Following After Jesus Together: Hospitality
As I prepared last weekend’s sermon on hospitality, I started as I often do, by having some conversations with trusted friends about the topic. In one conversation, a friend made an observation that could be summed up something like this:
“What often gets misunderstood about the practice of hospitality is that we think it’s something we have to go out drum up. But I find it far more productive to focus on making sure I have made margin in my life for it.”
Margin in the heart.
Margin in the schedule.
Margin in the finances, and so on.
As I studied the parable of the Good Samaritan, I found that observation confirmed. It doesn’t say the Good Samaritan went searching for someone to help (although there is certainly nothing wrong with doing that); it says he came upon him on the road. Why is this so important? Often, as Christians, we do good deeds out of guilt over not doing enough, when the reality is the opportunities to practice hospitality are regularly right in front of us if we’re paying attention. More often, the real problem is a lack of margin in our schedules, our finances, and, most importantly, our hearts and minds. I find that guilt is a poor motivator for lasting change. Guilt-driven deeds are things I do once or twice, or perhaps for a short season, but rarely sustain.
Consistent Christian hospitality can’t begin with guilt. It begins with the realization that we first need to receive hospitality and care before we can properly give it.
The seeds of Christian hospitality are planted when we recognize that Jesus is our Good Samaritan. Jesus found us wounded. Jesus found us hurting. Jesus lifted us out of our desperate state and carried us to a table we did not belong at. That first wound is the recognition that we are, in fact, wounded and in need of healing.
Why is that essential? Tim Keller said it best when he said,
“If I have received all this wealth, if I have been made righteous and justified despite what I deserve, how could I begrudge anyone anything?”
He went on to say, essentially, that if you know you are a sinner saved by grace, when you see another person suffering, you will know you are looking in a mirror. We know what it is like to be hurting and in need of mercy, so we can’t possibly look down on another person who is suffering. We too have suffered either randomly or because of our own bad decisions. We too have found ourselves in a mess, often messes we made ourselves. But Christ, in His great mercy, cared for us; therefore, we care for others. God made room for me; therefore, I’ll make room for you.
So here is the question:
Where can you begin to make room so that when a need arises, you can joyfully meet it?
APPLICATION: FOUR PLACES TO CREATE MARGIN
Your calendar: Leave one block of time intentionally unscheduled. Don’t immediately fill it with another task.
Your table: Invite someone into an ordinary meal. Not a dinner party. Tuesday tacos. Frozen pizza. Whatever you’re already eating.
Your finances: Create a small hospitality fund of money you’re already prepared to spend when somebody needs dinner, gas, groceries, a hotel, childcare, etc.
Your attention: When somebody starts talking to you, listen. Put the phone away and stop doing the other thing for five minutes.
PRAYER
“Jesus, make me interruptible. And teach me to be like you, making room for others as you have made room for me.”
