This is for your own good......

This is for your own good!

Did you ever hear those words from your parents when you were young?  Did you ever say them yourself?  We were highly suspicious of this claim in our youth and I expect much more aware of its truth as we parented the next generation.


Here's a take on how hospitality does us good..........

"We show hospitality to strangers not merely because they need it be because we need it too.  The stranger a the door is a living symbol and memory that we are all stangers here.  This is not our house, our table...This is God's house and table..."   Thomas G. Long

I know it is not your job to welcome the strangers you see on a Sunday morning in worship, nor to invite strangers to come and get to know the God you know.

I know it is easier to fill your coffee cup and choose a donut (if you manage to get ahead of the younger connoisseurs) than to make sure that the new face feels welcome pouring her coffee or taking his bagel.

'I understand that there are Sundays when you arrive at the building with your good humor stitched together and deeply in need of care rather than ready to care for others.

I too would like the liturgy to carry me away into God's presence rather than ascertain that the guy next to me knows where we are in this complicated thing called Lutheran worship.

I surely know what it feels like to greet a 'stranger' only to find out they usually attend the 'other' service.

I know; I have felt all those things.  You could even make a case for it all being my job.  But really more than being some one's job, it is every disciple's calling. To welcome the stranger; to invite them in.

Come and know this God who welcomes me and calls me by name.  Meet this God in worship, in liturgy, in the coffee line, when you are seeking a home.  Come - welcome to God's house - where everyone is welcome......and I am going to be the one to welcome you.