediscover the joy of hospitality ministry! Have you seen it among us? I see it every day: People are sharing meals, taking on short- and long-term guests, delivering meals, providing bread, giving money (with or without a tax credit), having children play at their house, taking care of our building to serve as a community center, doing random acts of kindness, buying groceries, working for the food pantry, taking on foster children or foreign exchange students, serving in a soup kitchen, sewing items, paying for someone’s admission or tuition, providing health care, sacrificing for missions trips, spending time in conversation, calling or emailing, as the Spirit leads. And He does lead in these matters, because God still cares about hospitality!

Run to the Margins

The Rule of Benedict called for the brothers to always have guests, and to treat each one as they would the Lord Jesus himself. As Brother Jeremiah said, “We always treat guests as angels—just in case.”

By running to the margins, Christianity becomes countercultural, because society runs toward power and influence. But the call of Christians is to lift up the fallen, to respect all people, and to minister to those who have no support system. In fact, social justice is hospitality’s wider ring of influence. We not only feed the hungry, but we serve them by helping to ensure that they can be fed in the future as well.

When we protect the vulnerable (such as widows and orphans, or the homeless or marginalized underdogs of life), we honor Jesus, who often wears distressing disguises. When we recognize Jesus in each person, it helps us to overcome the temptation to play toward power. When we recognize that all human beings were marked with the image of God, it will be an easy matter to protect and defend them. Even if a man is a starving thief or murderer, he is still worthy of a meal because he is God’s property.

We are called to give respect to everyone, and equal dignity. Where does equality best show itself? Perhaps in a common meal. After all, everyone needs to eat. Our need for sustenance is the common factor for all people, small and great alike. So in our common meals, everyone comes as profoundly equal.

Our nation is filled with relative strangers. People have little attachment to friends or family, don’t feel safe in their schools or on their streets, they bowl alone and eat in front of the TV and safely cocoon themselves every evening. For some people, virtual email friendships are their only significant conversations each day. Much of our neighborhood is a community of housebound strangers, stripped of dignity and purpose and enabled by government agencies to stay at home and merely exist. They long for meaning and relationships and purpose and community, and the body of Christ alone can fill that profound need.

The Lord Jesus Christ seems to have focused His ministry on the marginalized in society. He described it this way: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them.” He calls His followers to do the same. Let us be the feet of Jesus and run to the margins in Jesus’ name.