Category: Sermons

There’s an art to living well amongst people you may differ with. Where do you draw the line? Do you need to draw a line?

It’s an age old problem for followers of Jesus and one Paul offered guidance about when he wrote to a small group of Christians in a large cosmopolitan Greek city.

His advice is still worth hearing…

We’ve spent a good deal of time looking at how we offer hospitality to one another, but what does it look like to offer hospitality to those people we find difficult to deal with?

How can we change the story?

People are hungry. Hungry for change, for hope and sometimes for food.

It can feel hard to know how to respond.

If we follow Jesus, we can do what he did – feed them – and in so doing inherit the promises that come to this sort of life.

Our Easter service, looking at what happened when Jesus met with Peter and other disciples, and the new future He offers.

On Monday we can have a picnic with another household in a park or a garden. So, if rain doesn’t stop us, who will we invite?

What if Jesus was already sitting there, would that influence who would get the invite?

We will think about why getting the invitation list right is crucial!

Hospitality challenges us to look past our own judgemental attitudes and radically accept one another, to become a community that transforms those around us.

Jesus’ gracious hospitality leads us to offer the same invitations to others.

As we start to recover from the effects of a global pandemic, our need for community is greater than ever.

We can look to the early church for some inspiration – the first Spirit-filled fellowship.

There’s a constant temptation to think that ‘real sinners’ are the others. Essentially, people not like us. We like to think that Jesus will sort ‘them’ out.

But what if He sees us, ‘the respectable sort’ and invites us to change? What would that set us free from? What would that make possible for us?

Jesus, the transforming guest offers us all that opportunity.

Jesus was regularly invited to meals. Some wanted to argue with him, others just wanted to get close to him.

Some folks were socially at ease with him. But some seemed to make a fuss – to such an extent that it could be embarrassing.

But Jesus didn’t seem fazed by it, In fact he seemed to enjoy it. Maybe it was because he knew that this is how grace feels to those starved of hope.

That’s still how it feels.

One of the most difficult things we have had to deal with over the last year is the loss of close contact with others.

We will be part of the healing process to the extent that we offer space, time and food to others.

Hospitality matters! But we will always feel awkward if we haven’t come to terms with the fact that Jesus asks to eat with us first – in all our mess and confusion.