Be My Guest
Life is good in a small town. It was John Mellencamp that said something like this. I’ve been in Big Stone Gap, Virginia the past few days and I’ve seen firsthand that Mellencamp was on to something! The town has rolled out the red carpet for Little League baseball teams from around the state to ensure a warm welcome for all. Even the hotel staff has adopted our team and seem to be keeping up with scores and stats like they are parents.
Hospitality goes a long way.
If one were to think about Jesus’s earthly ministry, a few aspects may come to mind: miracles, teaching, the Passion. But how could such a prolific person be so approaching to all? Jesus understood the power of hospitality. Biblically speaking, hospitality is a sacred calling of the Jesus follower to treat the stranger like an honored guest.
When we think about hospitality, we most often think about welcoming those we know. We have a party or gathering, and we extend hospitality to our friends. That’s not biblical hospitality. It’s great and please don’t stop inviting me over for dinner. But it’s not what the biblical call of hospitality entails. Hospitality comes from a mixture of two Greek words: phileo (brotherly love) and xenos (stranger). Together they indicate the charge for us to honor the stranger as our guest. The radical love of stranger or foreigner would be the most accurate definition of biblical hospitality.
He [Jesus] also said to the one who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14:12-14
Hospitality is radical at its essence. Jesus hadn’t lost His mind when He gave this charge. Jesus understood a powerful principle that a person can belong before they believe. A demonstration of the love of God can be the pathway for a person to accept the love of God. Hospitality clears the path to Jesus!
Small town hospitality doesn’t have to be relegated to a small town. It’s a mindset of embracing the other by extending a sense of belonging. Could we get burned? Of course, but that seems to be exactly what Jesus is saying! If we extend reciprocal hospitality, we’ve moved into a realm all together different. A good realm nonetheless, but outside the sacred call of biblical hospitality. We are to extend love to the stranger or foreigner as a radical act of selfless love.
Hospitality played a crucial part in the rapid expansion of early Christianity. Perhaps there are lessons we need to resurrect in a culture where Christianity has lost some of its saltiness. Hospitality is a way to demonstrate our love unhitched from our words or response of the other. We’d be on a different path from a culture that promotes fear and exclusion of the other but imagine what Jesus might do through the radical embrace of hospitality!