Combining Radical Hospitality with the Good News

By SUSAN WINDLEY-DAOUST

Friends, this month we continue discussing the emerging models of parish evangelization I break open in The Four Ways Forward: Becoming an Apostolic Parish in a Post-Christian World, published by OSV Press. The four ways are the models of radical hospitality + first proclamation, small group spiritual multiplication, elevating signs and wonders, and organizational mission re-focus. This month, I discuss the radical hospitality and first proclamation model vis a vis the Eucharistic Revival.

The Opposite of Pushy

One of the most common things that people will say when they resist the call to evangelization is that they don’t want to be pushing their faith on anyone. I agree we shouldn’t be pushing our faith on people! I often say that image you get of a man screaming at people on a street corner that they are going to hell - that’s not evangelization. That’s spiritual assault. It is the anti-evangelization. So, what is evangelization anyway? Sharing the good news that Jesus Christ has a wonderful plan for your life and saves us from our woundedness and sin. How did Jesus share that news?

He practiced radical generosity to the stranger, to those outside the synagogue. That radical generosity to the stranger is called hospitality.

Radical generosity is so much more than “being nice.” I think radical generosity could be summed up with a famous line of scripture: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11) And Jesus responds, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13). We extend generous friendship and fellowship from our very root to those who are “outside” our circle of the known. This generosity is directed to them whether they deserve it or not. Kindness, respect, and welcome should be offered freely and without expectation. It’s literally what Jesus did.

Radical hospitality is also not a response. It is an initiative. You don’t wait until people come to you to offer hospitality; you go to them! Again, what did Jesus do? He literally went into the streets. We only have one scriptural reference to Jesus being in synagogue (and they threw him out!). Now, I am sure that, as an observant Jew, he went to synagogue. But his outreach was not primarily there. Radical generosity to the stranger looks minimally like active invitation to healing and to more.

The First Proclamation

Honestly, a lot of people warm up quickly to evangelization cast as radical hospitality. But it is hospitality with a purpose: to share the best thing that ever happened in your life, because it will be their best thing too. That is your relationship to Jesus Christ, specifically when he said to you, “Come to the Father, return to God, and be free of your sin. Your healing awaits. Come, follow me.”

This is where people tend to say, “That’s pushy!” It’s not pushy when you have struck up genuine friendship. It’s simply sharing. But it is entirely possible you have not shared that reality of God’s saving grace in your life with another person - Jesus Christ’s “first proclamation” may be YOUR first-time proclamation as well! But, as scripture also says:

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? (Rom 10:14)

We presume people know the good news. I can promise you they do not. All the data points to this, and it includes many practicing Christians who don’t quite know why they are practicing! We live in a culture where we have to speak this great news aloud and connect the dots for many.

In the past few decades, the most popular presentation of this radical-hospitality-meets-firstproclamation is found in the Alpha course. It’s more a process than a course, but it creates space, extensive training and support, and powerful words for sharing life and good news together in an extremely non-confrontational way. ChristLife, created by the Archdiocese of Baltimore, is very similar. But the principles can be applied in many ways across parish ministries and personal discipleship.

What’s the Connection to the Eucharistic Revival?

What’s the connection to the parish year of the Eucharistic Revival? (I’ve been making connections in the past two articles on small group spiritual multiplication and elevating signs and wonders.) I think there are many possible connections. But the line that keeps standing out for me is, Come to the table, or Come to the altar. The very heart of the paschal mystery is that the Lord welcomes us, tax collectors and sinners, to sup with him, and, in this meal, he offers us himself. This is the very definition of radical hospitality. The first proclamation is the purification we need to hear to prepare us for this sacred meal and sacrifice. Turning to God requires repentance. Repentance purifies us to receive the fullness of the good news. And receiving that fullness includes, in his great mercy, receiving more than a message. We are graced to receive the messenger, God himself, in divine encounter.

Why wouldn’t we want to share this truth with others, and invite them to come and see?

Susan Windley-Daoust is the Director of Missionary Discipleship for the Diocese of Winona-Rochester.