Tag: hospitality

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The Heaven of Hospitality, Part 3

Bonhoeffer spoke of three tables: a) the daily fellowship at the table, b) the table of the Lord’s Supper, and c) the final table fellowship at the Last Day. We can say that for Bonhoeffer, our daily meals are preparatory for future meals. After all, hospitality is eschatological. There is nothing more fitting for a table of kings and queens than to practice the habits of the eternal kingdom of our Lord.

One begins to see this eschatology in place when the very people you hosted in your home form their own households and begin to share in that treasure of untold stories and laughter. Remember that your children are watching, and they are likely going to imitate your patterns later in life.

It happens, but rarely have I seen inhospitable parents produce hospitable sons. The stories your offspring will tell will be of dreadful loneliness at home growing up or experiences of joy around a table. Again, it is very rare that an inhospitable family rejoices around a table as a matter of practice. Rather, the hospitality of others produces the joy around the table when there is no one to host.

We can begin somewhere to explore the pleasures of hosting when we see it as a seed planted in the eternal garden of praise. To have someone enter your home and partake of your gifts of food is to allow someone to enter into the place of deepest secrets; we are allowing them to see the transparency of unkept yards, rogue Lego pieces, partly uncooked or overcooked meals, rambunctious children, and the regular messiness of life.

Yes, you should probably do some cleaning, but you should restrain from excessive cleaning lest you treat it as a mechanical showcasing of your home. As one sage says, “Your home should look like someone lives in it!” To do that, leave open invitations for the single and the widows to come by for a lentil soup or a Sam’s bought pizza or a good home-cooked dinner on a typical weekday. Then, there will only be a short amount of time to remove the occasional kids’ clothes lying on the couch. Speedy and spontaneous hospitality is still good hospitality.

If hospitality is eschatological, then every experience in hosting is a theological act. If hosting is eschatological, then every piece of pie served, every glass of wine, the spilled peas, the summer watermelon, and the awkward pauses around a table is an act of grace. To be hospitable is to embrace heaven at an elaborate party or at a dinner of herbs.

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The Heaven of Hospitality: Our Noble Excuses, Part 2

Hospitality was a distinctive mark of the early church. Consider these words written in 96 AD by Clement of Rome, writing from the church in Rome to the church in Corinth:

“Indeed, was there ever a visitor in your midst that did not approve of your excellent and steadfast faith…or did not proclaim the magnificent character of your hospitality?”

What does it look for a Church to be known for its hospitality in the community? We often forget that one of the greatest displays of true religion which catapulted the Christian faith in the ancient world was the gift of hospitality. The Church constantly intermingled in this world of eating and drinking together (Acts 2:42). The result of such experiences was that the Lord’s Day became a day of exceeding joy, even amidst persecution.

The Christian’s most important day is doubled in communion and blessings when members have already tasted moments of worship around a table, singing with friends, and laughing with our children through the week. Indeed, hospitality throughout the week becomes the preparatory means to feast and prepare our hearts for Sunday. In fact, the more it is practiced, the richer will the Sabbath event be amidst the congregation.

Because this is so crucial in the life of the Church, and precisely because the Church’s imperative is so clear biblically and historically, I do not accept any psychological description that sounds like an apologetic for not doing it. Such may vary from, “But I don’t make enough money for hospitality,” or “I don’t know how to cook for large groups,” or “I am not comfortable entertaining people,” or “my house is too small,” or “I live alone,” or “life is too hectic right now,” and a host of self-defeating propositions (see Randy Booth’s article in the comment section).

We shall address some of these in the future, but suffice to say, the kind of hospitality I advocate is the incremental type that begins by inviting a family or a couple or an individual over at least once a month. In fact, the kindest hosts I know are people who don’t make much money and live in small homes but determined long ago that this is a gift of immeasurable worth that cannot be set aside because of fears or uncertainties.

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves whether we have allowed our apathy to dictate our imperative instead of shutting our apathy with God’s imperatives. The impact hospitality has on a family will endure to a thousand generations. If we linger, we are missing out on the benediction bestowed on others through hospitality, but more importantly, the benediction God would love to bestow on us.

#hospitality

#earlychurch

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The Heaven of Hospitality, Part 1

Many years ago, shortly after we were married, we decided to invest in this hospitality business. We had heard the tapes, knew our biblical imperatives and came across some really dangerous authors who told us that hospitality was not an option. I regret ever having served my neighbor with food and laughter…said no one ever!

I remember inviting over a fairly wealthy family. The father was a gentle soul who was very successful in his labors. They accepted our invitation, and when we returned home from church to get everything ready, it dawned on us that our table could only fit four people, but they were a family of 6. Our apartment was slightly over 700 square feet, and we only had four chairs.

After some deliberation, we decided to sit on the floor and eat, to which they happily agreed. I remember being slightly embarrassed, but our concerns faded when we started eating and laughing. It was one of the most memorable Sundays in my life!

Here is the truth, as black as Amazonian coffee: those who do not practice hospitality fail to taste the goodness of God. It’s plain and simple. When Paul said, “do hospitality” (διώκοντες (Rom. 12:13; root word engages the concept of “persecution;” think of happily persecuting hospitality), he said that we are to be zealous for this gift.

For Paul and many other biblical authors, hospitality was a visible demonstration of our baptism into Christ. Christ hosts us in his body, and we host others in our abode. We improve our baptisms by baptizing others into our baptized life around a table.

We shall deal with practicalities throughout, but we must begin this conversation with an important principle found in Solomon. Proverbs 15:17 says: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” The Bible uses the image of a “fattened ox” to represent the finest foods available. The contrast is significant in this text because love is preferred over the best foods. Abundance and hatred do not go hand in hand. Abundance and hatred produce an un-godly environment–an environment where people do not want to be. Wealth and hatred only lead to disaster, but wealth of love is the secret ingredient to hospitality.

In one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs, he writes:

It’s not the barley or the wheat

It’s not the oven or the heat

That makes this bread so good to eat

It’s the needing and the sharing that makes the meal complete.

What makes a meal complete is the sense of sharing and passing and needing oneness in the context of a table, even if that table comes from the meager earnings of a college student or a widow. At that moment, when we are joined, something mystical occurs: we are imitating a table of kings and queens. Whether with herbs or the finest meal, the very presence of image-bearers partaking of food and drink forms a sacred bond that affirms our love for God and one another.

And for this entire thing to run as good as a hot cup of ramen noodles in a cold college dorm, we need the recipe of love. We don’t need abundance; we need only a few grateful saints around a table sharing stories and affirming the image-bearing status of one another; for where two or three are gathered around a table, God is in their midst.

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The Heaven of Hospitality, An Introduction

We are fond of sharing our humble home with fellow humans. It’s a common practice in our household. But we didn’t just wake up one morning and, for the first time, decide to invite all those fine people for a meal. Over the years, my wife and I have surrounded ourselves with people seasoned in the art of hospitality. They invited us over when we were young in our married life, then when we only had one child, and they continued to do it as our family increased in numbers. They have refreshed my family and me.

Let’s face it: hosting a family of seven is not for wimps! But yet, they have gone out of their way to make us feel comfortable and satisfied. And it takes a whole lot of food to satisfy a family of five hearty men.

It is hard to express the level of gratitude I have for the hundreds of meals prepared out of love and devotion. In turn, we have worked hard at imitating those who practice hospitality so generously. So many times, we didn’t have the mood or energy, but in the end, we all looked with amazement at how God transformed us through the ritual of hosting.

Yet, I am grieved by how the apostles’ imperatives (Heb. 13:2; I Pet. 4:9) are so often overlooked in the evangelical community. I often hear visitors to our congregation and outside our community state with some level of sadness that they have never or rarely been invited by a Christian to someone’s home for a simple meal. Yes, they have probably experienced what we call in the South “Potluck meals,” but that is different from the experience of particularized hospitality the Bible has in mind (general hospitality falls into a different category).

The Church and the individual family miss a genuine opportunity to serve one another, to hear each others’ stories, and give out of the abundance given to us in Christ Jesus. Indeed, hospitality is the overflow of God’s love for us. We host because God has hosted us in his house (Ps. 23). I love the way Lauren Winner describes this in her book, “Mudhouse Sabbath:”

“We are not meant simply to invite people into our homes, but also to invite them into our lives. Having guests and visitors, if we do it right, is not an imposition, because we are not meant to rearrange our lives for our guests – we are meant to invite our guests to enter into our lives as they are.”

What I wish to do in this short series is to encourage you to see how practical and pleasing it is to do hospitality. It doesn’t demand the most expensive wine bottle, nor does it demand the most extroverted host; it only demands a willing heart to see the Gospel made known amid unfolded laundry and wildly active children.

Who can host? The family of seven, the newlywed couple, the single young man, and anyone who can spare some change for a noble cause. For many of you who have never practiced this Christian gift, you can begin small and inexpensively, but what you can’t do is leave it up for the right opportunity. The right opportunity comes when you make it. Begin small, and you will see the joy and celebration that overtakes a house known for its hospitality. 

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Calendar and Meaning

As a boy, our dinner table was a place of amazing conversations. My father readily invited people to dine with us, and my mother as readily accommodated them. On top of that, we had a stream of visitors from all over the world, people who knew and respected my father. Many were missionaries, others were world travelers; one was a part of a film crew that went to Loristan and had exciting tales to report; another was a French doctor from Central Africa, and so on and on. I remember vividly the exotic tales they had to report. This was an important part of my education. I recall one man whose World War I saga included the war, imprisonment, and wanderings over two continents. At times, he lost track of the days of the week, the months, and then even the exact year. Meaning, he said, was tied to time and the calendar. The calendar listed Sundays, holy days, and more. It punctuated time with meaning, an imposed meaning which was more than ourselves.

Think about that. We live in a world with a given meaning, given by God and by man’s long pilgrimage of faith. Remove that, and we drift into meaninglessness.

{R.J. Rushdoony, Random Notes}