Genesis 18:1–15
Psalm 116:1–2, 12–19
Matthew 9:35–10:8
Radical hospitality is more than politeness. It is the courage to welcome the stranger, remain open to surprise, honour difference, and remember that the one who arrives at the door may be carrying a blessing we did not know we needed.
Reflection: Radical Hospitality
When I was twenty-six years old, I was working as a camp director at Shekinah Retreat Centre in Saskatchewan when I came across a little book on herbal medicine.
Of course I had heard of herbal tea, but I grew up believing that medicine came from a pharmacy. That healing meant a prescription, a plastic bottle, something manufactured and certified and approved. That was medicine. Everything else was, at best, quaint and at worst, dangerous.
But I was curious. The woman who wrote the book also wrote a regular feature in the local paper. So I did something that felt a little bold at the time. I contacted her.
She became my first mentor in herbal medicine.
And what she introduced me to changed my life. Not just the plants themselves, though they are extraordinary, but the realization that 80% of the world already knew something I didn’t. That there was an entire world of knowledge, ancient and tested and alive, that I had simply never been introduced to. Not because it wasn’t real. But because no one in my circle had ever pointed to it and said: look.
This idea, that medicinal plants grow freely around us, that all we need to do is notice them, tend them, gather them with awareness, and we have something of real value, something that helps us heal, has inspired me again and again throughout my life. It still does. Plants ask very little of us. And yet they are endlessly generous.
I bring this little book with me today as a reminder of what can happen when a stranger arrives at your door, or when you have the courage to knock on theirs.
Abraham was sitting in the heat of the day when three strangers appeared.
He didn’t know who they were. He didn’t know what they carried. He had no reason to expect anything from them, and every reason to simply let them pass.
Instead, he ran.
Not walked. Ran. In the heat of the day, this old man ran to meet people he had never seen before, bowed to the ground, and said: please, stay. Let me bring you water. Let me feed you. Rest here, under this tree.
That is not a casual act. That is not polite hospitality. That is radical welcome. The kind that costs something. The kind that says: whatever you carry, there is room for it here.
And what did the strangers carry?
News that seemed impossible. Sarah, listening behind the tent door, heard them say she would bear a son. She was old. Her husband was old. The idea was absurd. So she laughed.
I love that she laughed.
She didn’t perform belief she didn’t have. She didn’t nod politely and pretend. She laughed, honestly, at something that contradicted everything she knew about herself and her body and her life.
And the stranger saw her clearly anyway. Heard her laugh. Called her out, gently. And said: is anything too wonderful for God?
It turned out to be true.
The impossible thing the stranger carried turned out to be true.
We live in a world that is increasingly reluctant to be surprised.
Our phones learn what we like and show us more of it. Our social media feeds reflect our own opinions back to us, louder and more certain each time. We can go days, weeks, months, surrounded only by people who think the way we think, see the way we see, laugh at the same things and worry about the same things.
Staying in our small world is comfortable. And it is shrinking us.
And perhaps this is what Abraham knew, sitting under those oak trees at Mamre: you cannot know what you are capable of until someone outside your circle shows up and says, look. There is more here than you knew.
And 101 years ago, three different communities, the Methodist Church, the Congregational Church, and the Presbyterian Church, looked at each other across their differences and said: we are more united than divided. That bold idea is still unfolding. Right here. In this room.
A healthy ecosystem is a diverse one. Different species, different niches, different ways of taking up space and light and water, all of it interdependent, all of it stronger together than any one species could be alone.
But ecosystems can also be overtaken. One species, given too much room, too much power, too little resistance, can crowd out everything else.
And monocultures planted by humans are fragile. They look uniform and strong, but a single disease, a single hard season, can take the whole thing down.
The same is true of ideas, of nations, of communities. When one voice, one way of seeing, one group’s comfort, is allowed to dominate everything else, the whole system becomes more fragile, not less. Gardeners know this. A garden full of flowering plants, all different, stays healthier than one crop alone, each one supporting the others, attracting the right insects, keeping pests in balance. Diversity isn’t just nice. It’s how things survive.
The stranger at your door is still arriving.
The question is whether you will run to meet them.
Some of you will run to meet the stranger, set the extra place, say yes before you’ve thought it through. This sermon is for you too.
Some of us need a reminder that radical hospitality doesn’t mean abandoning yourself. It doesn’t mean giving until there is nothing left, serving until you are hollowed out, welcoming everyone else while quietly disappearing.
Jesus looked at the crowds and felt compassion. He saw them harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. And before he did anything, before he sent anyone anywhere, he simply saw them. Clearly. With a full heart.
That’s where it starts. Not with doing. With seeing.
And then he said to his disciples: freely you received, freely give.
Freely you received. That comes first. You cannot give what you have not been given. You cannot welcome when you have not been able to meet your own needs first. The hospitality that lasts, the kind that actually feeds people, flows from a place of fullness, not depletion.
So tend your own cup. Walk outside and let a squirrel, a sunrise, or love between birds surprise you. Let a stranger tell you something you didn’t know. Let yourself laugh, the way Sarah laughed, at the impossible things that might just turn out to be true.
You are inside the circle of welcome too.
The faith in action step this week encourages you to seek out surprising connections.
I want to leave you with one question to carry into your conversations.
What is one thing someone told you that turned out to be true, even though you didn’t believe it at first?
You might be surprised what the stranger beside you is carrying.