Giving and Receiving Worship Theme

HOOK: When people arrive have them chooses two stones from a basket (you could have stones with words written one them or beads of different colors). At the opening of the service, have people walk around and welcome people to the space, even if they are new to the space. Each person simply says welcome and hands someone one of their stones. The other person returns the gracious hospitality by too offering words of welcome and the giving of one of their stones to the other. At the end of the exercise, everyone should have one original stone and one new stone from another in their hands.

THEME: Giving and Receiving. This theme focuses on hospitality and the idea that hospitality is a two-way street.

SCRIPTURE: -Gen 18:1-10; Matthew25.41-45; Luke (Mary and Martha); Hebrews 13.2

EXPERIENCE: * Story: In wisdom literature, there is a Japanese story of the difference between heaven and hell, but after reading it…what I saw in the story related to our worship theme of hospitality. In replacing the words heaven and hell with hospitality and inhospitality, a great image of the difference appears:

“Long ago in Japan an old woman wanted to see for herself the difference between hospitality and inhospitality. The monks in the temple agreed to grant her request. ‘First you shall see inhospitality,’ they said as they put a blindfold over her eyes. When the blindfold was removed the old woman stood at the entrance to a great hall. The hall was filled with round tables each piled high with the most delicious feast- meats, vegetables, fruits of every kind, and desserts to make your mouth water. The old woman noticed that there were people seated just out of arm’s reach of the tables. Their bodies were thin and their pale faces convulsed with frustration. They held chopsticks almost three feet long. With the chopsticks they could reach the food, but they could not get the food back into their mouths. As the old woman watched, a hungry, angry sound rose into the air. ‘Enough,’ she said. ‘let me see hospitality.’ When the blindfold was removed a second time, the old woman rubbed her eyes. For there she stood again at the entrance of a great hall with tables piled high with the same scrumptious feast. Again she saw the people sitting just out of arm’s reach of the food with those long chopsticks. But the people [at that banquet] were plump and rosy-cheeked, and as she watched, the musical sound of laughter filled the air.

And then the old woman laughed, for now she understood the difference. The people experiencing hospitality were using those three-foot long chopsticks to feed each other.” Life requires both giving and receiving…true hospitality flows both ways. –I do not know the name of the author-author unknown to me

-have people talk of their experiences of hospitality within your church; what are your strengths as a church and what are your growth areas; and where is God?

SENDING:
This week may you see the Christ in the other and may they see the Christ in you. Amen.

-By Becky Jones, Pastor