By Stan Friedman<\/p>\n
GREEN LAKE, WI (June 26, 2008) \u2013 Extending authentic hospitality to people who consider themselves outcasts will free them to receive and then share the love of Jesus,\u00a0 Debbie Blue told the gathering during this morning\u2019s worship service at the 123rd Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
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\nDrawing from the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well, the executive minister of the Department of Compassion, Mercy, and Justice, shared briefly from her own life as an example of what so many have experienced.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis woman\u2019s story was much like my story,\u201d Blue said. The painful memory of a lost friendship and the scorn of a community when she was 10 years old remains with her.<\/p>\n
![\"Blue\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/3G\/Wk\/3GWkvi_H4_eOJH7FlDvoSA\/deb.jpg\")
Blue recalled that her family was the first black family to move into a white neighborhood. One day, she and her best friend were playing as they always did when suddenly the girl pulled back. \u201cI can\u2019t touch you,\u201d the girl explained. She feared Blue\u2019s skin color would rub off on her.<\/p>\n
The girl\u2019s remarks stained Blue, however, making her feel like something was wrong with her \u2013 as if \u201cuntouchable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesus surprised the woman at the well, who was amazed that a Jewish man would be passing through Samaria, that he would talk to her and ask for water. Ironically, although it was Jesus who initially asked for water, it was he who extended hospitality.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe created space for the woman,\u201d Blue said. He offered her something that he had. That was the gift of living water.<\/p>\n
The hospitality offered by Jesus was different than most people think of hospitality, Blue said before sharing about different types of hospitality:
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Service or social hospitality is the kind that is pleasant and polite, most identified with Southern hospitality.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Entertaining hospitality extends warm welcome to come into someone\u2019s home for dinner.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Market hospitality offers consumers the opportunity to purchase items so people can put on the fa\u00e7ade of who we want others to think we are.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Diversity hospitality welcomes people who are different. \u201cBut to what end?\u201d Blue asked. Is the welcome only so far until it becomes uncomfortable when different groups must work together.<\/p>\n
Blue said Jesus showed a greater form of hospitality. \u201cFaithful hospitality \u2026 aims for communion with God and one another. It\u2019s a hospitality that recognizes a stranger\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the woman\u2019s worth was recognized, she was able to give in to Jesus, give up her shame, and give out what she had experienced, Blue said. Remarkably, the woman went back to the same people who shamed her and proclaimed she had met someone who might be the messiah.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would they listen to her?\u201d Blue asked. \u201cThis woman had to have something visible on the outside of what was going on in the inside.\u201d They listened when they saw the difference.<\/p>\n
Blue asked the gathering, \u201cAre we in truthful hospitality with one another?\u201d<\/p>\n
She acknowledged such living is difficult, especially because it means entering into the world of others as Jesus did and not waiting for them to enter ours. \u201cIt means we run right into the chaos if that\u2019s what it takes. How many of you are ready to be involved in the mess of things?\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid the mess is the place of transformation, however. \u201cIt\u2019s in those places, those seasons of discomfort God is at work in big ways,\u201d she declared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on the road here,\u201d Blue said of the Covenant. \u201cEvery time I see it, I see us moving toward being the people God has called us to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following Blue\u2019s sermon, the gathering honored the lives of Covenant pastors, missionaries, and spouses who died since the last Annual Meeting, The service ended with communion.<\/p>\n