Catherine Mackenzie encourages us to embrace biblical hospitality rather than cultural hospitality
What I look forward to most when I have some down time in an airport is people-watching or reading magazines.
I like it when there are loads of titles that I don’t normally get to read. On the odd occasion that I find myself in an American airport with a few hours to spare I usually purchase an armload and then hide myself in a corner not far from the boarding desk. Which is why last year I found myself sitting in Dallas departures, delving into titles like Southern Home, The Pioneer Woman and Cooking for Fall. They all had a similar tone or theme to them – how to be the hostess with the mostest.
Those magazines were amazing. The photography was stunning. The recipes certainly looked delicious. If someone had added scratch-and-sniff stickers I’d have been drooling and ready to break my diet there and then. Every one of them had an image or two of a woman with faultless make up, a perfect home and a relaxed and easy air about her. Man, those gals looked chilled! Cooking for crowds was something they did before breakfast without breaking a sweat, far less a china plate.
Hospitality absent
Yet there was something missing. At first it was hard to put a finger on it – everything was there, from the décor to the scheduling to the colour scheme. Yet … although the articles often referred to the word hospitality, it was in the end glaringly absent.
Somewhere along the line, hospitality in our culture, and even in the Christian church, has become more about Me and less about You … or for that matter God. We’ve started focusing on hospitality as if it is a ‘How to’ issue rather than a ‘Who’ issue or a ‘Why’ issue. Let me explain …
Hospitality, just as with everything that we do in our lives, should be about glorifying God and if we are taking any of that glory to ourselves intentionally or unintentionally then we are missing out. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says ‘Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.’
So to get to the core of hospitality we need to focus on: What it is; Who it is for; How God does it.
Pay and display?
Hospitality is either described as a gift or a duty in Scripture – in today’s society we see it as an opportunity to pay and display. The whole performance can end up costing quite a pretty penny in order to show off our home, our style, our talents. Now don’t get me wrong – if we have a home, if we’ve got style and if we have talents, then we should use them for God’s glory. If God has been generous with you, then you need to generously share with others. But we must acknowledge who the giver is who has given to us. And we should never feel that we have to live up to the magazine images, because hospitality is more than that – and less. It’s more than appearances and performances because it should be about loving others and putting ourselves in the back seat. It’s less than a mountain load of effort and a hefty bill at the end – because showing love and hospitality can definitely reflect the ‘less is more’ philosophy.
What hospitality is
A good book to have open or at least sitting beside your Bible is a dictionary. The definition of the word hospitality is: the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors or strangers.’
In this definition there are a couple of key words that don’t even get a look in. You don’t see the word house or cooking, do you? Why is that, when you would assume that both words are essential ingredients to being hospitable? Perhaps the Bible has a different take on things? Well, not really.
We hear about people in Scripture who hosted others and offered great hospitality. There’s Martha for a start. If she had entered the Great British Bake Off she would definitely have got a handshake from Paul Hollywood. But when this woman was up to her eyes in the kitchen, cooking and preparing, she missed the entire point about real hospitality. Her sister and her Lord were in the next room with other believers sharing fellowship and the word of God. But Martha, with all her skills and effort, spoiled the day by whining and complaining.
You see there’s one thing that hospitality must be – and it’s not ‘well designed’ or ‘on time’ or even ‘tasty’. It’s to be done with a cheerful disposition. Show hospitality with a happy heart and smiling face. 1 Peter 4:9 says: Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. This verse teaches us that biblical hospitality is more about the heart than the house.
Now, just because we can do hospitality wrong doesn’t mean we don’t do it at all. Sometimes I fall into that trap of thinking: ‘Oh bother. I’ve made a mistake – I won’t even try again.’ That is not biblical. The same self-interest that Martha suffered from can make us stop even trying to be hospitable to others. We let our hang-ups dictate what we can and cannot do:
Personality – I feel too awkward to invite people in. House – my place is so tiny I can’t even swing a mouse, far less a cat. Bank balance – I can’t afford to cook a Sunday roast for six. Skills – I don’t even know how to bake a biscuit. Time – I’m on really weird shifts all week.
These are all valid reasons for not being able to invite a host of people round to your home for a slap-up feed – however, they’re not valid reasons for avoiding the Christian duty of hospitality.
If hospitality is ‘the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors or strangers’, then you can do hospitality without a house.
I’m not going to make this article into another ‘How to’, but, just to illustrate the point, here are a couple of ways you can be hospitable without even a postal address.
1. Use your car. Drive people to church or to a doctor’s appointment. Take an elderly neighbour on a jaunt to a nearby garden centre or café.
2. If you don’t have enough chairs in your apartment, be hospitable in other places. A ham sandwich on a bench with a listening ear – that’s friendly, generous, it might even be entertaining if you’ve practiced a joke or two.
Who is hospitality for?
The dictionary points out guests, visitors or strangers. The Bible goes one further and encourages us to give hospitality to those who are in no position to give it back to us (Luke 14:13-14). God’s word even tells us to feed our enemies (Rom. 12:20).
Gone are the carefully designed social occasions where you have a select clientele that include friends and friends of friends. When we invite the stranger or even our enemy to our table, car or picnic bench we do something profound. Read Matthew 25:34-40. This is the real ‘Who’ of hospitality. When we open our hearts and lives to others we open ourselves to God and in a wonderful way we serve him. The hospitality when we feed the hungry with a sausage roll or give drink to the thirsty with a pot of tea will be remembered on the Day of Judgement.
You may not think of these things as a sacrifice, but sometimes they are. Giving of what we have may not always be easy. It is certainly something that God delights to see (Heb. 13:16). And that’s part of the ‘Why’ of hospitality. It pleases God when we do it.
Why does it please Him? Well, hospitality is something He has told us to do, and obedient children are pleasing to their father. And practicing hospitality is actually following God’s example.
How does God show hospitality?
By taking lost, guilty sinners into His own family and finally to their heavenly home forever. So, to sum things up – you can and must be hospitable.
You don’t need a home. The Good Samaritan showed hospitality without one. You don’t need to be wealthy. God accepts the widow’s mite and the widow’s cup. You don’t have to cook a three-course meal. God used a picnic basket with five loaves and two fish. You do have to do everything to the glory of God.
So, show hospitality because God has shown it to you in the most loving and ungrudging way on the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ, who never even had a place to lay his head, opened up His body and His heart, giving of Himself in extreme generosity to sinners, to His enemies. ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:8).
Take your cups and your spoons, open your door and your heart, drive your car with a picnic you never cooked and just share what you have with the Lord’s people, your next-door neighbour, the person you’ve never met before, or that really annoying so-and-so. Guests, visitors, strangers, enemies – practice hospitality with them. The saying is that practice makes perfect … well just remember we’re not aiming for magazine perfect. That sort of perfect doesn’t really exist. What we are looking for is to demonstrate and reflect God’s perfect love in the simple, profound act of hospitality.
