Our Rule of Life - Hospitality Pt1

So first off, let me remind you of what we're doing in this series.

'cause I've forgotten.

No, I'm joking.

I haven't.

So we're together.

This is the hope.

Together we are learning to order our lives around being with Jesus.

As we come into learning about ordering our lives around Jesus, a

suspect, we're resisting performance, reliance, and consumerism.

But the goal today, this is what I have in mind for today.

This is the goal.

The goal for today is to explore the richness of kingdom hospitality together.

Which is our first ethic of the kingdom that we're gonna explore today in our

series, to be reminded and discover that it's far more than what we ever

expected, and I think is actually fundamental to our faith in Christ.

To spend time thinking and welcoming the spirit to help us contextualize how

we can faithfully practice this today.

And that word contextualize.

What do I mean?

I mean work out what it looks like for us in our everyday lives

here and now just in our living.

Now I've got a very good friend, Hannah, who's gonna come up and

read our scripture for us today.

And let's now go, not so much Pentecostal.

Let's go a little bit liturgical.

Why don't you stand for the reading of God's word.

I know.

I'm getting all I'm getting.

I'm getting loose.

Oh, I won't be

that.

When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him,

he will sit on his glorious throne.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate

the people one from another.

As a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, he will put the sheep on

his right and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, come you

who are blessed by my father.

Take your inheritance.

The kingdom prepared for you since the creation 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 invited me in.

I needed clothes and you clothed me.

I was sick and you looked after me.

I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or

thirsty and give you something to drink?

When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes, clothe you?

When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?

The king will reply.

Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers

and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Then he'll say to those on his left, depart from me, you who are cursed

into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels for I was

hungry and you gave me nothing to eat.

I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.

I was a stranger and you did not invite me in.

I needed clothes and you did not clothe me.

I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.

And they will also answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or

a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you?

He will reply, truly, I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of

these you did not do for me, then they will go away to eternal punishment,

but the righteous to eternal life.

Beautiful.

The word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

That was great.

Thank you, Hannah.

Now, for many of us, um, we're quite familiar with this, uh, passage.

Um, and it's one of the, I think it's one of the most.

Awkward passages and, and that's why I had Hannah read it out this

morning instead of me, you know, she's the messenger of this word.

The funny thing about this passage is, and I'm, I'm reflecting on my

own life here, is that we attempt in our practice and in our live living

to almost pretend it's not there.

And we at times can call upon many reasons to lessen the call of Christ's words.

Catherine McNeil in her book, free Fearing Bravely, says this about this passage.

In other words, the poor, the sick, hungry, thirsty person you saw that

was the king in disguise all along.

Not just once, not just twice for a spot chat, but each and every time Jesus tells

this story to clarify that anytime we see a human in need, God expects us to assume

this person is him and behave accordingly.

Jesus drives home, all the law and prophets, the greatest commandments,

the sum of the Bible and the Gospel.

The full meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Our love for God is measured on how we show hospitality to strangers, to

whomever needs it, whomever they may be.

The surprising reality of the early church is they took these words very literally.

As literally as described by Catherine in a quote there, they acted in a way that

spoke of the truth of this scripture.

For example, the Diday, A handbook, uh, for early Christian discipleship

written somewhere in the first century commands believers to receive everyone

who comes in the name of the Lord.

Understand the meaning and the context of the scripture in the name of the Lord,

and goes on to exhort Christians to examine him and learn

the nature of his situation.

I love how particular this gets.

If he's only passing through, help him as much as you can, but he must not stay

with you more than two or three days.

No, of course not.

Yes, why would I If he wishes to settle with you and knows a trade,

well, obviously let him stay.

Don't you let him work and earn his bread?

If he does not know a trade, use your judgment to decide how he should live

as a Christian among you, but not in Idleness for if he will not do

this, he's trafficking upon Christ.

Beware of such men.

So the kingdom.

Hospitality in light of all of this, can't be reduced to just entertaining at tables.

We need to reimagine the practice as a ethic displayed by Christ,

an ethic that became a commandment to worship, and therefore a

moral imperative for his people.

What do I mean by moral imperative?

It's just something we're not just encouraged to do, but we're

actually called unto practice.

So it's the love of the Stranger Kingdom hospitality.

It's the one in need.

It's the possibility of seeing the stranger become a neighbor.

It's a ministry of love.

It's radically ordinary and not performative.

It's a central practice in worship and proclamation of the gospel.

The gospel of Jesus Christ always comes with a house key.

That door is unlocked in Christ so that we might find our homes as places of healing.

Renewal and refreshment in his power.

You see this profound practice that the early church lived with.

Such fidelity sees the poor, both materially, spiritually, the sick,

the meek, the weeping, the rejected as Christ present unto them.

Christ, a man of great sorrow.

As Isaiah refers to him as, when we see weakness, we see a

God who displays his strength.

So what is kingdom hospitality?

What isn't it?

Sorry.

As I alluded before, it's not entertaining friends and family around

the table, and that's not to say that entertaining friends and family

around the table isn't a good thing.

I love it.

It's great.

It's not fully the practice of kingdom hospitality.

You see, kingdom hospitality isn't exclusive.

It's doesn't require or expect payback.

It's not transactional.

It won't prioritize or categorize people into groups.

It holds little space for self preservation.

The foundation of the practice of hospitality is of course, Christ himself.

It's demonstrated in his incarnation that God came to dwell with us, that the

coming of Christ in his birth shows a God who desires presence with his creation.

The word who spoke all things into being comes close to the lost, poor, and broken

creation, reclaiming it and gathering it into his care once again, it's also

demonstrated in his life the woman at the well unwanted, used, mistreated.

He gives her space, receiving her and inviting her into his kingdom.

It's the sinful woman anointing his feet.

He a clean and perfect servant of God is touched by the unclean in worship.

Jesus receives the rejected and rejoices over her, proclaiming

her sins to be forgiven.

It's the woman with the issue of blood.

Jesus stops for the marginalized, the one rejected by community,

unable to participate fully in the hospitality of community, and he

receives and welcomes her back in.

It's the eating with sinners, tax collectors, sex workers.

That marks the Ministry of hospitality in Jesus Christ as a practice of healing.

It's also rooted in the death of Christ, the greatest act of hospitality,

a creation, corrupt, corrupted by sin and death, lost and poor.

Yet Christ in his dying breath, speaks of radical hospitality by

the words of father, forgive them.

Not payback for what is due, not looking to self, but in

an act of subversive protest.

Subversive.

What does that mean?

It means something that quietly challenges or overturns the way

the world usually works quietly.

Christ gives us this gift in his hospitality of liberating forgiveness,

a gift not tasted under the powers and rule of sin and death.

In fact, it's a gift that can destroy the powers of sin and death.

So we, in our participating in this ministry of hospitality.

Can enter into that work of undermining and destroying the powers with Christ.

Our forgiving, our receiving, the stranger, our loving the poor in heart

and possession to simply be a people who welcome the needy into our midst

is subverting these evil powers.

Oh, that's exciting.

That's a good vision.

Well done.

Well done everyone.

Now I want to spend some time looking at some actual historical examples of

the church living this out, and then I'm gonna move on and end our time

together with some current displays of this work around the world.

I might actually finish under 30 minutes, man.

So much grace.

Yeah.

Ads is like, no, his ending's always really long and he just

mumbles about stuff at the end.

So we need to look at our rich history in the church and the current displays.

I think, to help us on that journey of contextualizing on that journey

of going, okay, Lord, how might this look in my day, in my time in

my life, just in my normal rhythms?

Yeah.

Why?

Well, I want to join faithfully with the saints of Old and the

Saints of today in this ministry.

I don't wanna work against what the spirit's doing in his church.

So how did the early brothers and sisters see this?

What did they do?

Okay, now this is not to reduce hospitality to food, but the practice

of the table for the early church.

Was their foundation of social, economic, and religious life.

So Professor Scott Bartley says this, it would be difficult to overestimate

the importance of table fellowship for the cultures of the Mediterranean basin.

In the first century of our era, mealtimes were far more than occasions

for individuals to consume nourishment.

Being welcome at a table for the purpose of eating food with another person

had become a ceremony richly symbolic of friendship, intimacy, and unity.

Thus, betrayal or unfaithfulness towards anyone with whom one had shared the table

was viewed as particularly reprehensible.

On the other hand, when persons were estranged, a meal invitation

opened the way of reconciliation.

And the reason why I share this quote is we need to get a feel of what,

what is the early church living in?

What are the wor waters that they live in?

What are the cultural norms of their day?

The cultural norm was taken even further by the church in their hospitality.

The cultural norm at large was transactional.

But the church, the early church, throughout that dynamic within their

hospitality, it wasn't transactional.

In fact, the early church centered their gatherings

around this kingdom hospitality.

The height of worship in the early church was hospitality Acts 2 42.

Where it talks about Luke describing about the rhythms and the ways the

church met apostles teaching fellowship, eating prayer, and then he adds again.

And if you see repetitive things within scripture, that usually indicates that

this is potentially the main thing that the writer wants you to, to see.

They ate together in their homes with glad and sincere hearts worshiping God.

The table was a way of worship.

It was a way of discipleship.

It was a way of prayer, and that's quite radical for us.

Around the table, there was no seats of honor, like the culture at large.

They threw that out.

Male, female.

Rich and poor, slave and free, or one in Christ around the feast of praise.

Truly, even just in their inhabiting of receiving the one in

in need, they transform this meal into a meal of reconciliation.

So what, what were they led to do in public?

I will give you two really well-known historical examples of this.

In the first century Roman world where unwanted in infants came into families,

particularly girls, they were frequently left to die by process called exposure,

which is literally placing the baby into the environment and leaving it to die.

Early Christians radically intervened by rescuing these babies, motivated

by the belief that every life is created in the image of God.

Oh, I wanna say something very controversial there.

I reckon some people might guess what I'm saying about what's

unfolding in the world today.

Nah.

Dam it.

Dammit.

I'm here to shepherd you.

That's what I'm here to do.

And sometimes shepherd you, you're not gonna like me.

If you are, if you are on a team with what's unfolding today in the

world, that's not the kingdom of God.

Every single person that is dying, that is suffering out the

hands of armies, that's wrong.

That's evil.

And I don't, I don't care what you say in regards to your defense of it.

Killing another person is wrong in the kingdom of God.

It doesn't do the work of subversive power.

It doesn't do it quietly.

It does it loudly and there are so many evil things prompting certain people

in the world to do these things, and we as the church need to stand up and

go, no, we're not participating in it.

There's another way.

There's another way.

I'll say that's it.

Provide.

Oh, I've lost my thought now.

So you've got these, these Christians going out and taking infants

and, and making them their own.

They're adopting these infants, they're caring for them.

They're providing a stark countercultural alternative to

what is exposure or infanticide.

Uh, there's another example of the church being quite radical in their hospitality.

During the, um, Anton, Anton, sorry, uh, plagues, uh, that was 1 65 to 180.

So 15 years where this deathly plague ripped through large

parts of Roman society.

15 years.

That makes COVID look quick and easy, doesn't it?

And the, uh, the, um, cran plague of 2 51.

While Romans in large parts of the population fled urban

centers to their country villas.

It was recorded, and this is recorded by Roman historians as well, guys.

Christians ran into the infected areas of Rome and other urban centers driven

by their allegiance to Jesus Christ.

As the people that are calling upon hospitality, they cared for the

dying, buried the dead, provided food, often losing their own lives

in the process, which transformed public perception of their movement.

The Romans were so weirded out by these people.

Now the Christian historian, you Eusebius notes that this behavior is

observed across the Roman culture, that Christians care for countless

people, not just their own anyone.

The early church took the words of Christ very seriously observing that

Christians cared for countless numbers.

The early church took the words of Christ very seriously, the poor.

The vulnerable, the sick, the unable, they are Christ to us.

Now, something interesting happens for the church, it changes the understanding

of hospitality and how the church practiced in those early years.

It's a funny thing when the church is given power.

Things change after the three hundreds where the church is

recognized as a state religion.

From the medieval period, which is 500 to 1500 ad, we see a massive transformation

of what Christian hospitality was.

It moves from a whole collective practice, a living in Christ for

each member of the church to an organized professional practice.

It becomes institutionalized.

Rather than being practiced in homes, it begins to be practiced

by bishops and priests and monks in churches and monasteries.

Along came hospitals and changes in the way that the church worshiped.

Now, don't get me wrong, hospitals are great, love them.

Really, really good.

Nor is the way that we worship inherently bad.

It's good.

It's fine.

But my point to bring this up is to help us realize that

these changes did something to how we view this kingdom ethic.

It changes the way we think about it, and therefore, the moral imperative

that each of us should hold and feel begins to change with these movements.

You see, we live in a world where hospitality is reduced

to an industry or a profession.

Our language shapes our thinking.

And so today, my prayer for us, including me is, Lord, may your

words shape our thinking about this.

Amen.

The call isn't to take on the world's issues and be crushed by

them, and I don't want, I don't want that to be happening for anyone.

That's a dead end.

It's a horrible end.

We know someone who is the big man, the strong man who can hold all

those things, and it's not you.

The call is to see with kingdom eyes, the opportunities that you

have now in your life, in your hands, where you can welcome the needy.

And there's some radical stories that have taken place, Christ-centered

hospitality in our current moment in our world, from around the world.

And I wanna share these to inspire us to the testimony of the power of God's

work through radical uh, hospitality.

This one, all three of them have affected me greatly,

but this one's recent.

Two weeks ago in the Middle East, in the southern region of Lebanon, in a

Christian majority town, there was a priest, and his name was Father Pierre.

That's him.

Just serving those injured in the conflict, running into danger,

providing food, shelter, medical care for anyone who's in need.

Then an order came through from the Israeli army to leave the town,

but for Father Pierre saw that many couldn't, and so he stayed with them.

As he's serving the needy, as he's running into the conflict,

he's shot dead by an Israeli tank.

Father Pierre embodied the radical kingdom ethic of hospitality in the

greatest way possible that images and imitates our Lord's death in service.

Resisting powers and evil to spark the flames of God's kingdom in the midst of

what is unfolding and many, there are so many testimonies reading about people

in this region that are inspired of his work and joining in with this work,

continuing the work of Father Pierre.

Oh man, that's radical.

I also remember hearing the life and work of Darrell Davis, and I'm sure a

lot of you have guys have heard about this guy, an African American man who has

spent 40 years befriending KKK members.

Man, this guy, he must be pretty confident.

Hey.

I was like, geez, I don't wanna meet KK, K members.

Over that 40 year period, he has seen 200.

200 KKK members give up their robes to him.

He has the 200 robes.

Why every single one of them, because of his friendship and

the love that he showed them.

He shows love in hospitality, having dinner with them and therefore

loving them towards freedom.

Darryl says this.

It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes futile and fertile.

Sorry for violence.

If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy, you'll find that

you both have stomach in common.

As you build upon those commonalities, you're forming a relationship.

The walls of hostility come down when the kingdom hospitality is working

out, is being lived out in its people.

And finally, this is a radical story of patience and sacrificial service.

I've read this so many times.

I end up in tears.

So let's, let's, uh, there they're beautiful people.

Rob Parsons and Diane Parsons, right there.

We're a young, newly married couple.

Went at home one evening in Cardiff.

There was an unexpected knock at the door.

When they opened it, they found a na, a man by the name of Ronnie Lockwood, a man

who looked like life had worn him down.

He was cold, unkept, and in his hands, he held a frozen chicken.

He didn't ask for money.

He didn't ask for a meal.

He simply asked, can you cook this for me?

Everything in that moment made them hesitant.

It was late, it was inconvenient, it was uncertain, even risky, but something

deeper nudged them and they said yes.

They welcomed him in.

They cooked the chicken.

They sat at a table and slowly.

Oh man, it's, oh.

Ronnie began to tell them his story

along with an intellectual disability.

Ronnie had faced a life instability in many foster care homes and a life that had

completely unraveled becoming homeless.

That's what started as a strange, oh, shut up.

Let me say the story.

So what started as a strange interruption became something more, and they didn't

just feed him, they made space for him.

Ronnie ended up living them with them for 45 years.

They became their home, their rhythm, it wasn't easy.

It stretched them.

It was discomfort.

There was a lot of interruptions in their life with Ronnie in their home.

But it was a turning point for him, a step towards rebuilding, towards

dignity, towards hope, A place where Romy Ronnie was wanted, and later

reflecting on that night, Rob says this.

Jesus doesn't just say I was a stranger and you invited

me in when it was convenient.

In 2020, Ronnie had a stroke, and in his final days, Rob and Diane were with him,

telling them how much they loved him and how much it would be missed.

That's Ronnie in the top right hand corner, uh, when he

first came to live with him.

Whilst these stories are so inspiring,

as I said at the start, these aren't to heap shame upon us.

I don't share them to shame anyone.

I share them to let us witness the power of kingdom hospitality.

And I can't manifest this work in you.

I can't not by teaching.

We're wholly and utterly reliant upon the power of the Spirit, the spirit with

us continuing the work of Christ last.

And so I wanna leave these last 12 minutes to be open to the spirit.

And we're gonna be, uh, entering in this time and we're gonna use these questions.

Um, and it's really tempting to, to look at these questions and get all cerebral

and intellectual and, and go, okay, look, you know, here's, I'll write down some

ideas and I don't want you to do that.

I don't want you to do that.

I want you to use these questions to spark prayer.

Yeah.

I want you to use these questions to be open to the spirit.

So that first question, seeing the vision, when you consider Jesus's words

in Matthew 25, how does it reshape your understanding of who Christ is present in

and what true hospitality really means?

A personal encounter.

Who are the strangers or people in need in your life right now, and what

might it mean to love them as Christ

lived practice?

What is one concrete faithful step you can take this week to practice

Christ centered hospitality?

Now I want to, I want to encourage you, these stories are grand and

incredible and just give each of them a noble peace prize, right?

But I, I want to encourage you, as I said before, it is radically

ordinary, the ministry of hospitality, radically ordinary.

And I wasn't gonna share anything about what I've participated in, but I wanna

share about the radical, ordinary.

Nature of hospitality in God's kingdom for quite a while.

I'd been driving past this home around the corner, and I noticed the lawns

were getting cut, and then one day they weren't getting cut and it's like,

gee, that's a lot of lawn and it's a big, it's a big bit of lawn too.

And so one day I pushed.

All of my warrior side and I knocked on the door and a 90-year-old lady

opened the door and she just said, oh, I'm so, she was so embarrassed.

I'm so sorry about Limelight.

I don't care.

Doesn't worry me.

I'm just seeing if you need help with it.

And she goes, actually, we do.

We, I don't have the money to pay for it any more.

My husband died a year ago and it's just hard.

He would organize all this.

And so I just began to mow her lawn.

And through that she asked me, why are you doing this?

Why are you doing this?

And I started with, well, just because I want to.

And then after a while I said, well, actually, it's because Christ

loves me, that I can love you.

And she then shared the story that, oh, I used to attend church as well.

When I was a kid and I was just able to share the gospel to her and

love her simply by mowing her lawn.

And so that's an encouragement of just the simplicity that

you and I can step into this.

You don't need to jump into a walk on torn country.

You don't need to jump into the midst of the KKK.

You don't need to adopt someone for 45 years to participate

in Christian hospitality.

Amen.

But may they inspire you.

Let us pray.

Holy Spirit, I just pray that you guide this time that as we look at these

questions, as we open ourselves up to the spirit, I pray that you would

speak to us, that you would lead us, or that we would see opportunities

where we can scatter, where we can scatter the yeast of the kingdom.

Through our love of the other in need, be it stranger, be it neighbor,

be it family member.

So spirit come.

We're trusting that you are here and that you are up to continuing the work

of Christ in this gift of hospitality.

And Lord, anything that I've said.

That has caused anyone to stumble or to be to be distracted to this mission.

I repent, Lord, I just pray that all of us would be free to wonder in the

excitement of what it is to follow Jesus.

I.