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Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. \xa0Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord\u2019s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. (Romans 12:9-13)\xa0

The first week of this new \u201cTogether, in Faith\u201d series, we talked about what it meant to be a \u201cwaiting community,\u201d that is, a church community that firstly waits on the Lord to work and act. \xa0Last week, we began to talk about how that vertical dimension of God\u2019s work, life, and love intersects and motivates our work on the horizontal plane with one another. \xa0And now this week, we take a deeper dive into the horizontal plane where our relationships with one another and with the world are worked out. \xa0Romans 12 will be our guide.\xa0

You\u2019ll notice that here again\u2014the emphasis falls firstly on love: sincere, devoted love. \xa0It is a love of the good, a love of one another. \xa0But it is also a love that translates very naturally into a string of practices and postures. \xa0Love keeps up our passion for serving the Lord who first loved us. \xa0Love is a building block upon which other virtues are built and spiritual fruits may grow, like joy, hope, patience, and faithfulness in prayer.

But where we\u2019d like to focus today is particularly on the last two lines: the invitation to share with those in need and to practice hospitality.

As modern people of the 21st century, it is difficult for us to understand just how critically important and universally assumed a culture of personally offering hospitality was to the Old Testament Jews and the New Testament Christians. \xa0

The shift away from a culture of hospitality occurred early in church history. \xa0Eccentric Christian historian, Ivan Illich, tells the story of the early years of Christianity when \u201cit was customary in a Christian household to have an extra mattress, a bit of a candle, and some dry bread in case the Lord Jesus should knock at the door in the form of a stranger without a roof\u2014a form of behaviour that was utterly foreign to any of the cultures of the Roman Empire.\u201d \xa0

However, once Christianity was recognized by Constantine and became part of the empire, \u201cbishops created special houses, financed by the community, that were charged with taking care of people without a home\u2026 It was against this idea that the great Church Father John Chrysostom railed\u2026 in one of his sermons, he warned against creating this xenodocheia, literally \u2018houses for foreigners.\u2019 \xa0By assigning the duty to behave in this way to an institution, he said, Christians would lose the habit of reserving a bed and having a piece of bread ready in every home, and their households would cease to be Christian homes.\u201d \xa0

Chrysostom thought a ready and willing hospitality was one of the central, indispensable marks of a Christian home. \xa0But when we list off the central Christian practices today\u2014we only list Bible reading, prayer, and worship. \xa0

While not giving up the support of institutions on the one hand--what might it mean to also take up the Romans 12 challenge of Paul and Chrysostom to have groceries and a bed at the ready with the full expectation of opening our door to someone?\xa0 It doesn't right away have to be a stranger from the street--perhaps just someone from the church.\xa0 Whatever you do: take it up as a challenge\u2014see if you can find a way to invite people into your home once a month, or once a week.\xa0 There's no better way to be Together, in Faith, than by getting together!\xa0

So try it! \xa0Practice hospitality. \xa0 \xa0\xa0

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