Toward a Theology of Christian Hospitality, pt. 3

[see part one and two]

Jesus Christ died for the whole wide world, not just for those inside the church. Therefore, a theological test for the fidelity of a church is hospitality.

Will Willimon, Welcome Others As Christ Has Welcomed You

Enacting Hospitality

Given that hospitality is such a huge part of Christian mission, how do we enact hospitality at Intown?  As a Christian church, Intown has two main categories for enacting hospitality: the Sunday morning Gathering, and everything else.

Sunday mornings we gather to celebrate the first day of the New Creation--to be reminded that we serve a risen Savior who is making all things new.  This celebration is a time for the community of God’s people to gather together and partake in the angelic worship that happens without ceasing in the heavenly realm.  This celebration is also a time for those outside the faith to experience a moment of New Creation, to experience the intersection of heaven and earth.

As such, Sunday worship gatherings are the most opportune times for the Church to feast--not in a way that only looks to satisfy the insider, but in a way that actively expects the inclusion of strangers.  

When we have coffee and pastries and fruit we aren’t just looking out for those who forgot to have breakfast before coming to worship.  Rather we are seeking to create an atmosphere that appropriately expresses the hospitality and feasting that is so clearly seen in the gospel. Our refreshment table is an entree into and a continuation of the verbal ‘gospeling’ that we do through song, prayer, scripture, and sacrament.

Once the worship gathering is over, we move back into our respective neighborhoods and communities.  Though the designated day in which we celebrate the Resurrection and the New Creation may have come to a close, we must be careful to remember that we enter into the other six days as the New Creation.  

We are to leave Sundays with the fragrance of Resurrection lingering within us.  As we do so, we will enact a continuation of mission and hospitality, inviting brothers and sisters, and especially strangers and the undeserving into our homes to feast at our expense.  Hosting or participating in a community group is one avenue that this sort of hospitality can take, but it cannot be overstated: christian hospitality is a way of life, not an event, no matter how regular.

Toward a Theology of Christian Hospitality, pt. 2

[This is Part Two of a Three Part series on Christian Hospitality.  Check out Part One]

The church is to participate actively in the life of the world as slaves and envoys of the true King, in a manner akin to Jesus, extending an invitation to those, like they were previously, who are not worthy guests, who are marginalized in the wider society, who do not consider themselves invited, and who have not even heard there is such a banquet available.

Luke Bretherton, Hospitality as Holiness: Christian Witness Amid Moral Diversity

Hospitality and the Mission of The Church

The en-action of the Church’s mission is nothing short of hospitality.  As we allow the service and hospitality of the incarnation to sit deeper within our lives, we will begin to have a greater awareness that our call in the continuation of the mission of the Triune God is a call to express Christ-like service and hospitality to sisters, brothers, friends, and strangers.

This call to mission and hospitality is not distinct or separate from the Church’s remembrance and declaration of the gospel.  Rather it is situated firmly within it.  One metaphor for how the gospel has changed the plight of humanity is the story that undeserving people have been invited in to feast at the table of the King.  This metaphor cannot be understood apart from actual feasting, as seen in how important feasts were for the people of God in the OT, and how those feasts were recast in the NT with the last supper and the love feasts of the early church.

Much like the collusion of sorrow and joy, pain and celebration, that is found in the story of the Cross, so hospitality is an act of feasting that requires fasting.  Sharing with others is not done simply out of overflow.  The call of Christian mission and Christian hospitality is a call of full surrender, a call to release our grasp on what is “ours”, our time, our money, our space.  We are called to intentionally invite the undeserving to share what we have been given.

When we understand the call of Christian mission, we will begin to see the complexity of Christian hospitality:

-hospitality is costly, time consuming, and heart breaking.

-hospitality is an attitude, a way of life, not an occasional action

-hospitality is rewarding and joyful

-hospitality is feasting with outsiders

Toward a Theology of Christian Hospitality, pt. 1

 

What is christian hospitality, and why is it an important practice for christian individuals, families, and communities?  Is understanding christian hospitality really a theological enterprise?  What follows is a very brief attempt to answer these questions in a way that will help us as a community understand why we do what we do, and how we should go about being hospitable people.

A standard definition of hospitality is, “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.”  This definition, though quite straightforward, could sustain several pages worth of discussion.  But rather than focus on what hospitality is in and of itself, I wish to address what distinctly christian hospitality looks like.

 A christian view of human persons closely links human self-awareness with theological understanding.  That is to say, as christians we believe that a triune God stated, “Let us create man in our image.”  A result of this belief is that our understanding of the character, mission, and methods of God, including how the members of the Trinity interrelate with one another, will in turn shape our understanding of how humans are to behave, how human beings are called to interrelate with one another.

 In a sense, we could see the entire storyline of the missio Dei, the entire enactment of God’s love to the world as acts of hospitality.  Early in Genesis we see the Triune God creating a universe of beauty and vitality, breathing life into his creatures.  This God creates human beings and places them in a garden that he has prepared for them.  This is God’s world, a place of shalom and majesty, and within this world he invites humanity to enter in to his care for it.  In this garden God walks with man and woman, talking with them.  A friendly and generous reception and entertainment if ever there was one.

 Despite humanity’s eventual rejection of God’s care, God continues to pursue his people.  He invites Abram to journey with him, eventually making his covenant with him, promising him descendants and a land in which to dwell.  At this point a long and sordid history unfolds.  God’s people (Abraham’s descendants) circle in and out, cycling through worship of this generous God and rejection and outright rebellion against His hospitable presence in their lives.  These cycles continue until God himself steps into their lives in a new and unparalleled way: the Incarnation.

The incarnation is a glorious and deep doctrine of the christian faith with far reaching implications that would require an eternity to map out.  The advent of Jesus, this God-in-the-flesh adds layers and layers to our understanding of hospitality and what it means to reach out to those around us. Jesus reminded his hearers regularly that he had not come to be a doctor to those that had no illnesses, but he had come to find the sick, to seek and save the lost, to charge after the one sheep.  Jesus came to receive sinful people, to bring them in to the kingdom he was building, to graft them into the people of God.  Jesus took alienated strangers, people who were enemies of God and made them the sons and daughters of God.

This welcoming of strangers was an act of generosity like the world has never seen.  Hospitality isn’t cheap.  Welcoming others is a costly thing to do.  Jesus models this for us by giving up his own life in order to welcome strangers to the household of God.

 

Toward a Theology of Christian Hospitality, pt. 1

 

What is christian hospitality, and why is it an important practice for christian individuals, families, and communities?  Is understanding christian hospitality really a theological enterprise?  What follows is a very brief attempt to answer these questions in a way that will help us as a community understand why we do what we do, and how we should go about being hospitable people.

A standard definition of hospitality is, “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.”  This definition, though quite straightforward, could sustain several pages worth of discussion.  But rather than focus on what hospitality is in and of itself, I wish to address what distinctly christian hospitality looks like.

 A christian view of human persons closely links human self-awareness with theological understanding.  That is to say, as christians we believe that a triune God stated, “Let us create man in our image.”  A result of this belief is that our understanding of the character, mission, and methods of God, including how the members of the Trinity interrelate with one another, will in turn shape our understanding of how humans are to behave, how human beings are called to interrelate with one another.

 In a sense, we could see the entire storyline of the missio Dei, the entire enactment of God’s love to the world as acts of hospitality.  Early in Genesis we see the Triune God creating a universe of beauty and vitality, breathing life into his creatures.  This God creates human beings and places them in a garden that he has prepared for them.  This is God’s world, a place of shalom and majesty, and within this world he invites humanity to enter in to his care for it.  In this garden God walks with man and woman, talking with them.  A friendly and generous reception and entertainment if ever there was one.

 Despite humanity’s eventual rejection of God’s care, God continues to pursue his people.  He invites Abram to journey with him, eventually making his covenant with him, promising him descendants and a land in which to dwell.  At this point a long and sordid history unfolds.  God’s people (Abraham’s descendants) circle in and out, cycling through worship of this generous God and rejection and outright rebellion against His hospitable presence in their lives.  These cycles continue until God himself steps into their lives in a new and unparalleled way: the Incarnation.

The incarnation is a glorious and deep doctrine of the christian faith with far reaching implications that would require an eternity to map out.  The advent of Jesus, this God-in-the-flesh adds layers and layers to our understanding of hospitality and what it means to reach out to those around us. Jesus reminded his hearers regularly that he had not come to be a doctor to those that had no illnesses, but he had come to find the sick, to seek and save the lost, to charge after the one sheep.  Jesus came to receive sinful people, to bring them in to the kingdom he was building, to graft them into the people of God.  Jesus took alienated strangers, people who were enemies of God and made them the sons and daughters of God.

This welcoming of strangers was an act of generosity like the world has never seen.  Hospitality isn’t cheap.  Welcoming others is a costly thing to do.  Jesus models this for us by giving up his own life in order to welcome strangers to the household of God.

 

Toward a Theology of Christian Hospitality, pt. 1

What is christian hospitality, and why is it an important practice for christian individuals, families, and communities?  Is understanding christian hospitality really a theological enterprise?  What follows is a very brief attempt to answer these questions in a way that will help us as a community understand why we do what we do, and how we should go about being hospitable people.

A standard definition of hospitality is, “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.”  This definition, though quite straightforward, could sustain several pages worth of discussion.  But rather than focus on what hospitality is in and of itself, I wish to address what distinctly christian hospitality looks like.

A christian view of human persons closely links human self-awareness with theological understanding.  That is to say, as christians we believe that a triune God stated, “Let us create man in our image.”  A result of this belief is that our understanding of the character, mission, and methods of God, including how the members of the Trinity interrelate with one another, will in turn shape our understanding of how humans are to behave, how human beings are called to interrelate with one another.

In a sense, we could see the entire storyline of the missio Dei, the entire enactment of God’s love to the world as acts of hospitality.  Early in Genesis we see the Triune God creating a universe of beauty and vitality, breathing life into his creatures.  This God creates human beings and places them in a garden that he has prepared for them.  This is God’s world, a place of shalom and majesty, and within this world he invites humanity to enter in to his care for it.  In this garden God walks with man and woman, talking with them.  A friendly and generous reception and entertainment if ever there was one.

Despite humanity’s eventual rejection of God’s care, God continues to pursue his people.  He invites Abram to journey with him, eventually making his covenant with him, promising him descendants and a land in which to dwell.  At this point a long and sordid history unfolds.  God’s people (Abraham’s descendants) circle in and out, cycling through worship of this generous God and rejection and outright rebellion against His hospitable presence in their lives.  These cycles continue until God himself steps into their lives in a new and unparalleled way: the Incarnation.

The incarnation is a glorious and deep doctrine of the christian faith with far reaching implications that would require an eternity to map out.  The advent of Jesus, this God-in-the-flesh adds layers and layers to our understanding of hospitality and what it means to reach out to those around us.  Jesus reminded his hearers regularly that he had not come to be a doctor to those that had no illnesses, but he had come to find the sick, to seek and save the lost, to charge after the one sheep.  Jesus came to receive sinful people, to bring them in to the kingdom he was building, to graft them into the people of God.  Jesus took alienated strangers, people who were enemies of God and made them the sons and daughters of God.

This welcoming of strangers was an act of generosity like the world has never seen.  Hospitality isn’t cheap.  Welcoming others is a costly thing to do.  Jesus models this for us by giving up his own life in order to welcome strangers to the household of God.