Dear St. John’s friends and family,
We start a new sermon series today on hospitality. What does hospitality mean to you and how is it linked to Christ’s command to love? Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, one another and our enemy. If we are to take that seriously, how do we live that out?
Our starting point will be the rule of St. Benedict on welcoming the stranger. St. Benedict’s rule says this, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’” Why is this such a challenge for most of us? Why is compassion, respect and common ground so hard to find even among people who go to church? Why is it so hard to find Christ in this broken world? Maybe we aren’t looking in the right places, but we’ll get to that later.
Here are some questions to ponder after worship or sometime this week to help you reflect on what you learn today:
1. Remember a time when you were excluded. How did it make you feel?
2. Read Luke 10:25-37. Read it through the eyes of each of the characters: the bandits, the brutalized, the Levite and priest and the Samaritan. Which characters did you relate to the most and why?
3. Looking into your own heart, what is the biggest thing that stops you from being an expression of God’s love?
For now, let’s turn our hurting hearts to a God that knows and loves us. Let’s spend this next hour in wonder and praise, getting lost in God’s grace, and laying down all that weighs us down. Just for this hour, let your walls come down and let God in.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Stephanie
Click this link to view the worship service on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/KgMBuKBRBeI