ALITA ONG / STOCKSY
That afternoon my son got off the school bus and walked into the midst of this process. He immediately asked who was coming to visit based on his very pragmatic observation that we did the housework only when we were expecting guests. You probably know what I’m talking about. We know that the practice of hospitality requires effort on our part. But this kind of “get the house ready” effort distorts the practice of Christian hospitality. It’s more akin to the puritanical “cleanliness is godliness.” We mistake “entertaining” for “hospitality” and because of that, we miss the opportunity to love and connect and encourage—all traits modeled so beautifully by Jesus. We must forget Martha Stewart and the cable channel “Fine Living Network.” A spotless house with a perfect meal served on Emily Post place settings constitutes hospitality only if we believe that the portrait on the TV set wall really is someone’s grandmother. The central Biblical story of hospitality is that of Jesus at home with Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-41). As Jesus noted, the one thing that any of us has to offer is ourselves. In this sense, hospitality isn’t so much what we do, but who we are. Most of us realize this, at least if we reflect a bit. No one really imagines that the waiter in the three star restaurant—however skillful and attentive he or she may be—actually cares about us as persons. We are, after all, conducting a business transaction. In addition to being who we truly are, we must accept that we live in a world of abundance, not scarcity. Here the Biblical story is the multiplication of the loaves and fish (Matthew 14:16-21). The worried disciples report to Jesus that they have practically nothing with which to satisfy the hunger of thousands. Jesus takes what they do have, blesses, breaks and shares and there is enough to feed everyone with plenty left over. Nice story, we might think, but are there such moments in our lives? Christians worship a God who refuses to be reduced to human measure. The writer Annie Dillard captures this wildness when she writes: “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats
and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.” To be in the presence of God is to be transformed in ways that none of us can fully imagine. It is to enter a new world, a world of abundance where God provides what we need to be faithful. Untamed hospitality requires embracing an abundance mindset so that we’re comfortable sharing who we are and what we have. Guests are not for our consumption. Before you dismiss this as obvious (or just nuts), let me remind you of a non-Biblical story. In Homer’s epic The Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew are washed ashore on the island of the Cyclops and they seek shelter in the cave of the monster, Polyphemus. What makes this creature a monster is not his gigantic size nor the eye in the center of his forehead. He is a monster because he violates the most basic law of god and men: when strangers come to him, he does not shelter or comfort them. He devours them. How do we view others? Are they interruptions, threats, irritations? Do we see others in our lives as opportunities for our advancement? Are they to be used or to be served? A truly Christian hospitality sees those who come to us as blessings. What exactly does this kind of hospitality look like? It looks like taking time to sit with a lonely widow or befriend a troubled child. It looks like sitting with a grieving neighbor or carrying a meal to a shut-in. None of these gestures seem particularly radical and they certainly don’t require a clean house or nicely set table. But in a fast-paced world of anonymity and competition, these small gestures become radical embodiments of the grace of Christ. Most of all, Christian hospitality looks like allowing God to gather us as the body of Christ so that we might witness to the host of all creation. Only then do we begin to learn the new “habits of being” necessary to live hospitality that takes us beyond our wildest imagination. n
Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels. —Hebrews 13:2, (NKJV)
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Dr. Beth Newman is Professor of Theology and Ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary. She’s also the author of Untamed Hospitality, Welcoming God and Other Strangers.
WINTER 2011
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