Hospitality

“One Sabbath, when Jesus went to share a meal in the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees…he noticed how the guests sought out the best seats at the table.” (Luke 14: 1,7, CEB).

And he told them a story. Harvey was invited to a wedding banquet. Harvey saw that a seat by the host was open and slipped around the room until he was standing at the place near the head table. It turns out that the host had invited someone “more highly regarded” than Harvey (who was currently smiling as he stood right behind his prized seat). After a few minutes, the “more highly regarded” guest (let’s call her Dr. Marvelous) arrived. Looking with raised eyebrows at Harvey’s audacity, the host told him that he would have to find a seat at the back of the room as Dr. Marvelous was to sit in the seat that Harvey had claimed. How awkward and embarrassing! Harvey had to skulk around the room, blushing and wanting to flee but knowing that he needed to stay. He could sense the other guests eyeing him as he passed by. How much better had Harvey taken a more humble seat and had his humility noted by the host who then beckoned to a more favorable seat at the front of the room.

“All who lift themselves up will be brought low,” Jesus then said, “and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.” (Luke 14:11, CEB). Then, turning to his host, Jesus went on to say, “When you host a lunch or dinner, don't invite your friends, your brothers and sisters, your relatives, or rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return and that will be your reward. Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. And you will be blessed because they can't repay you. Instead, you will be repaid when the just are resurrected." And that, Jesus might have said, is where hospitality begins.

For the next several weeks we will be thinking about Christian hospitality. In this story from Luke that I embellished (to my knowledge Harvey and Dr. Marvelous don’t appear in Jesus’ original parable), Jesus sets forth an important characteristic of the hospitality to which we are called: it is for all people, an act of grace, not needing to be earned to be received. Christine Pohl, in her book about Christian hospitality, Making Room, writes:

“God’s guest list includes a disconcerting number of poor and broken people, those who appear to bring little to any gathering except their need. The distinctive quality of Christian hospitality is that it offers a generous welcome to the ‘least,’ without concern for advantage or benefit to the host.”
Are there those that you would rather not have at your table? Why? Jesus calls us to extend our Christian hospitality to all, to the least and the lost, to the rich and the poor, to the well and the broken, to the virtuous and those who aren’t, and the list goes on. Jesus calls us to offer a “generous welcome” to all in his loving name. That is where hospitality begins.

Something to ponder:
In this next week, where and with whom can you be more hospitable in Jesus’ name?

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