Radical Hospitality -- FPC sermon excerpt

I was on sabbatical last September, visiting churches that do a particularly good job of welcoming and including people. They practice what is the first of our topics for this fall’s sermon series: Radical Hospitality.

Come with me now, to sunny Southern California.

I drive my rental car from Los Angeles to the city of Lake Forest, and enter the campus of Saddleback Church. Wide driveways welcome me, with excellent signage pointing me to large and convenient parking lots. A traffic light in the middle of the campus helps to control the flow of cars driven by the 20,000 worshipers who attend services each week.

Trams are available to transport worshipers to various buildings, and a sign directs first-time visitors to a special shuttle area with coffee and donuts. The landscaping and architecture remind me of a theme park, with waterfalls and large tents, and I can understand why some people refer to the church as “Six Flags Over Jesus.”

Saddleback was founded in 1980 by pastor Rick Warren, who started the church by going door-to-door and talking with people about why they were not involved in a congregation. He asked why people don’t go to church, and then used their reasons in his letter of invitation to the first Saddleback service. Rick positioned Saddleback as “a church for the unchurched,” and wrote his letter in such a way that it addressed the desires of the unchurched, rather than the needs of Christians from other churches.

The first Saddleback service was held in a high school theater and attracted 205 worshipers, and as the congregation grew it moved through 80 different facilities until it reached the current campus in the early 1990s. Rick still wants to attract the unchurched; he wants to address people’s concerns and meet their needs.

Rick and the members of Saddleback invite their neighbors to “come and see.” They want people to come and see what God is doing in the worship, faith development, mission, and generosity of Saddleback Church. They know that Radical Hospitality is at the heart of the ministry and mission of the church, and is the first step of becoming a truly hospitable congregation, one that embraces all people with God’s love and grace.

Jesus took this same approach when he called his first disciples. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is seen by John the Baptist and two of his disciples. John says, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples begin to follow Jesus, and Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?” (vv. 35-38).

What a great question! What are you looking for? What do you think people are looking for today? Probably the same things that people have always been looking for. Robert Schnase, a bishop in the United Methodist Church, has written the materials we are using for our small group discussions connected to this sermon series. If you haven’t signed up for a small group yet, I encourage you to do so today, in the narthex. Groups will be meeting on Sundays at 10 a.m., in various rooms throughout the church, beginning today.

Schnase suggests that people are looking for the assurance that “God loves them, that they are of supreme value, and that their life has significance. People need to know that they are not alone; that when they face life’s difficulties, they are surrounded by a community of grace …. People need to learn how to offer and accept forgiveness and how to serve and be served.”

That’s what the first disciples were looking for, and that’s what people are looking for today. The two disciples sense that Jesus can help them with this, so they say, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” And Jesus says to them, “Come and see” (vv. 38-39).

Come and see. That’s what Jesus says to the two disciples, and what we can say as well. We don’t have to present people with a perfect understanding of theology, a worship service where no one sings a wrong note, or a children’s program that is a perfect match for the needs of every child. What we are challenged to do is invite people into a spiritual home where they can discover for themselves the richness of life in relationship with Jesus Christ.

That’s the radical part of Radical Hospitality. Not radical as in wild and crazy, on the fringes, out of control, or in your face. No, Bishop Schnase reminds us that the word radical means “arising from the source,” so it describes practices that are rooted in the life of Christ, and that radiate into the lives of others. Our hospitality is Radical Hospitality when we go back to the source and invite people to “come and see,” just as Jesus did.