A Simple Hospitality
It’s been a long, lonely year for a lot of us, since the world turned upside down around this time last year. Many people have been isolated, and even though facetime and zoom calls allow some kind of interaction, they’re not the same as face-to-face human connection.
I realize COVID isn’t over, and there is still a level of caution that should be observed for many. There’s a wide variety of opinions on this, so I’m not going to spend any time here other than to say we should all make wise and reasonable choices, and respect and love one another when those choices may differ.
What I really want to talk about is hospitality. After a year like what we’ve been through, I believe the need for true hospitality is huge. The Oxford dictionary says hospitality is the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.
For the believer, the motivation behind hospitality is simple- we welcome others as Christ has welcomed us into his family. We were strangers, enemies in fact, of God, and He mercifully provided a way of redemption through his Son. During his ministry, Jesus stayed on the move, and in his own words, had no place to lay his head (Matt. 8:20). But people came to him. They were needy and broken, society’s outcasts, and He welcomed them. He moved toward sinners, sinners like you and me.
And because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we have been made children of God, and members of a family. We are welcomed. We belong. We want others to know that same sense of belonging, and so we practice hospitality, as an outworking of our identities- family, missionary, servant.
There are many places we can practice hospitality- our neighborhoods and churches; your classroom if you’re a teacher; your office or place of business- any space that is primarily yours that other people enter into as guests. We can create a warm and welcoming environment in any of these places, but I want to focus on the most obvious, and that is our homes.
An assumption we often make about hospitality when inviting people into our own spaces, is that it has to be something elaborate. We put unnecessary pressure on ourselves, especially when it comes to our homes, to have a clean, well-decorated house, an impressive meal, some entertaining plan for the time spent together. But that isn’t what most people are after when they come into our homes. They’ve got Netflix for entertainment, and they can go out for a nice meal. They can even watch HGTV to see beautiful homes.
What they want from you is genuine care and connection. They want to speak and know you are listening. They want to feel seen, known and cared for. When they see your imperfect home, they’ll feel better about their own home, because it’s not perfect either. They will enjoy a meal that was provided for them in love, even if it’s simple. (I cook dinner for my family almost every night; any meal I don’t have to cook is amazing to me!)
This is the truth! You don’t have to spend all day cleaning your home and stressing over a meal. Honestly, you can just invite someone over for dessert! Or coffee even. The gospel has set us free from the need to impress others or appear perfect. And the gospel has given us something better to offer our guests than fancy food and surroundings- the perfect and beautiful love of Christ.
If you have a love and gift for cooking and/or decorating your home, that is awesome and by all means, use those gifts to the glory of God! I don’t mean that those things don’t matter. What I mean is that a lack of gifting in those areas shouldn’t hold us back from welcoming others into our homes.
There are so many hurting and lonely people around us. They need the love of Jesus, and we can share it with them, simply by opening up our homes and lives.