Book Review: The Gospel Comes with A House Key
Part 1/2
I just recently read The Gospel Comes With A House Key by Rosaria Butterfield. I was excited to read this book to learn more about the importance of hospitality’s intersection with the gospel. I come to this book as the choir, whom Rosaria Butterfield will be preaching to. Our family wholeheartedly believes in hospitality being key to community, gospel proclamation and kingdom advancement. Thus, I'd like to hone my skills and to see how others are incorporating hospitality in their context. Additionally, the encouragement and conviction to keep going would be welcomed in this road less traveled, or more like road not even on the map. I want to learn how to do it better and to encourage others to also take advantage because people “need to hear and see and taste and feel authentic Christianity, hospitality spreading from every Christian home that includes neighbors in prayer, food, friendship, childcare, dog walking, and all the daily matters upon which friendships are built.” (95)
The Gospel Comes with a House Key (TGCHK) has stories as its baseline, recording how the Rosaria’s practiced their version of ‘radically ordinary hospitality in a post-Christian world,’ interspersed with Bible references and theological convictions. I was particularly interested in Rosaria’s perspective because she is a former lesbian, thoroughly immersed in LGBT culture, who converted to Christianity. It would be particularly helpful knowing how she grappled with opportunities and challenges of hospitality and the LGBT community from a Christian context. This work is not necessarily a How-To book but there are plenty of experiences, explicit practices, and implicit guidance to glean from for anyone wanting to obey God’s command of hospitality. Conversely, the author wants, and even prays, that her story convinces, convicts, and maybe even cajoles you into becoming better at hospitality, “My prayer is that you would see that practicing daily, ordinary, radical hospitality toward the end of rendering strangers neighbors and neighbors family of God is the missing link." (14)
In TGCHK, we get a glimpse into Rosaria's life of radical ordinary hospitality (ROH) and her daily rhythms of spiritual disciplines. We are thrust into the story of the trials of hospitality with a particular neighbor of hers, Hank. Her house seems to be the neighborhood’s Areopagus, a place where folks gather to investigate spiritual, philosophical, and political ideas. Her home serves as a place that welcomes strangers to lodge and interact, a normal Christian commune (34). This sounds strategic, overwhelming, and Christ-like. In TGCHK, Rosaria will not shy away from the difficulties and opportunities that surround this Christian lifestyle. Daily hospitality is expensive and inconvenient (34). This raw authenticity is welcoming. However, the author implies that hospitality must look a certain way, thus the lack of context as well as clarity around this is disappointing.
TGCHK is layered. It is encouraging and exciting at some points, yet frustratingly annoying at others. In Part 1, I want to point out the good. In Part 2, I will be raw and honest about the bad. I will also offer some alternatives to make the hospitality calling more complete. We will chew on the meat this week, next week we will spit out the bones.
The Good
Contrasted with a world affected by the lack of Christian hospitality – one hundred thousand robotic children, prison-like homes, and nightmarish rules – Rosaria calls out the disparity of privileged middle class suburbians who simply ignore or see themselves as different from the ‘other’ leprous-like world of mankind (23, 24, 26). The call to action is to be like Jesus who was not afraid to interact with and even touch the outcasts, the leprous, the forgotten or unwanted. Rosaria encourages us with Bible stories to live the paradoxical life of caring and healing. Then she describes radical ordinary hospitality (ROH), “Using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God.” (31)
Rosaria encourages the reader to start now. Use the resources you have; location, intentionality and finances to create space for God’s Kingdom to advance through your hospitality. Hence the title to Chapter 4, “God Never Gets the Address Wrong.” ROH is an opportunity for Christians to interact with the outcasts, strangers, and chronically lonely with the mystery of the union of Christ (63).
I appreciate Rosaria calling us to something different, which I’ve dubbed ‘transparent hospitality,’ that exposes the world to authentic Christian witness (31). Our neighbors see, know, and feel because we’ve let them in to experience Jesus’ counter-cultural living that increases flourishing for all. I appreciate the call to preparation for ROH as it does not flow out of our natural inclinations and desires (36). Everyone is to be engaged, as both receiver and giver (37)! Christian community is the key to removing the strongholds that exist in this world (37). A community that requires us to watch our words, think before we act, depends on God and engages in spiritual warfare (37-42). And ROH paves the way for deeper union with Christ (38).
We learn a little about Rosaria’s testimony from ‘out-lesbian feminist, a leader in LGBTQ rights, the recent coauthor of the first domestic partnership policy at Syracuse University, and a soon-to-be tenured-radical' to Reformed conservative Christian (47). She started this journey in order to earn the right to critique Christianity and she needed to read and interpret Christian writings (49). Tell me more please. We should all want to earn the right to critique our opposition by reading writings in their own words instead of repeating talking points from our biased sources about their words.
It was the LGBTQ culture that first taught Rosaria hospitality and community, “When I was in a lesbian community, this is how we thought of our homes. I learned a lot in that community about how to shore up a distinctive culture within and to live as a despised but hospitable and compassionate outsider in a transparent and visible way. I learned how to create a habitus that reflected my values to a world that despised me.” (64) Conversely, ROH requires intentionality and spiritual discipline (64). It requires you to be sharpened, to rely on God’s grace, so that your home is a hospital and incubator. Chapter 4 reveals Rosaria’s wide-ranging and adventurous upbringing contrasted with her encounter with ROH with the Smiths’. It was ROH that helped her leave a loving and kind ostracized community for Christianity (supposedly another loving and kind ostracized community). It was the singing that seemed to strike at Rosaria’s hardened interior most poignantly; the lyrical embodiment of the scriptures through the Psalms (75, 77).
Rosaria takes time in TGCHK to talk about the impact of Obergefell, the moral revolution, as well as the necessity for religious liberty being an act of biblical kindness. These are exactly the questions I want to dialogue on: Can a Christian love and accept LGBTQ persons without approving of them? Can today’s culture recognize the difference between acceptance and approval? Is recognizing the social norms of the LGBTQ community also condoning or promoting lies? How do I create a safe place for the LGBTQ community? What hidden privileges of Christian acceptability have been daggers in my hands? Do I have the grace not to say everything there is on a subject? Can I celebrate the good in my unbelieving neighbors without approving their entire worldview? (54-55) I believe we get answers to these questions and more illustrated by only a few quotes from the Chapter 3:
“Unbelievers need to see genuine acceptance from us. They need to see genuine love. They need to see that being made in the image of God is a higher calling, bestowing a greater dignity, than inventing your own rules for faith and life.” (53)
“May my words give grace to those who hear. My words are not pep talks. I hope, indeed, that my words are not even my own but Christ’s working through me. Invest in your neighbors for the long haul, the hundreds of conversations that make up a neighborhood, and stop thinking of conversations with neighbors as sneaky evangelistic raids into their sinful lives. Maybe our own lives are actually more sinful. Is it not more sinful to openly sin while claiming Christ’s lordship than to sin while claiming false rights to self-autonomy? Stop treating your neighbor as a caricature of an alien worldview." (54)
“It is a simple question: If my neighbors who identify as lesbian are in sin, then why are they the nicest people on the block? If our Christian worldview cannot account for that, it can survive only in the echo chamber of imaginary theology." (55)
Rosaria calls out and is skeptical of ‘theme Christianity,’ the exclusionary, self-righteous, or unChristlike offshoots of Christianity. This segment of the book is thought-provoking and convicting, which you can expect from her writing. Interspersed between her testimony are sharp rebukes, “Our lack of genuine hospitality to our neighbors—all of them, including neighbors in the LGBTQ community—explains why counterfeit hospitality seems attractive. Our lack of Christian hospitality is a violent form of neglect for their souls.” (71)
If you’ve ever tried witnessing to an agnostic or atheist friend comfortable holding the tension of multiple contradictions and disorder you can resonate with Rosaria’s clarifying admission of her life before Christ. “Inside of me burbled up toil and trouble. It was as if Pandora belched every time my heart beat. Truth be told, it hadn’t really bothered me before now that discord multiplied out of my mouth. Postmodernism makes peace with discord.” (78)
Radical Ordinary Hospitality
Rosaria describes ROH, which implies the gospel comes with a house key, as: seeing people as God’s image bearers, taking your sin seriously, using the Bible as your lifeline, knowing your home is not your own but a gift from God, and using your gifts to further God’s kingdom (11). She adds that ROH is intentional, anticipatory, communal, comes with open invitations, and requires you to build margin in your life for sharing, embracing diversity, while allowing grace to abound and perfection to die(12). Unfortunately, what should be ordinary amongst Christians is actually radical because we are not doing it.
Rosaria offers a few wonderful life-changing practices in the intro that are worth pondering and adjusting one’s approach to life:
Live below our means to share (12),
Hosts should not be embarrassed to receive help (12),
“Radically ordinary hospitality characterizes those who don’t fuss over different worldviews represented at the dinner table.” (13)
“Engaging in radically ordinary hospitality means we provide the time necessary to build strong relationships with people who think differently than we do as well as build strong relationships from within the family of God.” (13, emphasis mine)
Imagine the change in this world if every Christian paused there and enacted those few applications. We live below our means so we can share, we have grace to receive help, we welcome differences authentically, and make space and time for engaging in hospitality outside of our natural preferences. What more needs to be said! What more needs to be done!
Hospitality is often the answer to the many problems we are trying to address in the community – gangs, poverty and education just being a few. Government and organizations all try to foster social safety that replicate community and hospitality. Is not mentorship, at its best, hospitality? I see a lot of programs trying to recreate and rebrand what the church should be experts at (Acts 2:42-47). Yet as Rosaria proclaims, “Christian hospitality is not for sale. It cannot be made into a commodity.” (86) The church often fails by trying to commoditize hospitality and government or non-profits try to commercialize it. If we want to love our neighbor, end poverty, take care of widows and orphans, and bring about biblical justice, then we need to start employing the spiritual power of hospitality.
I would love it if our churches placed emphasis on things that would radically and ordinarily change the way our society operates instead of programs that simply sustain the system. “We live in a post-Christian world that is sick and tired of hearing from Christians. But who could argue with mercy-driven hospitality? What a potential witness Christians have, untapped and right here at our fingertips. Christians have a moral responsibility to be good stewards, and this includes stewarding the church, religious liberty, ideas, laws, the family, and the worldwide refugee crisis.” (95) Imagine if we emphatically took a stand against war instead of profiting from it. If we advocated for the poor in our community instead of participating in the systems that oppress them. We have so many untapped opportunities if we would only look at Jesus and not ourselves. As Rosaria asks, “Christians have a powerful history of building schools and hospitals, of showing up during natural disasters to offer water and food and shelter and medicine. We have that history. But do we have the daily witness of Christian neighboring?” (95) The opportunities to minister to the LGBTQ community seem to be overwhelmingly available, according to Rosaria, if we can get past ourselves (95). “Hospitality is the ground zero of the Christian life, biblically speaking. A more crucial question for the Bible-believing Christian is this: Is it safe to fail to get involved?” (115)
Question:
How can you get more involved in hospitality in your corner of God’s Kingdom?