Mission as Hospitality

Imitating the Hospitable God in Mission

Edward L. Smither

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781725257313, 9781725257320
• eBook ISBN: 9781725257337
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

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.

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Mission as Hospitality at the Lord’s Table

In the Eucharist (also known as Communion or the Lord’s Supper), the worshiper is invited to a table.126 Partaking of the bread and wine, believers remember the Lord’s miraculous provision of manna in the wilderness, reflect on Christ’s broken body and shed blood for the forgiveness of sins, and look forward to the Messianic Banquet to come.127 At the Lord’s Table, the gospel story—the suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ—is dramatically retold. One of two sacraments given to the church, the Eucharist is a central element of Christian worship.

In this chapter, we probe further into Christ’s hospitality in mission by reviewing the Last Supper narratives in the Gospels as well as other New Testament and early Christian teaching on the Lord’s Table. We explore the meaning of the Eucharist and consider Christ as our host at the table, nourishing his body, the church, with his presence. Finally, in reflecting on the Eucharistic liturgy, we explore how mission occurs at the Lord’s Table and how the church is sent from the table to make disciples of all peoples.

The Last Supper

From Passover to Last Supper

On the night before his death, the Lord hosted his disciples at a fellowship meal remembered by the Gospel writers as the Last Supper. McGowan insightfully notes, “The term ‘Last Supper’ implies a whole series of previous suppers. The first Christians remembered not just the last but many meals of Jesus as models for their own eating.”128 The Supper reminds us that Jesus ate with his disciples on many occasions.129 O’Loughlin asserts that “the table seems to have been his classroom in discipleship.”130 Since Jesus was in the habit of practicing missional hospitality in the Gospels, this meal was not an innovative act but functioned as a crescendo to his earthly ministry.

Each of the Synoptic Gospel writers claimed that the Last Supper was a Passover celebration (Mark 14:12; Matt 26:17; Luke 22:7–8). Mark wrote: “On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’” Though some scholars have questioned the timing of the meal (Jesus was arrested and suffered during the Passover, so his Last Supper preceded it), other scholars maintain that the Last Supper was a Passover Feast moved up a couple of days.131

Because it was a Passover meal, the Last Supper held deep theological significance. At the table, Jesus remembered God saving the enslaved Israelites in Egypt who had covered their homes with the blood of an unblemished lamb. This was followed by God’s mighty act of delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, particularly through the miraculous Red Sea crossing. At the cross, Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, shed his blood, covering the sins of those who believe and delivering them from the bondage of sin and the evil one. Marshall notes: “Jesus took the Passover meal and proceeded to give a new significance to it as a meal whose repetition by his followers would enable them to remember him.”132 A symbol of salvation history past and present, Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples becomes the model meal for the Eucharist.133

Though John remembers Jesus having an upper room meal (John 13–17), he does not describe a Last Supper as the Synoptic writers do.134 However, earlier in the Gospel, John does capture Jesus in a synagogue in Capernaum teaching about the significance of his body and blood:

Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats...

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