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Inviting In – Incarnational Hospitality

Repeatedly in the scripture, we are called to love each other extravagantly and to express that love through extending hospitality. Incarnational hospitality emerges from love, but it is also a discipline, one that requires practice and pursuit.

There will be a time for most of us when we are not used to this practice and not good at it. We must spend time being “consciously incompetent” and, as Peter instructs, not grumbling about it. In Hebrews, we are pointed towards who we are to share hospitality with – the stranger. Everyone from people of different nationalities, backgrounds, beliefs, etc., all the way to just someone in your life who you do not know very well.

The concept of hospitality in the ancient Middle East was built around the semi-nomadic nature of the cultures in the address. It was considered that those with wealth owed those who were travelling significant hospitality. This was not just grudgingly offered, but was actively sought after, backed by the promise of divine blessings. This was a core moral tenet that extended to the Egyptians and Romans as well.

The story of Abraham under the trees of Mamre was the central passage on this topic for the Jews, and Abraham was the model for hospitality even in the New Testament. In 1 Kings, we see from the story of Elisha that the hospitality we are called to is not contingent on our resources. It is the act of inviting in that communicates the value we place on the other.

In Matthew, the level of that value is put on a much grander scale. The divine favor from pagan gods is replaced by the very person of Christ. In an echo of Abraham’s experience (and, conversely, that of Sodom and Gomorrah), we are told that everyone we show (or do not show) hospitality is, in a fundamental way, Christ himself. And seen another way, we ourselves were strangers to Christ and the Kingdom of God, and were shown hospitality in the most dramatic way possible.

Now, we are strangers to the world, and are called to do as Christ did. We show incarnational hospitality so that others will see Christ in us. We are representatives of Christ and his kingdom. Our hospitality shows others what that Kingdom is like. We have tensions with this, especially here in Seattle where we simply do not have a culture of hospitality. We have shifted hospitality to organizations and can divert the burden of today’s wanderers and nomads to society as a whole and off of us individually.

We are so often “too busy” to show hospitality. But that busyness is itself a reason to do so, and we should budget our time so that we can give (and receive) hospitality. There are fears associated with hospitality beyond these. We fear being exposed or embarrassed. We fear being taken advantage of or otherwise victimised. We fear awkwardness or disappointment.

We should be honest about these fears and clear about our boundaries. Authenticity goes a long way towards negating our fears. We can also start slow, and begin with small steps as we build our skills and comfort.

Family and children can be another barrier to hospitality. Not just for the usual fear of strangers, but the busyness they bring, their own discomfort with strangers or vice versa. Again, the answer here is to bring them in to the process of hospitality, to engage them in showing love to others.

Inviting in is the loving pursuit of bringing strangers into an environment where they encounter Christ’s kingdom. It is a way to live out the gospel and fulfill the Great Commission. We must place the the eternal value on the stranger that God does, and recognize that when we show hospitality, we are demonstrating the very love of God.

– Sermon Notes, Jeff Krabach, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

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Servant Leadership – John 13:1-16

Jesus was the greatest leader in history, and in this passage he demonstrates his divine method of servant leadership. He knew, John tells us, that his time on earth was coming to an end. We know from the Garden of Gethsemene that he had a real level of fear and anxiety around the crucifixion. He also knew that he loved his disciples, and would love them through all of what would come.

This included the one who he knew would shortly betray him to torture and death. He knew he was the second person of the Trinity, and was shortly to reclaim his place among the godhead – and yet his final acts were those of service to those far below him. And so he washed his disciples’ feet.

Keep in mind that this was a culture that wore sandals and walked along roads lined and caked with feces. A servant might be asked to wash your feet, just like a janitor might unclog a disgusting toilet, or a hospice nurse might clean bedsores.

And so when Jesus wraps the towel around his waist and goes to wash Peter’s feet, Peter rejects it. Someone so high doing something so low for someone so low offended Peter’s understanding of leadership. But Jesus explains that to reject his act of service is to reject his very self. This is a direct parallel with the cross – those who reject the service of Christ on the cross are rejecting Christ himself.

So Peter, who wouldn’t know a metaphor if it hit him in the face, begins to strip down to get washed from head to toe. (Ultimately, Peter will take the image of Jesus wrapping himself in a towel for this act of service and make it core to his image of the Christian life – “clothe yourself in humility.”)

Jesus forestalls him, and instead notes that all of them are clean because they have (or will have) accepted his act of service, with one exception. Judas will reject that offer of service and this remains unclean.

He then moves farther ahead in time, speaking to the church era when these men will found and lead congregations around the world. He calls on them, when they find themselves in positions of leadership, to lead as servants, to take the picture he has painted of servant leadership and replicate it down through the ages.

Within the Christian life, leadership is serving. The distinction between ruler and scavenger is non-existent in Christ. If we refuse to serve our wives, for example, by changing diapers or washing dishes because that is “her job” then we have already missed the point. If we serve from a selfish motivation, picking those services that are enjoyable or that let us claim special status, then we are not truly serving.

True Christ-like service draws no distinction between public and private service. Nor does it have a need to calculate results, whether external or internal. It is not driven by feelings or whims. It is action-oriented and Christ-focused. Once you have the right mindset, the challenge is actually doing it, without those external motivators.

It is difficult to give up the power and control that worldly leadership offers. Serving rarely pays off from a material point of view. Serving may well mean you perform worse, whether in a job or wherever else. Serving means making sacrifices to make those around you succeed, not you yourself.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

John 13:1-16
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Glorifying God is Art, Not Science – 1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1

Many Christians see the world in black and white, and spend their lives seeking to perfectly understand the specific “thou shalt nots” in every circumstance. The problem is that Christianity is not about rules, but about relationship – not just between God and man, but between the body of Christ and the people He came to save. We can’t apply scientific principles and come out perfectly with the right answer every time, because we must take into account things like mercy, compassion and forgiveness. Christianity is an art, not a science.

Paul’s system of ethics is on one hand Continue reading “Glorifying God is Art, Not Science – 1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1”

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Evangelism: Train to Compete to Win – 1 Corinthians 9:23-27

The story of the apostle Paul is an inspirational comeback story along the lines of any tale of underdog sports champions. From his rescue from his previous life through suffering, shipwreck, temptation and more. He is described as “a man small in size, bald-headed, bow-legged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed.” From this unlikely source came some of the most powerful evangelism the world has ever seen: dozens of churches, thousands of converts, many scriptures, and the foundation of the body of Christ across Europe and Asia.

In this book thus far, Paul had told the Corinthians that, first, being loving is more important than being right. Second, he himself has adjusted his behavior to their weakness, as he is calling them to do. Here, he gives us the “why?” to all this. He uses an athletic metaphor, well understood by the Corinthians, hosts of the Isthmian Games.

The method of qualification for these games, held in off years when the Olympics were not, was to go through a certain exercise and training regimen for 10 months. If they shirked their training, they would be disqualified. There was only a single winner, as Paul observes here.

Paul’s point here is that he devotes himself to victory in the same way athletes do. Winners plan to win. Victory is the goal, not second place. This requires training, preparation and self-control, pushing through the boring redundancy of training. Winners make sacrifices to win.

Paul’s other point is that he trains specifically to compete. He doesn’t run for fun or shadow box for entertainment. Winners train to compete, not train to train. Paul’s rigid discipline is not for its own sake, but is aimed at winning the prize.

But what is that prize? What is the meaning of this metaphor of victory and disqualification?

Some see “winning” in this case as eternal life in heaven. Paul is working so hard to avoid losing his salvation. This is the position of both the Roman Catholic church and Wesleyans. John Wesley specifically cited this passage as evidence against eternal security and Calvinism as a whole.

Another version of this sees it also as being about salvation, but from the point of view of predestination. If we don’t keep up our training, then we had gone through a false conversion of some kind and were never truly followers of Christ. This view also draws upon the parable of the sower and other passages that urge us to persevere to the end. If we are a true believer, that is what we will do.

However, this passage is probably not about eternal life at all, but rather about eternal rewards. We see this concept of crowns throughout the New Testament, the notion that there are rewards for Christians who actively seek God’s favor. This ties back to Paul’s earlier discussion of judgement of believers, with some being rewarded and others barely escaping “through the flames.”

In more direct context, Paul specifically refers to the rewards of evangelism. Each convert, each church is reward that Paul shares in. Elsewhere, he calls the churches in Philippi and Thessalonica his “crowns”. This is what he trains for, suffers for and endures for.

Each of us has our own role in the process, but the call ultimately is the same, as are the rewards we seek. It’s not that everyone needs to be a single, letter-writing traveling missionary. As Paul wrote just earlier, we should work within the station we are given.

But we also can’t go too far in that direction – we are called to participate in gospel work somehow. We can’t just live out a secular life and call it missional. In all we do, we must be working to draw people closer to God, even if in a very small way.

One important key is intentionality, just like Paul described with the athletic metaphor. We must train and prepare ourselves, mentally, biblically and spiritually, to participate in evangelism. We need to have to the tools to take advantage of and create opportunities.

Winners train to compete and compete to win. Too often, Christians train just to train. We must train in order to act. If a church holds a class called “Better Ways to Share Your Faith,” it could be very popular. But if a church holds that same class with the promise that on week 4, everyone would be required to share the gospel with 3 people, that class would be nearly empty.

If churches were to devote themselves to training, preparation and action towards sharing the gospel, we would see amazing things happen.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA

1 Corinthians 9:23-27
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Freedom Bullies – 1 Corinthians 8

Paul here addresses the danger of elevating truth above love. The Corinthians would have been raised from childhood to be superstitious and fearful of gods and demons everywhere. You had to placate the good gods and fear, avoid the bad ones.

Even after hearing the truth of the gospel, the conditioning persists. Some might be positive associations. Others might be bad, bringing up feelings of guilt surrounding other things that were connected to idolatry or false gods. This would include the meat at the temple meat market.

Meat that was purified would have been offered to the gods, with the priests using a third and generally selling it to the market. Some might not have any issues with it, being aware that the temple rituals were entirely false and empty. Others had more guilt around it, whether from false beliefs about false gods, from guilt or to avoid temptation.

But this was not a live-and-let-live situation. Those without issues were shoving it in the face of those who avoided the meat. Paul writes to address this “freedom bullying”.

These freedom bullies rested on their knowledge. “We all possess knowledge,” they write. But Paul tells them that their knowledge is incomplete, and that their surety in their knowledge in fact reveals their ignorance compared to true knowledge.

He brings it back from truth and freedom to relationships, between us and God and within the body. God affirms those who love, not those who are always right.

In verses 4-6, Paul quotes an earlier letter from these freedom bullies, which itself quotes an early creed. To emphasize their knowledge, they quote directly the theological justification for their position. Paul does not argue with the accuracy of their position.

Elsewhere, in Romans, Paul addresses this question of the “weaker brother”. Weakness is not sin – in fact, sin would be acting against their weak conscience. Weakness is not necessarily an all-encompassing characteristic. It is in regards to this specific situation. Every Christian is both weak and strong in different situations.

The word “weak” here refers to overall human limitations, from illness, to lack of physical strength, to deficiency of knowledge. All of us grow and change our knowledge and beliefs. Some of us more innately feel guilt than others. We all have deficiencies due to conditioning, illogical reactions arising out of our experiences.

Paul tells us that God understands these differences, takes them into account and wants us to take them into account in our relationships with each other. The “strong” Corinthians wanted, to some degree legitimately, to move people along out of their deficiencies. But in pushing people to do what they felt was wrong, it was pushing people to sin, and in this specific case, pressuring people back into situations where they could slip back into the life of idolatry. And that pressure itself is a sin.

In the end, it is better to love than to be right. This is a relational directive, but it is not a systemic directive. When you create a system out of these instructions, it creates a “tyranny of the weak” in which everything is a sin and those with weak consciences have full power over those without.

Fortunately for us, Christ does not wait for us to have full knowledge or lack of weakness before he enters into relationship with us. Christ’s love comes to us before Christ’s truth. We should go and do likewise.

— Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 8
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God’s Ideal for Marriage – 1 Corinthians 7:10-16

Christianity teaches that marriage was created by God, and the story of God’s ideal for marriage begins in the Garden of Eden Adam saw the need for a female counterpart, and God declared it “not good for a man to be alone”. So Eve was created as a “helper” – a term used for God Himself, which is elsewhere translated “savior”. She is was taken out of Adam and then reattached as one flesh through the spiritual and physical union.

This concept of one flesh, seamless unity, is also the picture of union we see in the trinity. The unity of marriage is itself a picture of the relational unity of the trinity. Marriage was monogamous. Polygamy was not in the original intent, and the polygamy we see in the bible never goes well. Marriage was heterosexual, a union of a male and female both for the unification of two contrasting bodies and the potential for reproduction.

Note that the “image of God” is applied to both male and female together, not one or the other. Note also that this has nothing to do with hobbies, preferences, talents, etc.

Marriage was pleasurable, and sex is pleasurable. God invented the orgasm.

Marriage was permanent, a life-long commitment. The concept of divorce came far later.

Marriage unites two people equal in value. Eve was not created as a maid.

Marriage at its core brings together two soul-mates as partners.

All this is a picture of Christ’s relationship to the church. Christ is in unity with the church, derives pleasure from the church and eternally faithful to us. But in the garden, we see things go wrong. Adam and Eve are apart, and the seraph Lucifer persuades Eve to disobey, and she does the same for Adam.

God then lays out the consequences for each gender. Women, generally speaking, have a hole in their heart that they try to fill with men, none of whom can fill out. This is the pattern we see where women seek love and men seek respect. And so we so frequently see marriages dissolving into frustration rather than being the beautiful union of soul mates and picture of Christ’s love they are meant to be. But the problem is not with the model or the nature of marriage – it is about the Fall and our sin.

That is what Paul is addressing here – a church in a culture with an even more messed up marriage situation than we have today. In Greco-Roman cultures, men had full legal power over wives, could divorce them for any reason, and could sleep with other women without any consequences.

In Judaism, things were also bad. Men could practice polygamy, which meant they could never be guilty of adultery, only women. Wives could be abandoned but still married and controlled by the husband, unable to remarry. Many would have to turn to prostitution.

The message from Paul, then, was radical, particularly in regards to the rights of women. Men and women were each given rights and responsibilities in the marriage and the marriage bed. But Paul was also more restrictive in some ways – specifically, restricting marriage and the marriage bed to only one husband and one wife.

How do we apply this? First, Radical Commitment. Divorce is relegated only to the most extreme circumstances. We are to approach marriage in a different way than anything else we do. We cannot come to marriage with a “commit and quit” mindset. This is not a job we can take until something better comes along. It’s not an instrument that we can take up and then drop when practice turns out to be mundane. We cannot come to a marriage with an eject button in our minds. We must come into marriage with without divorce as an option. But we also cannot just sit around with the notion that things will “just work themselves out.” Marriage must be fought for continually, and cannot be left to drift.

Second, Radical Reconciliation. Paul was writing to people who were feeling like they needed to separate for some reason, whether “spiritual” reasons or more usual ones. He calls them here to leave the door open for reconciliation.

Third, Radical Selflessness. Paul, not as a command but as an apostolic exhortation, calls Christians married to non-Christians to stay with them. The “sanctification” in this context is likely that which Peter talks about when he writes that we are to “sanctify Christ in our hearts” and suffer for him. We prioritize Christ over our suffering and discomfort. And a married person who finds Christ should likewise prioritize their non-Christian spouse – perhaps living that way will reveal Christ to the other.

Selfishness can happen when we try to fix our spouse so that we can be happy, rather than serve them and love them. Or, alternately, we may focus on ourselves and our problems at the expense of our spouse. For a marriage to be healthy, we both must serve and be served. When both of us are giving more than we are taking, that is where the wholeness and beauty of marriage can be seen.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 7:10-16
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Marianne Goddard Memorial Service – John 14:1-6

In general, when Jesus is telling people not to be worried, frightened and troubled, it’s because he is talking to people who are worried, frightened and troubled. But he always followed such instruction with a relational assurance – a relationship with him is the reason and the capability for following such a command.

Remember that was not a conversation with people who understood what Christ was saying  in light of the cross, the epistles, the church and the creeds. Instead, it was radical, scandalous and downright blasphemous.

But Jesus himself is the Way – and we saw Marianne Goddard follow that Way in her life. And Jesus was himself Truth – the person of Jesus was the Truth of Jesus. In a world of shifting and conflicting truths and falsehoods, Marianne lived with Jesus as her truth.

And Jesus himself is the Life, and the only passage to the Father. Jesus came to proclaim the “upside-down kingdom.” To lead you must serve, to win you must lose, to live you must die. Today, we mourn and miss Marianne. It is a loss that aches. But Marianne knew Christ as her Way, her Truth and her Life, and through the gift of faith she received through grace, she now lives in glory in the presence of her Savior.

May her life serve as a call to us. If we also know Christ as our way, truth and life, may it serve as a reminder of what we aspire to. If we do not, let us see her beckoning us to know Him as she does.

– Notes from the Memorial Service for Marianne Goddard, Jeremy Taylor, Temple Baptist Church, Portland, OR

John 14:1-6
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The Baptism of Naaman – 2 Kings 5:1-19

Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army that had just conquered Israel. Following this, he came down with leprosy, a disease generally reserved for those under the curse of God. Israelites reading this story would have generally approved of this situation, but the slave girl, whose family was likely killed by Naaman and his army, felt differently and pointed him towards the prophet Elisha.

At this point, Naaman has some choices to make. Does he trust this girl? Does he trust Israel? Does he trust the God of Israel? What is he willing to do in order to live. He decides to try, and off he goes to the monk wizard hermit. He stops off at the king of Israel to request healing, and the king freaks out. Here is the man who just conquered the nation asking for something impossible. “Am I God, that I can kill and bring back to life?” he demands. This notion of resurrection is a key to the implications of the story.

Ultimately, though, Elisha invites Naaman to come be healed. When he shows up, though, things do not go as planned. Elisha sends a servant out to tell Naaman to dunk himself in the (filthy, muddy) Jordan River seven times. Not six, not eight. Five is right out. Naaman badly. He wanted a “sexy salvation” but this seemed shameful and offended his pride.

Once again, though the servants step in and persuade him to put aside his pride. So, Naaman goes under – in the Greek, the baptism of Naaman is the first reference to baptism in scripture. On the seventh dip, he is reborn – both physically and spiritually. He does still hang on to his pride enough to attempt to pay for the healing and earn it retroactively. But he is denied.

Instead, Naaman takes a load of dirt in order to take some of the land of Jehovah in order to retain that connection. His faith in healing had turned into a faith in God Himself.

The point of this story is not that some guy got healed. It’s not that the Jordan River is magic. It’s that God gives grace to the most unlikely people in the most unlikely ways. God’s ultimate goal for us is not just to be healed or forgiven, but to have a connection of love with us, a worshipful relationship of creation and creator.

This story calls forward to the resurrection, the death, burial and coming to life of Christ. Unlike Naaman, Christ died not for his sins, but ours. We, like Naaman, are enemies of God, and yet Christ died and rose again for us. What did Naaman have to do in order to receive healing and forgiveness? Essentially, he had to believe and trust the prescription of God.

This is what we demonstrate and act out in baptism. It represents the death and resurrection of Christ, and our own death and resurrection in Him. It also represents the cleansing of our sin by the forgiveness of God.

Some of us may have barriers to this. We may not see a need for baptism or even for Jesus himself. We may be skeptical about the whole God, Christ and salvation story.

Regardless of where you are, though, God is calling you to connect to that story through faith in Him and baptism. He wants to forgive your sins, change your heart and enter into an eternal relationship with you.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, Easter Sunday 2017

2 Kings 5:1-19
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Christian Sexuality, Christlike Sexuality – 1 Corinthians 7:1-9

The world and Christianity have both done a number on our understanding of sex, a swinging pendulum between selfishness and shame. We see this in the Corinthian church, with some engaging in prostitution and even worse, while others seeing sex itself as bad in any context. The latter is addressed here, as Paul unpacks what Christian sexuality should look like.

Paul himself was single, and may certainly have been tempted to agree with the Corinthian assertion that “it is good for a man not to touch a woman.” But he did not do that, and acknowledged that sex is not only permissible within marriage, but a moral good and a required duty.

Like us, the Corinthians live in a society saturated with sex. Then and now, there were plenty of opportunities and even pressure to take sex outside of the marriage relationship. The answer to that, though, is for active engagement in sexuality on the part of both spouses, to serve and fulfill the needs and desires of the other.

Note that Paul here does not mention this in the context of bearing children. Sex here is clearly about bestowing pleasure on the other partner, not solely about procreation. The emphasis on giving versus demanding or denying here is clear. We should be competing to out-serve each other, both in our lives together in general and specifically in the marriage bed.

The key word in Paul’s command here is “stop” – stop depriving, stop defrauding your spouse. The Corinthians here who think they are being spiritual are in fact no better than those described earlier who are getting involved with lawsuits.

Paul does make a concession that, if both parties agree, if they devote themselves instead to prayer, and if they keep it temporary, then at that point they can take a break. The concessions serve to emphasize the importance of the command.

Today, we generally don’t use the “spirituality” excuse to deny sex. Instead, it tends to come from a degradation of the relationship, often with the marital sex relationship being replaced, whether with porn, romance novels, or affairs, whether emotional or physical. It can also come from a wrong view of sex. If we see sex as a privilege, it can become used as a reward or a weapon.

Likewise, if we see it only through the lens of only what we want, then even the understanding of sex as a responsibility can be used as a weapon, and that is just as wrong as the former issue. In all this, we have a unique opportunity to follow Christ in potentially the most pleasurable way possible.

Sex is an opportunity to serve as He served, to lay down our rights as He did. Christ is both our model and motivation even in the marriage bed. Love your spouse in a way the seeks to serve rather than be served.

– Sermon Notes, Jeff Krabach, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 7
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