Hospitality continued – practical instructions

"The pressure of thinking 'what will people like?' can be such that it stops them taking the risk"

Reminiscing about difficulties faced on trips abroad can be a great source of amusement. It’s strange how the most difficult situations can, in the retelling, be a lot of fun.

I remember such a time in India when a couple of good friends of mine from Goa were explaining how they once had to eat dog on a ministry trip to the North of India. This custom was for especially for honoured guests and treated as a delicacy.

They were very aware of Jesus instruction ‘to stay in a house, eating and drinking what ever they give you’ (Luke 10:7). In the west we have the resources to be choose what we eat. There is a vast spectrum, from people who will only eat vegetables to others for whom burger and chips is a staple diet.

Jesus’ instruction to eat everything given to you is a massive challenge when building a multicultural church. It is also a challenge when encouraging people to be hospitable. I know for some would-be hosts, the pressure of thinking ‘what will people like?’ can be such that it stops them taking the risk.

Peter in his first letter tells us to offer hospitality without grumbling (1 Peter 4:9). Sometimes you can feel that you are the only ones in the church being hospitable and in your dark moments grumble, saying, ‘When will someone invite us out?” It costs money to be hospitable and therefore there needs to be a faith dimension otherwise you can become a grumpy person. Jesus tells us to pray that our Father in Heaven will give us our daily bread. This is a great prayer.

Caring for our guests is also a massive part of being hospitable. Luke shows how Simon the Pharisee did not show Jesus the usual care and respect to a guest that was expected of him in Bible times. This was in contrast to the woman who seemed to gatecrash the meal. After Simon complained about the woman’s actions, Jesus says, ‘You did not give me any water for my feet, you did not give me a kiss and you did not put oil on my head.’ We may have different customs in the nation we live but the principle applies: we need to be looking out and caring for those we are being hospitable to.

‘Practice hospitality’ is Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12. I find this interesting that even in a culture where hospitality was probably more expected than in the UK, Paul still urges people to be hospitable. With hospitality having such a high profile in the Bible and with our sights set on that great banquet in the last days, I am again challenged to be very hospitable.

Hospitality continued: The Early Church

"The Lord’s Supper was a supper no more, and lost its powerful meaning,"

We see that one of the core values of the Jerusalem church was that they ‘broke bread’ in their homes and eat together. Along with gathering all together at the temple courts on a daily basis, eating together was an integral part of their life as a church community.

This practice was not just confined to the Jerusalem church but hospitality was part of the life of the New Testament church wherever it was found. Paul had to bring some corrective teaching to the church in Corinth about the way they were handling themselves during their regular meal together and sharing in the Lord’s Supper. If he was bringing some corrective instruction to us, I wonder what it would be. Wolfgang Simson has some thoughts on the subject.

In ‘Houses That Change The World’ Wolfgang talks about what the church lost when it departed from being home-based to being building-based: ‘Another victim of this process was the Lord’s Supper. Since it is quite difficult to feed a cathedral full of people with real food, it degenerated into a religious and symbolic ritual, offering microscopic sips of wine and a small wafer, often enough for the clergy while the masses looked on in pious amazement. This meant that the Lord’s Supper was a supper no more, and lost its powerful meaning, the unprecedented, revolutionary reality, of a redeemed people, irrespective of classes and caste, sharing real food with a prophetic meaning, having dinner with God, expecting His physical presence at any time just like the resurrection. It thus became the Eucharist, a pious and symbolic shell of the original meal of a tasty lamb that Jesus shared with his disciples.’

Hospitality was so foundational and important in the lives of the early church that it is listed as one of the qualities required of those to be considered for eldership (1 Tim 3:2). The writer to the Hebrews adds another amazing dimension to being Hospitable when he says, ‘Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angles with out knowing it.’ (Heb 13:2).

Hospitality continued: Jesus

"There are many places in the gospels where Jesus is found eating and drinking with the wrong type of people. "

In John 2:1-11 we have the account of Jesus’ first miracle where he turns water into wine. This is Jesus demonstrating on earth what will be in heaven. The people were amazed that the best wine was given out at the end. This is a foretaste of the Isaiah prophecy.

Jesus gets in trouble with the religious leaders for doing acts of kindness on the Sabbath and for eating with the wrong type of people. Mark describes one such incident like this: ‘While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and “sinners”?’ (Mark 2:15–16).

The commentator Jeriamas helps us understand the indignation felt by the religious leaders to this seemingly innocuous kind act of eating with sinners. He says, ‘It is important to realize that in the east, even today, to invite a man to a meal was an honour. It was an offer of peace, trust, brotherhood and forgiveness. In short, sharing a table meant sharing life. Thus Jesus’ meals with the publican and sinners are an expression of his mission and message.’

There are many places in the gospels where Jesus is found eating and drinking with the wrong type of people. So much so that at one point they accused him being a glutton and a drunkard (Luke 7:34).

NT Wright writes, ‘In particular, he ate and drank with all sorts and conditions of people, sometimes in the atmosphere of celebration. He ate with sinners, and kept company with people normally on or beyond the borders of respectable.’

He also says, ‘Most writers now agree that eating with sinners was one off the most characteristic and striking marks of Jesus’ regular activity. Jesus was, as it were, celebrating the messianic banquet, and doing so with all the wrong people.’

He was an amazing and generous host at one time providing a picnic for 5,000 people. At other times we see him eating with his dear friends Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. His final meal with his twelve disciples as they celebrated the Passover was an amazing moment, full of intimacy and treachery.

With this in mind, to be a disciple of Jesus must be to follow his example of enjoying eating and drinking with all types of people, knowing that we are in some way bringing a touch of heaven to peoples lives on earth.

Hospitality continued: The eschatological perspective

"It is the Lord who is preparing the banquet it seems so stupid to make excuses for not attending. "

Isaiah had a great vision: ‘On this mountain the Lord will prepare a feast of rich food for all the peoples: a banquet of aged wine the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples the sheets that covers all nations He will swallow up death forever. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.’ (Is 25:6-8).

I love it when it says, ‘The Lord will prepare’. This elevates hospitality from what might seem a mundane, even shallow, practice into this amazing end-time banquet where the Lord himself will be an amazing host. Only the best will be prepared and served.

Jesus picks up this theme as he tells the following parable: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’” (Luke 14: 12-24)

As you read this knowing that it is the Lord who is preparing the banquet it seems so stupid to make excuses for not attending.

John carries on this theme in his vision “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him the glory for the wedding of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean was given to her. Then the angel said to me, ‘Write blessed are those who are invited to the wedding of the Lamb’ (Rev 19:6-9).

We have this amazing event promised, where there will be a great feast when Jesus comes again. Can you picture it, the father preparing for the day when Jesus and His bride come together?

We are taught to pray, ‘Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ This is a fantastic prayer and one of the outworkings of this prayer is practicing hospitality where we live, to friend and stranger, as it will be so wonderfully provided in heaven.

Hospitable to friends and strangers

"The movement from hostility to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties."

Hospitable to friends and strangers was the title of my sermon for this Sunday.

I remember a few years ago when we ran our first Alpha course. It involved us having a great time taking about Jesus whilst eating and drinking with friends. I began to ask the question why are those seeking to know Jesus having a great time around a meal, when those who join the church end up attending religious meeting in a house with coffee and a biscuit? I also reflected on the accusation loyal attenders of church meetings sometimes had (maybe about me!): ‘Those people only attend when there is food’, as if it were a very shallow reason.

As I began to study the life of Jesus and the early church, I began to realise that eating together and with the lost was a massively important part of their life.
NT Wright says in his book, Jesus and the Victory of God: ‘Most writers now agree that eating with sinners was one off the most characteristic and striking marks of Jesus’ regular activity’. I will unpack this more when we look more closely at the Gospels. In this opening blog, I want to bring out one of many very good reasons why this is such an important theme. I want to use a quote of Henri J.M Nouwen.

‘In our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbours, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can found. Although many, we might even say most, strangers in this world become easily the victim of fearful hostility, it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.

‘The movement from hostility to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties. Our society seems to be increasingly full of fearful, defensive, aggressive people anxiously clinging to their property and inclined to look at their surrounding world with suspicion, always expecting an enemy to suddenly appear, intrude and do harm.

‘But still our vocation: to convert the enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brother hood and sister hood can be formed and fully experienced.’

As I meditate on this I think of all the lonely and fearful people I pass as I walk along the streets in Manchester. Most houses alarmed, communities falling apart and yet we as the church have this amazing (and so enjoyable) activity of eating and drinking together with an open hand to those we meet along the way.