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From Luke’s Journal June 2024  |  Vol.29 No.2  |  Christian Hospitality

“Jesus said ‘Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands…’ ” [Mark 10:29-30a, ESV]. 

What a beautiful promise! When we accept the gospel and submit to Jesus’ kingdom, we can expect God to supply us with a home and the joy of family relationships in this life, a comfort, especially to those who have lost all to follow him. The questions are: How? Where? Whose home?

In her book, ‘The Gospel Comes with a House Key‘, Rosaria Butterfield proposes that all Christians are called to supply the answer, practicing ‘radically ordinary hospitality’, whatever their circumstances, to provide these promised homes. Read ‘radically ordinary’ as both a comfort and challenge, as she demonstrates the gamut: from fostering children to throwing barbeques, to talking to that lonely neighbour, and to simply accepting hospitality yourself. Rosaria paints her compellingly beautiful picture through reachable everyday vignettes (rice and beans, dog walks with neighbours, more guests than chairs), on the background of her own encounter with Jesus as an atheist invited to a Christian’s family table. She shows that the art of humble hospitality (both giving and receiving) can make ‘strangers into neighbours, and neighbours into [the] family of God’.

As health professionals, we often witness the devastating effects of the lack or loss of homes and loving relationships in our patients’ lives. Personally, I have only had a small taste of loneliness, when travelling as a locum GP in a rural area. At a small church I visited I actually used the words, ‘I am lonely!’, in conversation after the service, hoping to be invited to have a coffee or a meal or something. Sadly, my little plea wasn’t noticed, but in my motel room, my empathy for those affected by chronic loneliness was inflamed, as was my regard for my own church’s active welcoming team! Reading Rosaria’s book, I was enveloped with homefire warmth, stoking a longing to see every church and citizen of heaven embrace our call to hospitality.

Our lonely world needs the open doors and hearths of every everyday missionary!

The Gospel Comes With a House Key:
Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World
by Rosaria Butterfield
ISBN‏: ‎ 143355786X
Crossway 2018

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