Updated Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Formations lesson for July 20: Hospitality to Sinners

By Lamar King

Focal Passage: Jn. 7:53-8:11

It is my observation that hospitality to sinners is a virtue seldom practiced by contemporary Christians probably because, unlike Jesus who embarrassed the Pharisees because he "ate with publicans and sinners" (Matt. 9:11), we seldom do things like that. What a difference it might make if we did open our hearts and our doors to those we call "sinners." The discovery of a life of Christian hospitality will inevitably lead us out of our comfort zones.

Early in his ministry, Will Willimon found himself the pastor of a church in decline. He encouraged his members to go "door-to-door" inviting people to church. Helen and Gladys, both in their 80s, were clearly told to go down Summit Street and turn right. But, they turned left and ended up in the housing project. They proceeded to evangelize the wrong neighborhood and the wrong people.

Following the event, Helen and Gladys reported that, although she had never been to a church in her life, Verleen wanted to visit "ours." Visit she did!

She attended worship, prayer meeting, and even showed up at the Wednesday morning Bible study on overcoming temptation. Willimon asked the participants, "Have any of you been able to avoid temptation because of your Christian commitment?"

Verleen was quick to respond: "A couple of years ago, I was into cocaine really big. You know what that's like ... Well, anyway, my boyfriend, not the one I've got now, the one who was the daddy of my first child, that one, well, he says to me, 'Let's knock off that Seven-eleven down on the corner.' And something in me, it says, 'No, I've held up a gas station with you, but I ain't going to hold up no convenience store.' He beat me, but I still said no. That's the only time in my life I ever said no to anything. Made me feel like I was somebody."

Was Verleen converted? Willimon doesn't say, but the church was. The church was converted to a discipleship after the pattern of Jesus.

Willimon concludes, "Evangelism is a gracious, unmanageable, messy by-product of the rule of God in the heart of a human being. Verleen was not the only one who intruded into our nice, bourgeois club called Northside United Methodist Church. She had been brought there, I believe, by God."