A HOSPITALITY MISSION FIELD

I wrote a book on Christian hospitality that is nearing completion (barring a sudden editor to help me revamp it one last time, who as yet is unknown to me). I wrote the bulk of it two years ago, and I hope to engage in self-styled guerilla publishing soon (going so far as to not even call it a “book” at all). (Yeah. What else do you call it? I dunno yet, but one blog reader has suggested calling in an “intervention” which sounds interesting to me.)

Anyway, I am not posting today to talk about THAT. However, it is significant to my post, and so I mention it up front.

The thing is this: I already researched, studied, and produced a study of my own on the topic. In my estimation, God dropped the project on my lap. I wasn’t running from it, but initially I had no interest BECAUSE the very idea of “hospitality” was both completely off my radar and beneath my contempt. (Ain’t that a hoot?) But way back shortly before the pandemic broke out, a reader here (who hasn’t visited in a very long time now) suggested, based on the kinds of things I promote, that I read a book called I Was A Stranger by Arthur Sutherland.

To be frank, I was well aware of the passage in Hebrews 13:2, but it was such an independent, free-floating notion to me at the time, I just had not plugged it into my study, work, and experiences in street ministry. (Shame on me! I should have been all over that like white on rice!!!) And, also to be frank, I had the idea that any “study” of hospitality would be something written by older (not younger) Christian women dealing with social graces, home decor, and possibly a bit about the “hospitality industry” if it got serious. I just don’t care if the drapes match the doilies or if your salad fork is on the left or the right.

In the end, I didn’t use Sutherland’s book all that much, but he demonstrated for me quite clearly that there are huge theological implications for biblical hospitality, and I ran to my own library for more. I searched ABD and found John Koenig’s contribution there, and discovered this is central to my cause, AND is already well mapped out in Christian scholarship, but somehow had not surfaced in any of my studies.

I freely confess, I purchased three (maybe four) books on the topic after that, but I found so much hiding in the footnotes and obscure chapters of books I already own, that I was able to cobble together a full research project just in my home office. (Yes, a couple of internet cites too.) And I was kept busy with this throughout the pandemic – precisely when the whole world was shutting out the whole world! (Ironic.)

But, and here is where all that is going TODAY, even though I have a complete project, a whole study on Christian hospitality, complete with my own syntheses, assertions, hypotheses, and conclusions, I’ve had about two years since this project to continue thinking and acting on the things I have learned and wish to share.

Man, I have enough supplemental experience, information, and insight now to write a companion to the original project with still isn’t published.

I’m finding myself turning ideas around and inside out, looking at them with whole new perspectives. I a talking about biblical ideas we are already quite familiar with in OTHER terms, but now with new perspective, they come alive in whole new ways I never imagined. AND neither have you.

Anyone who still reads here (and that number seems to be dwindling terribly) and finds any value in this blog, I ask you to pray on it with me. I have something to offer to my church and to the world, but practically no way to share it. I can’t even get my own family to take this seriously or even read a single chapter of it.

So, this is sorta a shot in the dark. Who are you, the reader I have left? Care to pray with me about this? Do you have any connections or skills that might help?

Okay, so, let me put together one of these new perspectives for you. See what YOU think.

Missions.

Hospitality.

Now put them together.

How do they fit?

Well, for starts, think of Jesus sending out the 12 (or the 72). This is mission. But how are they sent? “Take nothing with you… stay at the home where you are received and eat what they feed you…”

Hmmm… The mission Jesus sends his missionaries out on requires they find hospitality. And when you study hospitality in the Bible and in Bedouin people, you quickly discover how much a host puts their home on the line for guests! There are some deep, life-giving/life-sustaining exchanges going on in this mission/hospitality scenario.

When I was in school, 25 years ago, Gailyn Van Rheenen was teaching us Bible missions students how historically the church had begun setting up fortresses in host cultures. There was a defensive posture in this. A bubble of cultural safety and superiority created behind “mission” walls from which to disseminate the Gospel and charity to the locals. This, 25 years ago, was coming in for review and found lacking.

I’m now seeing what it lacked.

When Jesus sent out those first missionaries, they still had not witnessed a crucified and risen savior! These were not men with Bible degrees, post grad work, medical doctors, or any of that. They did not raise money from contributions or organizations, and they took all manner of clothes, food, and other things with them when they went. There was no interdependence at all.

On the contrary, God revealed himself to both the host family AND THE MISSIONARIES in the breaking of the bread!

How’s THAT? We just had the first segment of this little Bible study, and it is quite revolutionary. Wouldn’t you say?

And after almost four years thinking on these things, I am prepared to tell you it is only scratching the surface. There is so much more to explore here.

Think about your heart for a moment.

We are always talking about LOVE and about your heart. And rightly so! But in our modern, American cultural lens, that sure struggles to represent MORE than a feeling. No?

Where your heart is, there your treasure is also.

Ever heard THAT?

Meet a bum on the street and have a warm feeling for him. Okay! Try it. (Hey! It is a start! and I support THAT!) Give him $5 out of your whole treasure, and call that the love of God if you can. OR, conversely, go to MY church, pay $30 to take a class published by Lupton, Corbett, and Fikkert which will spend weeks outlining to you how sharing your $5 is wrong and damaging to that bum. (Hint: It’s a smoke screen to hide your greed behind, and come Judgment Day, when the King separates goats and sheep, those who gave water, food, shelter, and care (ahem, hospitality) to the least of these, will go with the sheep.)

What does this have to do with missions?

Your heart and treasure are a mission field, bro. YOU are in need of Christ. It’s a two way street, and the roles reverse all the time. Oh, yeah. God is both missionary and host! Ultimately, he is host, but he plays both roles all the time, and he does it IN YOUR STUFF (or the stuff formerly known as yours).

Think about it.

And let’s talk.

Do you want to help me finish formulating this project and guerilla publishing it?

Let’s talk.

Do you want to learn more, perhaps obtain a copy?

Let’s talk.

It’s a two way street.

Hospitality and missions. They belong together. It goes a long way in explaining why/how the first century church met in homes, I expect. And, THAT church was relevant, spreading around the world with power.