Mission as Hospitality: Imitating the Hospitable God in Mission

By Edward L. Smither

God is a missionary God. God is also hospitable in his nature. He makes his enemies friends and invites them to intimate communion. The mission of God in Scripture often occurs through hospitality when God's people encounter the not-yet people of God at table or in hospitable environments and invite them to believe. This motif of mission as hospitality plays out through the Old and New Testament Scriptures, and through the Eucharist. It can also be observed through the witness of monks and contemporary missionaries who embraced a hospitable approach to mission. For the church to participate in God's mission today, a vision to win, conquer, or change the world should be exchanged for a conviction to welcome the stranger and make room for others while proclaiming the gospel--that is, to imitate the hospitable God in mission.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jan 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781725257337

Edward L. Smither

Edward L. Smither (PhD, University of Wales; PhD, University of Pretoria) serves as Professor of Intercultural Studies and History of Global Christianity and Dean of the College of Intercultural Studies at Columbia International University. Previously, he served for fourteen years in intercultural ministry in North Africa, France, and the United States. His previous books include Christian Mission: A Concise Global History and Mission in the Way of Daniel.

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Mission as Hospitality

Imitating the Hospitable God in Mission

Edward L. Smither

Mission as Hospitality

Imitating the Hospitable God in Mission

Copyright © 2021 Edward L. Smither. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5731-3

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5732-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5733-7

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Smither, Edward L.

Title: Mission as hospitality : imitating the hospitable God in mission / Edward L. Smither.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-7252-5731-3 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-7252-5732-0 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-7252-5733-7 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Missions—Theory | Hospitality—Religious aspects—Christianity | Missions—History | Missions

Classification: BV2100 S665 2021 (paperback) | BV2100 (ebook)

11/09/20

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Mission as Hospitality in the Old Testament

Mission as Hospitality in the New Testament

Mission as Hospitality at the Lord’s Table

Mission as Hospitality in the Work of Missionary Monks

Mission as Hospitality: Contemporary Models

Mission as Hospitality: Reflections and Practice

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

I’m grateful for many people who inspired me to pursue this project. I’d like to thank Arab Muslim friends who first modeled sacrificial and warm hospitality for my wife, Shawn, and I during our years living in North Africa. This inspiration nudged us back to Scripture where we began to grasp a bit of biblical hospitality. Since then, in our weakness, we have striven to open our home and lives and are learning to practice biblical hospitality. I’m also inspired by Brazilian and Latin American missionaries living in the Arab world who make hospitality look so easy. You are leading the global church in hospitable mission! Finally, I’m thankful for the courageous people I’ve met in books, reports, and personal interviews who model mission as hospitality so well: Rosaria Butterfield, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, and the amazing field staff of the International Association for Refugees.

I’m thankful for friends and colleagues who gave valuable feedback on the book: Abeneazer Urga, Jessica Udall, Bryan Beyer, Brian Gault, Andrew Grosso, Winfield Bevins, Josh Prather, and Paul Sydnor. I want to give a big shout to my writing coach, Ruth Buchanan, who carefully read the manuscript and is helping me rid my life of dangling modifiers, the passive voice, and lots of unnecessary words. Thanks also to the fine folk at Wipf and Stock who let me write another book, to Emily Callihan, my copy editor, and to Robin Parry—the best theologian-priest-editor one could hope for.

I’m grateful to work at Columbia International University, a Christian university that celebrates knowing Christ and making him known among the nations. My prayer is that this little book would help us do that just a little better. I’m thankful for my bosses, Jim Lanpher and Mark Smith, who allow research and writing to be part of my job. I’m also really blessed to serve on a fun team of missiologists, theologians, and activists (Dave Cashin, Victor Cuartas, Trevor Castor, Joe LeTexier, Michelle Raven, and Sharon Wingo) who are also great conversation partners about mission as hospitality. Finally, I’m grateful for my family—my wife Shawn and my children Brennan, Emma, and Eve. You are my favorite people to sit at the table and eat with, and I long for that more and more.

Eastertide, 2020

Introduction

Shortly after sundown, Julio and Mariana, two Christian workers from Brazil living in North Africa, arrive at their Muslim neighbors’ home. They’ve come for evening iftar—the fast-breaking meal during the month of Ramadan. Around the table, the Brazilian family enjoys soup, dates, and other traditional foods with their hosts. As the night continues, the families remain at the table drinking coffee and tea, laughing, and sharing stories. At one point, Muhammad, the head of the household, asks Julio if he—a Christian—also fasts. Over more coffee, Julio shares some of Jesus’ teaching (Matt 6:16–18) on the motivation for fasting and some thoughts on God’s good news in Jesus. The families later spend thirty minutes at the door saying goodnight and make plans to get together the next week for another iftar.

While researching the Christianity of the religious right, atheist Rosaria Butterfield agreed to visit her neighbors, a Presbyterian minister and his wife, as part of her project. She wrote, So when his letter invited me to get together for dinner, I accepted. . . . Something else happened. Ken and his wife, Floy, and I became friends.¹ Over time, the couple welcomed Rosaria to their home for meals, listened to her, and proved to be a surprising blend of faith and intelligence. Eventually, Rosaria embraced Christ for herself.

In Luke 19, the evangelist captures Jesus inviting himself to the home of the notorious tax collector Zacchaeus. Going against the grain of first-century Jewish convictions, Jesus reclined at table with his host, becoming the guest of a sinner (Luke 19:7).² Though Luke doesn’t provide details of their conversation, after meeting Jesus, Zacchaeus decided to give half of his possessions to the poor and make restitution four times over to those he had cheated. Jesus declared that Zacchaeus’ radical life change proved that salvation had come to his house. Zacchaeus had become a true child of Abraham.

The common thread in these three stories is that meaningful witness, including moments when nonbelievers embrace Christ, often occurs around the table amid hospitality. These stories point to the reality that God, a missionary God, is also a hospitable God.³ He makes his enemies friends and invites them to intimate communion. The mission of God in Scripture often occurs through hospitality when God’s people encounter God’s enemies at table or in hospitable environments and invite them to faith.

What Is Christian Mission?

Christian mission is about sending. The first instance of sending in Scripture occurs just after the fall when the living God, acting as the first responder, moves toward the fallen couple and poses the haunting question, Adam, where are you? (Gen 3:8). From there, God covers their nakedness and shame with animal skins—a sacrifice that prefigured the redeeming work that Christ would accomplish at the cross. The unfolding narrative of Scripture abounds with God’s initiative to send people and groups of people (Abraham, Israel, prophets, Jesus, and the church) to announce his ways, his Messiah, and his message of redemption and reconciliation. So Christian mission is God’s mission.

Since mankind’s greatest needs are spiritual, the central task in mission is proclaiming Christ—his death, burial, and resurrection. The Lord commanded the church to make disciples, a process which involves proclaiming Jesus and inviting sinners to follow him (evangelism), teaching new believers all that Jesus commanded about faith and practice (discipleship), and gathering believers into worshiping communities (church planting). From the Scriptures, we see that mission occurs not only in word (proclaiming the gospel, teaching, starting churches) but also in deed (caring for real human needs). In the midst of an earthly mission largely comprised of preaching and teaching, Jesus took time to heal the sick, feed the poor, and denounce social injustice.

Christian mission also means crossing boundaries, especially between the already and the not-yet people of God—between faith and non-faith. While mission can be a mono-cultural experience, Scripture resounds with the admonition to declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples (Ps 96:3). The scope or arena of God’s mission is the whole earth and among all cultural groups. The mission of God in Scripture is framed by God blessing Abram to be a blessing in order that all of the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:1–3). In Galatians, Paul interpreted this blessing as the gospel itself: That God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you’ (Gal 3:8). In Christian mission, God’s people must cross boundaries of faith and non-faith and go to the nations.

What Is Biblical Hospitality?

Today, the word hospitality might trigger images of an elegant table setting, a lavish dinner party with friends, or staying in a hotel resort—experiencing the hospitality industry. However, at its core, biblical hospitality means making room for others. We invite others, especially strangers, to enter our space (our homes, our dinner table), care for their physical needs by offering food and drink, and also care for their souls by listening to them and sharing our hope in Christ. We can also make room for others in common spaces (a café or restaurant) or by being a good guest in the homes of others.

Joshua Jipp writes, Hospitality is the act or process whereby the identity of the stranger is transformed into that of guest.⁴ Christine Pohl adds, Strangers . . . are those who are disconnected from basic relationships that give persons a secure place in this world. . . . When we offer hospitality to strangers, we welcome them into a place to which we are somehow connected . . . a safe, personal, and comfortable place, a place of respect and acceptance and friendship.⁵ Making room for others can be inconvenient and costly, and we risk being taken advantage of when we invite others into our space. Yet God calls his people to make room for others.

This call to hospitality begins in the Old Testament when Israel is commanded to love, care for, and welcome the stranger (Lev 19:33–34). In the New Testament, a key word for hospitality, philoxenia, "combines the general word for love or affection for people who are connected by kinship or faith (phileo) and the word for stranger (xenos)."⁶ Hans Boersma adds, "As the opposite of xenophobia (fear of foreigners), philoxenia is a virtue that counters our isolationist inclinations, which regularly coincide with nationalistic chauvinism and racial bigotry and feed into a hoarding mentality that neglects the poor and disadvantaged.⁷ Undergirded by Christian love, to show hospitality to a stranger is ultimately to welcome the Lord. Jesus said, I was a stranger, you invited me in" (Matt 25:35).

Hospitable Mission

Christian mission is a hospitable endeavor because God is hospitable. The Scriptures consistently testify to nonbelievers encountering the living God through the hospitality of God’s people—Ruth, Zacchaeus, and the Samaritan woman at the well, among others. In this book, I aim to trace this thread of missional hospitality as it winds through Scripture and through some key points in Christian history, including the work of missionary monks and other contemporary models. From this discussion, I conclude with some reflections and practical points for hospitable mission for the church today. These reflections should move mission practitioners away from colonial, militaristic, and power narratives toward the model of Jesus, who shared table fellowship with sinners and tax collectors and proclaimed the kingdom of God.

Literature

In recent years, a number of Christian authors have written on biblical hospitality in Christian life and witness. In Making Room, Christine Pohl mines Scripture and Christian history to call the church to return to the early Christian conviction of practicing hospitality. Pohl’s work has become the standard introductory text on biblical hospitality. Along with Christopher Heuertz, a missionary serving among the poor and disenfranchised, Pohl also wrote Friendship at the Margins. Through biblical reflection and discussing real-life stories, they propose friendship and hospitality as keys to making disciples among those living at the margins of society. Similarly, in The Gospel Comes with a House Key, Rosaria Butterfield explores radically ordinary hospitality, which she defines as using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God.⁸ With much biblical reflection, she offers a concrete model of hospitality on her street in Durham, North Carolina.

Beyond these general introductions to hospitality, some New Testament scholars have probed the significance of Jesus’ table fellowship with sinners. In Contagious Holiness: Jesus’ Meals with Sinners, Craig Blomberg surveys meals and hospitality practices in the Old Testament and then examines Jesus’ meetings at table with sinners and outcasts in the Gospels. Similarly, in Saved by Faith and Hospitality, Joshua Jipp focuses on hospitality in Luke-Acts, Paul’s writings, and John’s Gospel. After thorough work in New Testament exegesis, Jipp admonishes the church to overcome barriers to hospitality toward others such as immigrants. In a more practical work titled A Meal with Jesus, Tim Chester explores Jesus’ table ministry in Luke’s Gospel. Chester’s book reads like a short sermon series and is the basis for his missional community church planting ministry.

Finally, some theologians have also reflected on biblical hospitality. In the latter portion of Hospitality and the Other, Amos Yong wrestles with Scripture and argues that Spirit-led hospitality is the foundation for engaging with those from other religious backgrounds. In Violence and Hospitality at the Cross, Hans Boersma presents God’s hospitable nature and asserts that Christ’s work at the cross was an expression of divine hospitality. Boersma discusses the major theories of the atonement while inviting the reader to a greater appreciation of the mystery of God’s love.

These excellent works provide a great