We are called to stop defending ourselves and fighting off the intruders in the vineyard, but rather to welcome the spirit-sent opportunities that will demand of us, but will also change us.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Hospitality (Page 5)
The decision to repent and accept Christ’s gift of forgiveness and life involves a life change which includes a new willingness to honour and serve Christ in the stranger.
When God accepts and gifts those who are supposed to be excluded according to our theology, then its time to change our theology to a rule of love instead of a rule of purity.
God consistently favours love and acceptance over purity, so when we are not sure, it is better to take a risk on love and acceptance.
The resurrection has broken open many old certainties, and our ethics must now be grounded in the new things God is doing, characterised by radically inclusive love, rather than in the old restrictions.
Jesus is opening our eyes and widening our focus to allow God’s ‘unbiased grace’ to break through.
It is only by letting go of our tribal need to define who is in and who is out, that any of us shall, in the end, show forth a kingdom which is from God.
The extent of God’s grace constantly astounds us as it floods over ever social barrier we erect.
People judge one another by their conformity to certain expectations (which vary from group to group), but God is only interested in our willingness to come into the loving intimacy he offers to all.
Christ’s call to respond to his presence in the needy is a call for the church to embrace a lifestyle of radical communal hospitality (but we have often used it to justify empires built on the labour of guilt-ridden, over-extended, under-prepared Christians!)
Although all in the church may appear equally worthy, it is those who live the life (inward and outward) of the Kingdom now who are prepared for its coming.
God breaks down all social barriers and differentiates between us on love alone.
God uses the experiences of our lives to confront us with our own imperfections and, once so confronted, we are responsible for our growth and change in that area.
Jesus is God’s chosen liberator from birth and calls us to follow him among the innocent sufferers bringing hope and freedom.