Hospitality with a smile!

Your children are away for the weekend and you have decided not to cook a 'proper' meal but take a day off and have beans on toast for Sunday lunch. Your husband, a hospitable chap, sees a new family in the service and invites them home for lunch with no prior reference to the cook! Does this sound familiar?
In Genesis 18, Abraham received some surprise visitors, and without so much as a 'please', he told Sarah to hurry up and get a meal. We are not told how she felt about his request, but it is clear that she did as she was asked. The question of how to react when faced with our modern-day equivalent scene made an interesting Bible study for me recently. How would you react? Leave it to some other church member to do the inviting? Panic and get your husband to tell the visitors his wife is suddenly unwell? Go home and cut the pork chops in half, seething with resentment?
A few weeks ago, I had to remind myself of our Bible study about Sarah. One Sunday I took some German visitors to the airport before the morning service; the breakfast things had not been washed up and absolutely no lunch preparations had been made. We noticed friends from another town (who are probably reading this article!) in the service, and sure enough my husband kindly invited them and their children back for lunch. My first reaction was: 'Will we be a stumbling block to them if we buy Kentucky Fried Chicken on a Sunday?' My second was: 'How many fish fingers are in the freezer?' My third (I'm slow, I know) was to remember the conclusion of our Bible study: as a wife in this situation I can choose how to respond. I can either resent my husband's kindness and the fact that he didn't refer to me, or I can be glad that he has such confidence in me.

Stretching a meal

If you are new to cooking (or to being hospitable!), you might like some practical tips on how to stretch a meal for unexpected guests. If you already have a casserole cooking, which is now not large enough for the number you have to feed, stir in a can of heated baked beans. Alternatively, make up some scones (you are allowed to use a packet mix kept in the larder for the purpose) for a cobbler topping to fill the extra mouths. Keep some choc ices in the freezer for an emergency dessert. If you have a microwave oven, a syrup sponge pudding can be mixed and cooked within 15 minutes - this goes down very well when the visitors are hungry students!
Our guests were not served KFC or fish fingers, but 'Mexican mix-up', a recipe given me by a friend which can be adapted according to what you have in the cupboard and vegetable rack, though it does assume you have some sausages available. Quantities can vary according to numbers, but allow about 2oz pasta per person. Grill the sausages until partly cooked. In a large saucepan fry onion (and/or pepper, diced carrot etc), then add macaroni (or pasta shells, twists etc), tinned tomatoes, stock (or water), salt & pepper and the sausages cut in halves or thirds; simmer until the pasta and sausages are cooked. Some chilli powder gives the Mexican dimension, or throw in some mixed herbs, stir natural yoghurt in at the end, hand round some grated cheese for a topping - use your imagination! This is a filling meal, but if you're still convinced there won't be enough to go round, serve a green vegetable or mixed salad as well.

In visitors' shoes

Put yourself in the visitors' shoes. If you are new to a church, would you rather go back home alone (or worse, to your hotel or Macdonald's) because the members couldn't possibly serve anything less than roast lamb and all the trimmings, or be invited for a homely meal (or cheese sandwiches) and the friendship of fellow-Christians? (Romans 12.13). Above all, relax! Of course, the new person at church may not be a Christian. Your hospitality could mark the first time he realises that God accepts - more than that, welcomes - all who respond to his invitation to come to him. We once invited a dishevelled visitor home where he had a shower and clean clothes, a hot meal and a family walk by the river in the afternoon. 'I can't believe this is happening,' was his response.

Hints on preparing meals for the unexpected visitor from church

Stretching a meal

In visitors' shoes

Jennifer Watkins

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