Hospitality and the Gospel

Far more than just Google or Chick-fil-A hospitality, Butterfield states that Christian hospitality is “radically ordinary hospitality.” “Radical,” because it’s fueled by the “Jesus paradox” (30), living intentionally in the world to draw people in, but not participating in the world’s ways. Radical hospitality opens its doors to everyone: neighbors, strangers, the needy, and even those with different beliefs and values.

Radical hospitality makes heads turn, because befriending those who are wildly different from yourself is preposterous. Christian hospitality is also “ordinary.” It is a daily, constant discipline that is worked into the rhythms of one’s day-to-day life. It is time-consuming, expensive, and self-sacrificial. This kind of hospitality, much more than receiving and entertaining guests or serving chicken sandwiches, “seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God” (31). 

Butterfield argues that radical, ordinary hospitality should be the primary way we interact with and draw outsiders into the family of God, because Jesus exemplifies this model. He habitually ate with sinners, seeking opportunities to know and care for them. When humanity was lonely and isolated, He created a space of belonging and security. 

However, Butterfield continues, forming a safe haven is not the end goal of hospitality. If that were so, Christian hospitality would be no different than humanitarian aid. Christian hospitality reflects the way of Jesus: “Jesus comes to change us, to transform us, so that after we have dined with Jesus, we want Jesus more than the sin that beckons our fidelity” (85). It accepts the sins of outsiders but does not approve. It seeks to gently draw outsiders out of the lies of sin and into the covenant family in the church. Yet this process requires great humility and wisdom. Multiple times in the book, Butterfield emphasizes that when confronting sin, your relationship must be no weaker than the strength of your words. Transformation occurs more frequently upon the foundations of trust and care than upon apprehension and carelessness. 

One minor frustration I had with this book was the lack of practical application examples in different contexts. Most of the examples in the book take place in a suburban neighborhood, where neighbors live walking distance away. What does radical, ordinary hospitality look like when your closest neighbor is a five-minute drive away? What does it look like in a downtown apartment complex where you have little space to host? Perhaps the lack of too many concrete examples is a blessing in disguise, stimulating Christians to seek creative solutions together for their individual contexts. 

 The Gospel Comes with a House Key is a necessary and powerful reminder for the church. In a world growing increasingly polarized and separated, the Christian home is one place that all should feel welcome and loved. Do I welcome people into my home who hold different values? Different religious beliefs? Different political views? I, for one, tend to selfishly stick with people who think and live like me. I pray the LORD helps me change. Belonging to and sticking with your clique is a powerful survival instinct, but Jesus breaks down the walls of hostility between the “us” and “them,” inviting all peoples to dine together. He’s not asking us to do something He wasn’t willing to do Himself.