Have you ever had a guest track mud into your house…or even something a little less pleasant?
It’s embarrassing for everyone. The guest is uncomfortable because they made a mess, and now you have to clean it up.
What if a kid from the neighborhood does the same thing? What if it’s a family member?
At what point does the responsibility of cleaning up shift from the homeowner to being a shared effort, to being the responsibility of the person who made the mess?
We want people to still feel at home and welcome, even if there’s a little bit of a mess to clean up, right? That moment of realization doesn’t destroy the possibility of them ever coming back over, and that awkwardness doesn’t ruin the relationship for all time.
But what if that guest keeps coming in with muddy shoes?
What if they are indignant about their right to be muddy?
What if they see your desire for a clean home as an affront against them?
Is their comfort the most important thing in that moment? What about the cleanliness you desire for your home?
At what point does hospitality turn toward teaching, correction and a call for something better?
There are a lot of churches whose unspoken culture and spoken doctrine try to wade into “I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay” mentality that refuses to engage with the bad news that makes the Good News so good.
The fear of making people who are outside of Christ feel the truth of their position outside of Christ? Theologically, it makes no sense. Jesus is recorded as saying “Go show yourself to the priest,” “Go and sin no more,” “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” and made no bones about His knowledge of the relationship status of the Samaritan woman at the well, “You are right when you say you have no husband, in fact you have had 5, and the one you have now is not your husband.”
Hospitality doesn’t say, “Make people comfortable at all costs.” And love doesn’t say “You’re fine the way you are,” when Scripture plainly says, “There are none who are righteous, none who seek God, no not one,” and that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
If we love people, then we have to love them enough to let our hospitality encompass the reason why they need the community of Christ, forgiveness of sin and the grace of God purchased by the blood of Christ shed on the cross.
Hospitality means we give a warm welcome, meet needs, answer questions, provide solutions, and we also love people enough to let them know that hope rests in the work of Christ alone.
This also means we make connecting with community accessible, we don’t look down on people who have present and pressing concerns and problems, and we shelter the troubled and endangered.
For the individual: Are you actively seeking intentional discomfort by letting the Word press against your sin and draw you into obedience?
For church leaders: Are you speaking the plain truth in love, or in hoping to love watering down the truth instead? Are you speaking plainly about sin, and pointing toward the hope of redemption in Christ?
