On Preaching: Homiletical Hospitality

David Lower

Wow! What was that? And how do we get more of it?” These words of Beyza, a Turkish Muslim woman leader, rang like the church tower bell that tells the neighborhood something significant is happening. She was responding to a Sunday morning worship service that felt new and wondrous to the Presbyterians in the room, too. It was the second Interfaith Advent Service of Lessons and Carols at Saint Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody, Georgia, an experience made possible by the commitment of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian friends to share life together. The service welcomed our interreligious guests to be present for a Sunday morning holy season worship tradition, read Scriptures we hold in common, and help the word of Advent hope be preached.

On this day, the symbols in the sanctuary included the familiar rose window, the table, the empty cross, and the light of Christ. But these were joined by new sights: different faces and instruments, yarmulkes and hijabs. This worship service was distinguished by its participants and by its context, as divisions and cries for justice raged across the globe over the excruciating Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. The weight of the world, though, at least for an hour one December morning, felt buoyed by the proclamation of Advent hope and the story of saving grace that would come to be fully alive in Jesus. “That may be the most moving experience I’ve ever had in Christian worship,” said more than one church leader that morning, including me. “I had no idea Christianity could be like this,” a guest confided.

This collective sense of wonder led us seamlessly into the service’s heart: the compelling Advent promise, which found its fullest expression in the lessons, carols, prayers, and our collaborative sermon. In this moment, I was joined by Beyza and Rabbi Spike as we reflected together on Advent as God’s “coming toward” us—a holy movement that awakens our anticipation of its fulfillment. We remembered God’s gracious, faithful, and active nature in history as cause for our hope in a new world where love will reign and mercy, justice, and peace will flourish.

Building on our shared proclamation, the voices of our interreligious friends brought new clarity to the gospel’s shape and size. Our theological differences seemed so small compared to the act of living compassionately and hospitably together. Rabbi Spike offered, “What’s happening right now is a good starting place for hope.” He reminded us of the first creation story: “God made light before the sun, the moon, and the stars. That light is goodness and hope that permeates and sets the basis for everything. It shines on our path together and is reflected in how we live in hard-earned friendship.”

Beyza highlighted the dual meaning of Advent: God coming toward us, and we coming toward God—both essential expressions in her Islamic tradition. “When we remember God, it shapes us,” she said—an Advent proclamation if I’ve ever heard one. As an illustration, she asked us to imagine preparing our home as if Jesus were coming today. What would we do to make him comfortable and welcome? Hospitality, she reminded us, is how we receive both neighbor and God. 

It was then I realized that the way we were preaching had itself become a symbol of our proclamation. God moves toward us, we move toward God—and that movement was alive before our very eyes. The pulpit, too small to hold three people at once, gave way to a table of welcome in front of the communion table, with the light of Christ behind us. The words we exchanged were faithful to the great story of God that comes alive in Jesus. Yet even more, the medium itself preached: the medium of co-preaching across boundaries can embody God’s gracious welcome more vividly than words alone. As Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.”

This experience clarified a conviction for me: our homiletics can—and sometimes should—intentionally embody hospitality. As a practice of homiletical hospitality, this Interfaith Advent sermon made room for a broader, deeper proclamation of the gospel than I could have offered alone. The experience revealed that such preaching was not just a creative idea but a theological stance: hospitality as the shape of preaching, breaking open the walls we build and letting the light of God’s promised future spill in.

Homiletical hospitality is especially vital in congregations of privilege like the one I serve. By inviting others to share in the act of proclamation—preaching with colleagues, members, or neighbors—we model humility and relinquish control, making space for God to work. Paul wrote to the Romans that hope is hard-earned, forged through struggle. For people like me, and the primarily white, affluent congregation I serve, privilege itself can be laid down in service of this more inclusive gospel. Homiletical hospitality is a faithful struggle: relinquishing control, stepping down from platforms of advantage, and assuming a posture of humility in which God can work and by which God can lead.

This call to humility offers a word of encouragement in our time of global conflict, systemic injustice, fractured trust, and spiritual fatigue. The temptation is to retreat into self-protection, to guard our pulpits and build higher walls. But humility—the kind Paul names as fertile ground for hope—can be practiced, modeled, and experienced in worship, especially when we risk opening the pulpit to others.

At its heart, homiletical hospitality is making room—for other voices, other stories, and the Spirit’s surprising work. The pulpit becomes a table of welcome, proclamation a shared meal, enriched by the presence of others. Jesus’ ministry was marked by shared tables and unexpected guests, where blessing flowed in every direction. Preaching that embodies this incarnational pattern is preaching that shines light into darkness—a light that, as Rabbi Spike reminded us, existed even before the sun.

The incarnation is God’s own act of hospitality: making room in the divine life for humanity. When preaching dares to imitate this welcome, it becomes more than words from a pulpit. It becomes an open table set on the front porch of the kingdom, a sign that the gospel is alive and hope is already here. It has become clear to me that our preaching can both say and do so, and we all need more of it.