Radical Hospitality

Sermon Series: “Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation”- August 30, 2009 “Radical Hospitality” -- Romans 15: 1-7

“Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation”- from Bishop Robert Schnase's Book:
• Radical Hospitality
• Passionate Worship
• Intentional Faith Development
• Risk-Taking Mission and Service
• Extravagant Generosity

To quote Bishop Schnase, “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” For this active desire to be radical, it calls us beyond cordiality or friendliness. We must be willing to change behaviors in order to accommodate the needs and receive the talents of others.
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“Radical Hospitality means that we do not get to decide who will receive our welcome. Jesus did not give us the option of deciding whom we will welcome and whom we choose to ignore. Our neighbor is not only the nice person who lives next door to us but also the person with whom we are in tension and the individual who doesn’t even like us. Radical hospitality means that we embrace whoever comes through the doors.”
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Several Bibles I looked at had a title right before verse 7 of the Scripture in Romans 15, and they all said something like the NRSV did:

“The Gospel for Jews and Gentiles alike”

We tend to forget that Jesus’ message was very radical – so radical that those who were against this radical hospitality of welcoming Jews and Gentiles alike, in other words, welcoming EVERYONE, so radical was he, that the power structures killed him.

We truly are called to offer a hospitality that is so radical that it’s often more than the world can handle or understand –
But we are bound by these words:

7-Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.