The Gospel Comes with a Housekey

John 12:1-8

The concept of discipleship is important in our church family and we talk about it a lot. We want to be disciples who make disciples who make disciples and so on. So how does one embark on or achieve discipleship? It is a class? Is it a checked off list when you do certain things? Baptism? Evangelism Explosion? Tithing? Discipleship is a process that includes education (bible study), practice (outreach), and living life together (best lived through hospitality). Jesus modeled a way of living life together that is incredibly beautiful, but rather difficult to accomplish in our world today, but is something we need desperately in our lives. Being able to “do life” together. Not just play dates or special activities, but running errands together, dealing with traffic together, etc. Our kids learn from us by watching us in regular daily life. Hopefully that’s a good thing! Your faith is personal, but it is not private. We need, for our spiritual development, to spend time together in normal situations so we can see how we literally do life. It’s in those circumstances that real ministry begins to flower.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about Radically Ordinary Hospitality: what it requires of us, how we need to look at people and see them, and the importance of going to them because they aren’t going to come to us. I’d like to culminate this series, inspired by The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield (Amazon.com), by showing that we cannot grow spiritually in a vacuum. Our modern evangelistic training over the last 50 years has developed a protestant American culture where our spirituality and growth is intensely personal. It’s just me and God. I’m sorry friends, that couldn’t be more scripturally wrong. Yes, your faith is personal, but it was never meant to be private. Just look at this dinner party in John.

Hospitality Makes You an Open Book

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus appear multiple times in the gospels (Luke 10, John 11-12). These allow us to see them as very real and broken, yet good people who repeatedly offered hospitality even though they bickered with each other, even when they were broken and raw with Jesus when Lazarus died and were rebuked by Jesus more than once! We see a very full picture of them – good, bad, and broken. And none of this was in private; Jesus wasn’t alone with them, but all these things happened in front of the disciples and even other crowds of people. Radically Ordinary Hospitality opens your whole life to others, allowing them to see all of you, not just the parts you want to show. This is how we live life together in openness and intimacy. And it’s because of that openness that often some of the biggest moments of our lives happen around the dinner table.

Hospitality Puts You on the Frontline

I’ve always wondered if everyone knew about Judas’ thieving of the money bag at that time. Obviously, they knew later, but did they then? This is a huge spiritual question going on in a very common place. This is a major moment in scriptural history being played out at a dinner party – Judas being challenged and potentially outed as a thief with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem where He would be crucified. Why doesn’t this happen in the temple? Or a board meeting during the financial reports? Because spiritual intimacy is designed by Christ to be lived out publicly in the real world. Powerful spiritual opportunities don’t only happen on the mission field or doing some major activity – they come regularly and often around the dinner table! Real ministry happens where real life happens – which means we need to let people who we want to give Jesus to real access into our lives! In this book, one of the recurring stories revolves around Hank, their awkward and quiet neighbor. He got arrested for having a meth lab in his basement, wrecking the whole neighborhood. The Butterfield’s table became the central location where everyone processed the destruction of their neighborhood and envisioned its rebirth.

Next Steps

Your faith is personal, but it is not private. While there are times for quiet privacy with Jesus, that’s not the norm. The norm is for us to be with other people and live out our faith publicly.

1. Connect with a community group (hoa, book club, etc.) and begin regularly being around other people.
2. Invite others to participate in regular life with you (group grocery shop)
3. Open your dinner table for those people.

See the progression – find friends, do things out in public with them, deepen friendship by bringing them into your home. This will aid their discipleship and your discipleship (2 birds, 1 stone). That’s how God designed it to work. Open your home, open your heart, and watch the spiritual fruit being produced in Christ.