Practicing “Insistent Hospitality”

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And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. – Luke 14:23, ESV

The word translated ‘compel’ in Luke 14:23 is sometimes translated ‘constrain’ but, here is not quite that forceful. The work assigned to the servant is to convince the people of the “highways and hedges” that they are indeed welcome to go into the house and join the feast. In other words, the servant is to “...not take ‘no’ for an answer; the house must be filled.[i]” And as we saw in the text yesterday, the servant’s work is now ours, yours and mine, as the present-day followers of Jesus. We are to be inviters. Welcomers.

In one way this takes so much pressure off. You don’t have to “make” someone say yes to Jesus, you just have to make sure they know they are invited to do so. The work of inviting still involves sharing all the needed information and giving an opportunity for response. But, it doesn’t mean that you must answer every question or be prepared to win every argument.

That said, welcoming is hard work. Maybe especially in this moment. Our world has become a confusing place. I am still not sure how to greet people. Do we elbow bump, nod, wave? The very pragmatics of being ‘welcoming’ are a matter of serious debate and take some navigating. To further complicate issues, we have the added difficulty of living in a historical moment in which followers of Christ are seen primarily in a negative light. We are probably starting at a disadvantage that Christ-followers didn’t face even 20 years ago. But, the house must be filled. So we will invite. We will do the hard work of proving our welcome is genuine and easy for people to see.

We have a garden flag that is in our front landscape bed just outside our front door. While my wife makes all the decisions on what will be displayed seasonally, most often the word “welcome” is incorporated in the design. Only here’s the thing, even with an ingenious design for the flag holder, the wind of northwest Ohio does its work and the flag often gets twisted or leans or altogether falls down. When it does, we have to do the work of fixing the flag. If we don’t fix it, no one can read the welcome we are intending to display to our neighbors and friends. I wonder if that isn’t a bit like this moment in our work of welcoming others to the rescue of Jesus. See the cultural winds have done their work and the ‘welcome’ is almost unreadable. Our work is to fix the flag. We don’t have to redesign the Gospel. We certainly don’t need to take Jesus through a makeover. We need to fix the welcome flag. It needs to be clear and in a language people around us understand but, the work is still at its heart the work of ‘insistent hospitality.’ After all, the house must be filled.

Harvest Lane Alliance Church