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Two weeks ago, our family hosted our small group from church.
Last weekend, we had my parents over to watch the Bears game (my mom, dad, and I are all rabid Bears fans, and, at the time of writing, we were still in the thick of the NFL season).
Next weekend, we’re having friends, family, and fellow church members over not one, not two, but three times.
And in just a couple weeks we’re going to have a teacher from the local Christian school come to live with us for the next couple of years.
And all this while we live our “normal” life as a family of one dog, two parents, three kids, and seven chickens.
Put simply, hospitality has become an important value for our family.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy, though. And it’s not necessarily something that came naturally to us either.
Yet we believe that hospitality is an undeniable part of our faith as Christians, and so, as best we can, we try to practice it.
The Biblical Background of Hospitality
Some people don’t think about hospitality like that. They think of hospitality more as a gift that some people have, and, if you do, you should practice it, but if you don’t, then you don’t need to.
And I’ll admit, there’s some truth to that. After all, there certainly are some people (my wife) who are more gifted at practicing hospitality than others (me).
But that’s not the way the Bible talks about hospitality, like it’s a gift that some people have and others don’t, and if you don’t have it, you’re exempt from practicing it. Instead, in the Bible talks about it, at least, hospitality seems to be more a part of our calling as Christians than a gift.
For instance, in Romans 12, the Apostle Paul writes, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” (Rom. 12:9-13, emphasis mine).
Paul doesn’t make hospitality sound very optional there, does he? None of the other things he mentions in that passage (love, hating evil, clinging to good, devotion, and honor toward others, etc.) are things we would consider optional Christian values. So why would we think hospitality is? Instead, like all the other things Paul lists there, hospitality seems to be a baseline part of our calling as Christians.
There are other passages that seem to say the same thing too. For instance, there’s the famous, sort of mysterious passage in the book of Hebrews that says, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Heb. 13:1-2, emphasis added).
There’s the passage in 1 Peter 4, where Peter simply and straightforwardly says, “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Pet. 4:9, emphasis added).
And then there are countless passages in the Old and New testaments where God’s covenant people actually practice hospitality and give us an example of what it looks like to show it toward others.
The point is, at least according to the Bible, hospitality seems less like an optional add-on for those Christians who are particularly good at it and more like a nonnegotiable part of our calling as Christians.
The Messiness of Hospitality
Like I said earlier, though, that doesn’t make it easy.
Hospitality is messy, sometimes literally.
For instance, the house never feels quite clean enough.
The kids never seem quite well-behaved enough.
And the timing never feels quite convenient enough either.
In fact, sometimes practicing hospitality makes us so tired and stressed out that it seems like it defeats the whole purpose of practicing it in the first place.
And yet, we keep trying. We keep at it. We keep inviting people over, making space at our table, in our lives, and inviting people into the home and family God’s given us.
Why?
Because that’s what God did for us first.
He made a place for us at his table.
He made space for us in his house.
And he invited us into his family through his Son, Jesus Christ.
And just like it isn’t always easy for us, it wasn’t always easy for him either. It wasn’t always simple. It wasn’t always convenient. But even in the midst of the mess, that’s what God chose to do. He chose to love and show hospitality to us, sinners though we are.
And, in grateful response, we should do the same. We should show hospitality to others. It’s part of the calling we’ve received as Christians. We practice the messiness of hospitality because the God of the universe practiced such messy hospitality to us first.
If you’d like to go deeper into the practice of Christian hospitality, I’d recommend the chapter on hospitality in Lauren Winner’s book, Mudhouse Sabbath, or Rosaria Butterfield’s book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key.