Posts from September 2012

When did we see?

  When do you see others who you might consider “in need”?  When are your eyes tuned to the people and situations around you?  Who might you see today that you have never seen before?   “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”  Matthew 25: 44

When did we see YOU?

Sometimes it is hard to understand Jesus.  He says, ‘Come inherit the kingdom prepared for you…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink….’  Then in almost the same breath he says, ‘I was hungry and you gave me no food…a stranger and you did not welcome me.’    Either way the answer from the people that is recorded in scripture is  – “Lord, when did we see YOU…..”  The…

Toward Sunday

We conclude our worship series on Hospitality this week by reflecting on Jesus’ witness to hospitality in his own life and death and resurrection. The biblical tradition is a rich resource for understandings of hospitality. Images of God as gracious and generous host are found throughout the Scriptures. Writers in the New Testament portray Jesus as a vulnerable guest, a needy stranger, and a gracious host. Jesus both welcomes and needs welcoming. For the early church, hospitality was crucial to…

Interruption or opportunity?

How do you handle the tension between things that interrupt your schedule and the fact that interruptions are frequently opportunities for hospitality?

A bit of the story of Ruth.

“Ruth was a Moabite girl who married into a family of Israelite transplants living in Moab because there was a famine going on at home.  When her young husband died, her mother-in-law, Naomi, decided to pull up stakes and head back for Israel where she belonged…She advised Ruth to stay put right there in Moab and to try to snag herself another man from among her own people….Ruth had a spring in her step and a fascinating Moabite accent, and…

Side by side.

You have come from afar and waited long and are wearied: Let us sit side by side sharing the same bread drawn from the same source to quiet the same hunger that makes us weak. Then standing together let us share the same spirit, the same thoughts that once again draw us together in friendship and unity and peace. Prieres d’Ozawamick, Native American

Ruth

Our scripture this Sunday will be Ruth 1:15-18.

Toward Sunday.

We continue our worship series on Hospitality this week by reflecting more deeply on dynamics of power and vulnerability intrinsic to the practice of hospitality.  Dr. Steed Davidson will be preaching at The Table this Sunday.  Read a bit more about him here.      Christine Pohl writes, “When we offer hospitality, our faults as well as our possessions are open to scrutiny. If we need to hide either, we are unlikely to offer much hospitality. Hospitality to strangers . .…

Offering Hospitality.

  When we offer hospitality to strangers, we welcome them into a place to which we are somehow connected – a space that has meaning and value to us.  This is often our home, but it also includes church, community, nation, and various other institutions.  In hospitality, the stranger is welcomed into a safe, personal, and comfortable place, a place of respect and acceptance and friendship. From the introduction to Making Room by Christine Pohl, p 13.

Strangers

  Strangers, in the strict sense, are those who are disconnected from basic relationships that give persons a secure place in the world.  The most vulnerable strangers are detached from family, community, church, work, and polity. From the introduction to Making Room by Christine Pohl, pg. 13 What is your definition of stranger?
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