Luke 15:20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off , his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.
This child from the story; those listening to Jesus tell the story; Jacob’s family in Genesis; David’s issue with Cush in Psalm 7….it is all full of sin and God has every right in the world to reject us; leave us alone; abandon us forever. However, this Father in our verse does the most insane move ever; he sees his son from a long ways off and rushes out to meet him with hospitality. He is filled with love and compassion (not judgment and condemnation); because of this love and compassion it compels him to run to his son, embrace him and kiss him. Interestingly, this hospitality makes room and invites the act of repentance on the part of the son. Meeting sin with sin would have perhaps produced more sin; but meeting sin with the abundance of God’s love invites transformation through repentance. The father creates an environment where the son is not preoccupied with anything but the exposure of his sin through the lavishness of his father’s love.
I am consumed with this thought of hospitality today. I’ve read this parable more times than I can count and although I’ve always noticed this verse I can’t remember thinking of it as a model of hospitality within my life and the church. I am compelled to see this morning that God’s love is that tool that exposes the human heart. Judgment and condemnation on my part towards another’s unfaithfulness doesn’t make any room for repentance and conversion. However, loving through this model of hospitality is a practice that not only makes room for repentance and conversion but invites a sinner’s heart to come into direct contact with God’s love and when that happens only transformation can take place. What would it look like for this to be the model I (we) use in viewing the brokenness of the world? What if I saw all the sin around me through the eyes of this parable? What if I fixed my eyes a long ways off and looked for the lost to begin to make their way home? What if I concentrated on running out to meet them and lavishing God’s love upon them instead of meeting their evil with evil? If I would practice this hospitality maybe I would realize that meeting sin with the evil of human judgment and condemnation only produces more evil/sin. Perhaps I would also learn that meeting sin with the abundance of God’s love is the practice of hospitality that leads to redemption and transformation.
Lord, I come to you in these moments this morning completely run over with your love and care for my life. I thank you Jesus for your act of hospitality that sacrificed your own life that I might share in yours. I thank you Jesus that you saw me a long way off and when I came to myself and turned to come home you came out and met me in the lavishness of your love through the men of Tuckston UMC. May you have a special place for those men in your Kingdom and may their acts of hospitable love toward me carry them to glory. Lord, may you now use me today to practice the lavishness of this hospitable love towards those that are on their way home; help me to see them from a long ways off and run to meet them with the abundance of your love and grace. Protect me from the temptation to meet your people with judgment; help me to realize today that if it wasn’t for others meeting me with the abundance of your love that I would not be here today. Thank you Jesus, for going to the cross for me that I may be invited into this life; use me as a mighty tool today and shape Crossroads into the kind of place that is devoted to seeing people from a distance and lavishing upon them the goodness and mercy of your love and grace. Amen!!!
Radical hospitality is the act of loving others the way God first loved us.
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