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Hospitality: Stranger Love is the opposite of Gangrene

I gave this sermon on 1 Peter 4:8-10, on Sept. 1, 2019, as part of our 12 Scriptures Project series at MCotS. It centers on hospitality as love of the Stranger--literally philoxenos. In it I cite this podcast Civil War is Solvable and read this article about Pastora Mira Garcia.

I really wanted to go into greater depth exploring the idea, the comparison, that hospitality is the opposite of gangrene. Gangrene is this slow spreading tissue death caused by lack of blood supply, lack of oxygen. But hospitality slowly breathes life back into places of death (esp. in in Pastora Mira's story). This connection to breath, new life, the Holy Spirit--there's something there. But there's only so much time in each sermon, so I will leave the fleshing out (gross pun!) of this idea for another day.

"We have been talking about welcoming the stranger. It’s pretty clear what that does for the stranger--food, warmth, safety, but I am considering this week, how hospitality changes us."
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