Genesis 12:1-9; Psalm 33:1-12; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
In seminary, I was required to complete an internship as part of my formation for the priesthood. Steve and I visited several churches trying to determine what might be a good fit. We went to very large churches and tiny ones and everything in between. But one particular church stood out to us among all the others.
It was a small congregation with less than fifty people on any given Sunday. The church itself was simple and quaint—a white building with a red door, uneven wood floors, and pews worn smooth over generations of Episcopalians who had sat in them. It didn’t have stained glass windows, and because it sat on the town square, you could watch the world hurrying by even as you paused in this timeless space praying words that had been prayed thousands of times before.
What set the church apart for both of us was the welcome we received—warm, attentive, and hospitable. As soon as we sat down in a pew, a member of the church leaned over, introduced herself, asked our names, and then asked if we had ever been to an Episcopal church before. We told her we had, and she smiled and said she simply wanted to make sure we would be able to follow along in the service because it can be confusing for people new to the church.
Steve and I were both touched by that simple gesture. Not only were we welcomed, but she also extended an invitation to belonging. She understood that the Prayer Book, Hymnal, and even the bulletin can feel overwhelming to someone unfamiliar with them, and that confusion can easily make a person feel excluded and out of place.
After the service, several other members of the congregation approached us before we had even stepped out of the pew. They were interested in who we were and whether we were new to the community. Once they discovered I was a seminarian, a few of them ushered me toward the priest while others continued talking with Steve. Needless to say, that sweet little church became our church home and the place where I served my internship while at Sewanee.
I tell this story not simply as an example of welcome, but as an example of hospitality as a spiritual practice. Often, we think of hospitality as simply being kind and nice to someone—friend, neighbor, or stranger. But hospitality as a spiritual practice is more than that. It goes beyond welcome to making space for belonging.
Hospitality as a spiritual practice recognizes the image of God in others. It is an intentional discipline that trains our hearts and minds to encounter Christ in every person we greet. It requires attentiveness, presence, and openness—qualities central to spiritual formation. It asks us to relinquish control and comfort as an act of self-giving, much like the Incarnation itself, in which God willingly enters into human life for our sake.
When we are willing to become an incarnational presence to others, we embrace the sacrificial teachings of Jesus, who calls us to make space for people even—and especially—when it costs us time, convenience, energy, and emotional labor. Our mindset begins to shift from fear and scarcity to generosity and abundance. We move from ego toward mercy. And when we practice the spirituality of hospitality, we not only welcome others, we ourselves are changed by their presence in our lives.
Jesus demonstrates hospitality as a spiritual practice in our Gospel reading this morning. Not only does he eat with tax collectors and prostitutes, he does so publicly. He models for his disciples, the religious authorities, the outcasts, and ordinary people what it means to practice hospitality. It is more than a gesture of welcome; it is making space at the table for all to belong. And isn’t that what the kingdom of God truly is?
When we get to heaven, don’t we hope to be invited to the Lord’s table—something we practice every Sunday when we receive communion. We may have driven here of our own accord, but the truth is that God gathers us here, reconciles us to himself and to one another, and feeds us with bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ. The meal may seem simple, but it nourishes our souls and reminds us of our unity. It is the place where we belong.
That is the kingdom of God. And that is what Jesus was doing when he ate with tax collectors and prostitutes.
But I wonder if hospitality as a spiritual practice is about even more than making space for others to belong. I wonder if the deeper purpose of belonging to one another is that it creates space for us to encounter Christ and find healing for our weary souls.
In our Gospel, Jesus encounters a woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years. According to Jewish law, anyone who bled was considered unclean and therefore pushed to the margins of the community. For twelve years this woman had lived as an outcast. Without permission, she approaches Jesus from behind and touches the fringe of his cloak, believing that if she could only touch it, she would be made well. Jesus turns to her and tells her that her faith has made her well, and instantly she is healed.
I cannot help but wonder if her healing was not simply the stopping of her hemorrhages, but the restoration of her belonging within the community. Touching the fringe of his cloak would have been considered taboo. Jesus would have been entirely justified, according to the social and religious expectations of the time, to respond with anger or condemnation because in that act she had intentionally made him unclean. Instead, he makes space for her, just as he does for the tax collectors and prostitutes, regardless of what it might cost him. He responds with mercy and offers her a place within the kingdom of God.
I believe that is what the Church is called to be: the fringe of Jesus’ cloak—the place where people can encounter Christ and find healing through belonging. The way we welcome one another—friend or stranger—is often the first encounter of the Gospel for some people. Hospitality is central to Christian identity because it helps form a community through which people can experience an encounter with Christ.
Hospitality as a spiritual practice is not about saving people. It is about participating in God’s healing work that is already underway. We do that by making space for others to belong, not simply to feel welcomed. We listen with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment or suspicion. We offer presence before solutions. We acknowledge loneliness, grief, anxiety, and exhaustion within ourselves and become attentive to those same realities in others. And by allowing ourselves to be vulnerable with one another, we begin to heal together.
When Steve and I sat in that pew in a little church in small-town Tennessee, we had no idea that we would be invited into a community that would love us and encourage us. And we had no idea how much we needed that. Seminary was hard, and we were both grieving the loss of home, family, and friends in Selma for almost a year. And the realization that we would not be returning there anytime soon had grown a hard place in our hearts.
But we found a home at the Church of the Redeemer in Shelbyville, Tennessee, even if only for a little while. We found a place to belong and a place to heal. A place where our hearts would be softened because we touched the fringe of Jesus’ cloak.
Amen