In ancient times, hospitality was viewed as a pillar on which the moral structure of the world rested. It was a highly valued moral practice, seen as an important expression of kindness, mutual aid, neighborliness, and a response to the life of faith.

Hospitality addressed the physical needs of strangers for food, shelter, and protection, but also included recognition of their worth and common humanity. It almost always involved shared meals; table fellowship was historically an important way of acknowledging the equal value and dignity of people.

Based on the biblical teachings, and especially on Jesus’ identification with the stranger in Matt. 25:35 and his teaching on the necessity of welcoming “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” to our dinner tables (Luke 14:12–14), a distinctive understanding of hospitality emerged in the first centuries of the church. Leaders insisted that although in conventional hospitality people welcomed family, friends, and influential acquaintances, Christian hospitality ought to focus on welcoming the vulnerable and the poor into one’s home and community of faith. Followers of Christ should offer a generous welcome to “the least of these,” without concern for advantage or benefit to the host. Such welcome would reflect God’s greater hospitality  that welcomes the undeserving, provides the lonely with a home, and sets a banquet table for the hungry.

Hospitality to needy strangers distinguished the early church from its surrounding environment. Noted as exceptional by Christians and non-Christians alike, offering care to strangers became one of the distinguishing marks of the authenticity of the Christian gospel. Concerns about the needs of strangers and poor people eventually gave rise to hospitals and hospices and these, along with substantial changes in the church itself, eventually resulted in an institutionalization of care which distanced response to basic needs from community. Increasing specialization of care meant that needy people were less frequently incorporated into a local body of believers and more often cared for at a distance by paid workers. Eventually, hospitality came to be understood primarily as welcoming friends and family, the activities of the hospitality industry, and the work of committees that arranged coffee hours at church.

But the loss of connections need not be so comprehensive to demonstrate the importance ofhospitality. Because our society is highly mobile and because families are often deeply fractured, there are many other people who also need welcome into our homes, churches, and communities: elderly people, alienated teens, international students, immigrants, etc. Followers of Jesus have a rich tradition within which to respond, if we could only recognize how important our welcome is.

Hospitality  is not so much a task as it is a way of living our lives and sharing ourselves. Although it involves responsibility and faithful performance of duties, welcome emerges from a grateful heart; it is first a response of love and gratitude for God’s love and welcome to us. Hospitality will not occur in any significant way in our lives, homes, or churches unless we give it deliberate attention. Because the practice has been mostly forgotten and because it conflicts with a number of contemporary values, we must intentionally nurture a commitment to hospitality.

Hospitality is difficult because it involves hard work. People wear out and struggle with limits. Our society places a high value on control, planning, and efficiency, but hospitality is unpredictable and often inefficient. We insist on measurable results and completed tasks, but the results of  a gracious welcome are impossible to quantify and the work of hospitality is rarely finished. Hospitality is also difficult today because of our overwhelming busyness. With already overburdened schedules, trying to offer substantial welcome can drive us to despair.

Understanding the church as God’s household has significant implications for hospitality. More than anywhere else, when we gather as church our practice of hospitality should reflect God’s gracious welcome. God is our host, and we are all guests of God’s grace. However, in individual churches, we also have opportunities to act as hosts who welcome others, making a place for strangers and sojourners.

Churches are crucial settings for nurturing a life of welcome. Because we are unaware of the significance of our friendship and fellowship, our best resources often remain inaccessible to strangers. Churches, like families, need to eat together to sustain their identity as a community. The table is central to the practice of hospitality in home and church. The nourishment we gain there is physical, spiritual, and social. Whether we gather around the table for the Lord’s Supper or for a church potluck dinner, we are strengthened as a community. Meals shared together in church provide opportunities to sustain relationships and build new ones. They establish a space that is personal without being private, an excellent setting in which to begin friendships with strangers. Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities, writes that “Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren’t afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.” He also offers an important warning: “A community which refuses to welcome—whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors—is dying spiritually.”

When we have opportunities to design or to construct physical environments, it is important to choose the physical arrangements that enable welcome to occur. Inviting entrances, accessible facilities, comfortable furnishings, and adequate lighting communicate a sense of welcome.

Besides sharing food and drink with someone, which is central to almost every act of hospitality, the most important practice of welcome is giving a person our full attention. It is impossible to overstate the significance of paying attention, listening to people’s stories, and taking time to talk with them. For those of us who feel that time is our scarcest resource, often this requires slowing ourselves down sufficiently to be present to the person. It means that we view individuals as human beings rather than as embodied needs or interruptions.

Hospitality can be inconvenient and we must be careful not to be grudging in our welcome. It is possible to invite someone in but also to communicate to them “in a thousand small ways” that we have other things we need to be doing, or that we are making a substantial sacrifice to be with them.

Good hosts resist temptations to use hospitality as a means to another end. To use hospitality instrumentally is antithetical to seeing it as a way of life, as a tangible expression of love. When we use hospitality as a tool, we distort it, and the people we welcome know quickly that they are being used. Because today we worry so much about calculating costs and benefits, we readily apply this orientation to Hospitality. We ask, sometimes as an expression of good stewardship, “What will it accomplish?” “How is it useful?” Hospitality is rich with blessing, but such benefits come as gifts, and even churches must be wary of efforts to turn hospitality into some form of commercial exchange.

Good hosts allow the wideness of God’s mercy and the generosity of God’s welcome to frame their thinking about limits and boundaries.

As you can gather a great deal of thinking has been occurring concerning hospitality. In the age of optimism we live in we are tempted to give ourselves an “A”. If we compare ourselves to other congregations we may in deed have an “A”. Yet we judge ourselves by the welcome of Jesus surely we can see we have work left to do.

We have received a $25,000 grant for a project of hospitality geared at single parents. What is it like to raise children by yourself, to be constantly fatigued? To feel guilty when you are working. Then to feel guilty when you are taking a few moments to shave your legs. This is a ministry which goes beyond babysitting, to offer these families enrichment and renewal opportunities. The money is available, but to pull it off we are going need forty or so people who want to “welcome” these families. We will have to extend hospitality to preach the gospel. Who will step up by kneeling down?

In the fall we are going to participate in Angel food ministries. Another hospitality ministry to aid the working class with affordable meals. This project will need a leader and dozen or so “hospitable people” who are willing to offer a hand up and not a hand out.

Offering hospitality in a world distorted by sin, injustice, and brokenness will rarely be easy. Good hosts need a combination of grace, spiritual and moral intuition, prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of a tradition, and skills to assess each situation. Recognizing that their strength and hope come from God and are renewed in community, good hosts are careful to nourish their lives in the Scriptures and in the practices of the church. Good hosts discover the divine mystery in hospitality that as they welcome strangers, they are themselves beloved guests of God’s grace.

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