“More Than Just a Welcome”

Scripture: Isaiah 55: 1-7; Matthew 18:1-6

Several years ago I read a book called “Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations”, by Bishop Robert Schnase. The Bishop took five of the church’s routine activities, and showed that the routine is not enough – that we are called to be exceptional. Personally, the Bishop’s thoughts are what we should already be doing, but I expect that very few churches do them all well. Today, we begin a new series of messages that will consider whether we are routine in our faith, or exceptional.

Those basic practices are hospitality, worship, faith development, mission and service, and generosity, and I think we do each of these to some degree, but Bishop Schnase challenges us to “kick our efforts up a notch”. According to him, our hospitality should be “Radical”, our worship “Passionate”, efforts in faith development must be “Intentional”, mission and service should involve “Risk-taking”, and our generosity become “Extravagant”.

Over the next 5 weeks, we will be considering each of these practices, and how we might become an even more effective church as we carry out our call in ministry to the world. Today we consider our part in extending “Radical Hospitality” to our friends and neighbors.

Read Isaiah 55:1-4

Our God is radical in all that he does. The prophet is telling us that the Lord provides for all who will come to him. Are you thirsting for relief from the burdens of this life? Have you discovered that the nourishment of earth is unable to sustain your life, to heal your broken ways, to help you to grow in true wisdom and health? Have you become dependent on the riches of earth to care for all your needs, and neglecting of the riches of God?

The prophet offers us four thoughts on ways that will bring us to a better life, and the first is “come”. If we wish to receive God’s goodness, we have to come to him. The problem is that “coming” to the Lord can never be a half-hearted effort! In the spirit of “hospitality”, half-hearted and comfortable is routine, while passionate and determined is what radical requires. The only way our Almighty God gives is in an over-the-top kind of way, and so must we.

The second thought is “accept”. We read that when we “come” to the Lord’s way, he gives without cost to us. So, instead of having to buy his goodness, instead of having to earn his salvation, instead of having to deserve his love, we simply have to receive it. For many people, this may be the hardest thing they will ever have to do. They want to see it as an obligation to, somehow, repay the favor. But when divine goodness has been offered, and when it has been received by the hungry and thirsty heart, the joy that we experience obliterates any sense of obligation, and replaces it with an overwhelming desire to share it with others.

The third thought for us is “listen”. When we “feast” on divine goodness, the hunger for more begins to fill us. And when we open ourselves to the word of God, “some” can never be enough. We want to learn more, to seek more, to discover more about what the Lord wants to us to know and receive from him. And listening will be the only way we will ever understand.

The fourth is “see”. When we Come, when we Accept, when we Listen, it is then that we begin to grow in faith, and in trust, and in celebration for all that is filling our lives. And we will “see” and experience all the ways that Godly grace can make a difference in us.

Read Isaiah 55:5-7

And now it seems that Isaiah has a fifth thought for us – that when we have been fed with the righteous grace of God, others should be unable to miss the change that is occurring in our lives. And in that, they, too, will be encouraged to begin their own, personal journey of faith.

And this is when “radical hospitality” must come into play. The one thing that the Lord’s call demands of us is that we choose to follow him. Receiving him, being nourished by him, seeing what he has done to make our lives better – this is all about what God has, and is, doing for us. But what about our response for all that he has given. Are we grateful? Are we prepared to receive even more? Are we going to share the Good News of this new relationship with others? Will we let them know what the Lord truly means to us?

And when we let faith grow and work within us, these 3 verses begin to work in marvelous ways. When we open ourselves to receive the power and authority of the Holy Spirit, when we let the Spirit lead and guide our steps, when we let God’s way and purpose become our own, others will come to see the Lord’s truth.

And it won’t be just for the people who we know or are even comfortable with! Think about the lives that Jesus touched – they were anything but the ones who would normally be expected. He touched the lives of sinners; he touched the lives of outcasts; he touched the lives of the infirm, the sick, the demented, the lost, and the dead; he touched the lives of lowly and elite alike. Jesus welcomed all who would “come” to him, and when we become his witnesses, many others will experience his glory, and will also come to him seeking.

Read Matthew 18:1-6

It seems, though, that the arrogant, the conceited, the self-proclaimed righteous – even though they would be welcome – would seldom surrender their ways and receive the better life in Christ. The point is that the only way we can come to the Lord is with a humble and wide-eyed expectant heart – like a child has.

And we, as the Body of Christ, must welcome like a little child. When we were in Mexico back in August on the mission trip, you should have seen the team interact with the children. It was hard to tell who the kids really were! Every child, every team member, were welcoming to the extreme, and attendance at the Vacation Bible School grew every day – from the expected size of 35-40, to a final day of about 90 children, plus many of their moms and dads!
We were strangers to the people of that area, but somehow, they saw God’s grace and love in us, and they reacted in an overwhelming way. The mission had invited a few from the primary village, but invitations continued to spread throughout the area during those 4 days of VBS.

“... whoever humbles himself like a child” is the key. We can’t expect others to mimic our ways, we can’t try to remold them into our image, we can’t demand that they worship and serve and even sing like we always have. And we can’t wait until they walk through our front door before they begin to feel welcomed.

Bishop Schnase wrote this in his book “Christian hospitality refers to the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ.” And the term “strangers” isn’t only referring to people we don’t know! It also applies to those who we may know, but who are strangers to Christ and his Church.

Have you ever told an unchurched friend about your church – not just with words, but with passion and joy and conviction? Have you ever invited that friend to come and see for themselves? What have you done to remove every obstacle and concern from their “I don’t think so.”? Have you renewed your invitation every once in a while, still showing love and joy and conviction to them?
Or did you give up after the first reluctant try?

Remember the last visitors who came to the church? How many of us reached out to them when they arrived, and again at the end of worship? How many spoke encouraging words to them, to make them feel welcome, to let them know how appreciated their presence was, to learn a little about them, to make them forget that they, and we, were strangers a very short time before, and to invite them to come again?

Scripture is full of this kind of radical hospitality! Besides Jesus, who was radically welcoming to all he met, the Lord’s commands to Israel extend to the Old Testament as well. A few examples:

Deuteronomy 10:19 – “Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Job 29:16 – “I was a father to the needy, and I championed the cause of the stranger.”
Matthew 25:35 – “… I was a stranger and you invited me in …”

I would challenge everyone today to see just how Radical, how open, how deliberate we can become in our invitation, our welcoming, our love of those who would venture into our fellowship, our passion for the call of Christ on our lives, to see just how far we are willing to go to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to a world that is thirsty and hungry and seeking and desperately in need of the new life that only Jesus can bring.

Jesus is counting on every one of us to be "greatest" for him!