Hospitality Until It Hurts

What do we think of when the word “hospitality” is uttered? Is it a hospitality package at a major sporting event? Or the exquisite food and beverages we see in portrayed as the experience of the rich and famous? Perhaps it’s the job someone has in the industry bearing the name “hospitality”. 

More traditional dictionaries define hospitality as “the act of being friendly and welcoming to guests and visitors”. A contemporary definition states “making guests feel like they’re at home, even if you wish they were”!

The scriptures have many verses on hospitality. 

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling” 

1 Peter 4:8-9, NIV

“Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” 

Romans 12:13, NIV 

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” 

Hebrews 13:2, NIV

“Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…” 

1 Timothy 3:2, NIV

“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts…” 

Acts 2:46, NIV

It is linked to healthy relationship, good leadership, provision for the less fortunate and unknown and it is the way of God’s followers.

Matthew 25 – the parable of the sheep and the goats – warns what happens if your heart is not inclined to hospitality at all times. 

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”  

Matthew 25:31-40 NIV

Jesus’ followers then heard the eternal consequences for those who failed to show hospitality as he was describing it. It is not simply a nice meal and some swanky wine;  Jesus talks about it in much more real, much more meaningful terms. 

He considers it to be things like the basic provision of any food, clean water, shelter, succour when the “other” – even those not really know to us – is suffering badly and helpless to change their circumstances. Hospitality when it hurts, hospitality when its uncomfortable, hospitality that is life giving, hospitality that is life changing.

When God created the heavens and the earth, He was in perfect fellowship with woman and man. They fellowshipped in a place named the Garden of Eden – God’s created shalom on earth. One of God’s early instructions to them was that they had free reign to eat from any of the life-giving plants that bore fruit; all except the “tree of knowledge”.  

This was God’s first illustration of His intended shalom for those He created.  Unfortunately, we are where we are, in the midst of so much sinfulness, because of Adam and Eve’s initial unwillingness to keep this one request, and the consequences of the breaking of the perfect relationship with God. Hospitality was life-giving, not to be abused.

Israel had suffered enormous loss at Eygpt’s hand. God had sent plagues, but it wasn’t until He sent the plague of death (of the first born of every household) that the Pharoah finally told Moses to take the people away. Israel’s households were spared, because Moses was given a word from God to tell his people to mark their doorpost with lamb's blood above their door so that the Angel of Death would pass over them and not mete out God’s punishment.  

The Passover meal became an annually observed meal of thankfulness by the Jewish people; it was a meal where the deliverance story of this event was stepped through in great detail, noting God’s provision – in a circumstance they were unable to escape – in the midst of generations of oppression. God gave Israel life. Israel celebrated the giving of life and restoration of a more normal experience of how God intended it to be for them – His shalom – as they left Eygpt.

The night before he was betrayed, Jesus retired to an upper room and had a meal with his twelve disciples (although he did dismiss Judas pretty early on). Over a Passover meal, they would have, no doubt, shared the typical Jewish practices of the meal, commemorating different events using different courses of food.  

Matthew 26 tells us that the disciples spent time getting this meal ready, at Jesus' command. Jesus uses this ancient commemoration to affirm prophesies from the Old Testament that were about Him – the Paschal Lamb – who would be sacrificed for the sins of the world. 

And then, in the context of a meal that was about the protection of life and deliverance of God’s people, Jesus introduces God’s new covenant – the sacrifice, death, defeat of death, resurrection and restoration of full relationship with God – that Jesus crucifixion will bring about. New observances for God’s people to share – in the practices most of us call holy communion.  

This was another moment of hospitality, over a meal, focusing on life-giving – given by God, once and for all, sufficient for all humankind – and a celebration of Jesus as the Prince of Peace – Sar Shalom – beginning the final full restoration of shalom for all His people.

Fast forward to the final chapters of Revelation. When the Last Battle is won, there is another allusion to a meal – the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). It is celebration of life, a meal for God’s people, God’s hospitality in full force. God, having fought the enemy on our behalf, and won, lavishes us with undeserved favour in this meal.  

At that very point of re-creating shalom in all its completeness forever, at that moment God’s new Jerusalem is established (the new heaven and new earth), a glorious food event – resplendent with God’s hospitality – announces its beginning.

God wants us to be like Him. He wants us to lavish His love, through hospitality of all kinds, on those regardless of whether they deserve it. But, lest we be luke-warm about it, Jesus made it clear that the kind of hospitality that reflects God’s character is that which doesn’t count the cost, doesn’t hold to account, is selfless, sometimes anonymous and always life-giving in nature.

We can be His people, partnering in giving glimpses of His shalom into the lives of others.  Maybe this Easter season is a time for all of us to reconsider what we do in offering hospitality, and ask God to show us those moments we’ve been missing to bring Him glory through our hospitality.

Shalom.