Expanding horizons - hospitality & grace
Luke 10:38-42, Genesis 18:1-10a In these readings I think we encounter the God who pushes our boundaries and invites us to expand our understanding of what it means to love God and neighbour. I’m going to say quite a lot about the NT reading and then rather less about the OT reading. I think it is no coincidence that Luke tells us this story right after Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, which you might well have heard in last week’s lectionary reading. A quick recap - a lawyer, testing Jesus, asks the question ‘what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ and when Jesus points him to the law ‘Love God and your neighbour as yourself’ the man counters with ‘but who is my neighbour?’. Jesus then tells the story of the Jewish man who is robbed and beaten, ignored by two fellow Jews, but rescued by a Samaritan. Jesus finishes with the killer question “which one was a neighbour?” - expanding the lawyer’s view of what constitutes a neighbour. Then we get this story o