And the zing comes from the modifier:

Radical hospitality

Gospel hospitality

Biblical …

Holy …

Creation …

Kingdom …

     Hospitality is more than a warm smile, a handshake, and a cup of coffee. (Typical Sunday morning church behavior.) Hospitality IS welcoming the stranger with an open heart and open ears to listen. Hospitality is what we do and how we are known by the community around us.

    Since we are people of the Word, that is God’s Word let’s check out Biblical hospitality to get the conversation moving. Genesis 18 is the well known story of Abraham & Sarah welcoming three strangers who were on the road with foot washing, drinks, and a banquet before they discover these guys are angels/messengers of God that they are entertaining. Hebrews 13, in the New Testament, then reminds us that we are to continue in mutual love, and to “show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

    Now listen to Deuteronomy 10, where the essence of the Law is laid out:

• What does the Lord your God require of you?
• Only to fear the Lord your God,
• to walk in all God’s ways,
• to love God,
• to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
• and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God. …

    The Lord your God executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Deut. 10: 12-13, 18-19

    New Creation people are Easter people – and hospitality is our fulltime job, every day.

It is what we do! We hear during every Easter the New Commandment that Jesus left us: love one another … and by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. I would like to offer another kind of new commandment for our new kind of church:

Welcome the stranger as God has welcomed you.

    Gospel hospitality says we have something to offer that is good news to those who live in a Gospel-hungry world. The good news is that Jesus has given us forgiveness and new life, reconciliation with God, and healing from all our sins. This is God’s grace-filled love!

    For more information on the encompassing nature of hospitality for Christians, the following resources will be available on our information shelf in front of the office:

The Lutheran (magazine) May 2010 edition

Lutheran Women Today (magazine), April 2010 edition

“Hospitality: it takes guts!” article from The Lutheran

Additionally:

God’s Welcome: Hospitality for a Gospel-Hungry World,

By Amy Oden, Pilgrim Press, 2008.

Radical Welcome: Embracing God, the Other, and the Spirit of Transformation,

By Stephanie Spellers, Church Publishing, 2006.