Toward a Theology of Christian Hospitality, pt. 1

 

What is christian hospitality, and why is it an important practice for christian individuals, families, and communities?  Is understanding christian hospitality really a theological enterprise?  What follows is a very brief attempt to answer these questions in a way that will help us as a community understand why we do what we do, and how we should go about being hospitable people.

A standard definition of hospitality is, “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.”  This definition, though quite straightforward, could sustain several pages worth of discussion.  But rather than focus on what hospitality is in and of itself, I wish to address what distinctly christian hospitality looks like.

 A christian view of human persons closely links human self-awareness with theological understanding.  That is to say, as christians we believe that a triune God stated, “Let us create man in our image.”  A result of this belief is that our understanding of the character, mission, and methods of God, including how the members of the Trinity interrelate with one another, will in turn shape our understanding of how humans are to behave, how human beings are called to interrelate with one another.

 In a sense, we could see the entire storyline of the missio Dei, the entire enactment of God’s love to the world as acts of hospitality.  Early in Genesis we see the Triune God creating a universe of beauty and vitality, breathing life into his creatures.  This God creates human beings and places them in a garden that he has prepared for them.  This is God’s world, a place of shalom and majesty, and within this world he invites humanity to enter in to his care for it.  In this garden God walks with man and woman, talking with them.  A friendly and generous reception and entertainment if ever there was one.

 Despite humanity’s eventual rejection of God’s care, God continues to pursue his people.  He invites Abram to journey with him, eventually making his covenant with him, promising him descendants and a land in which to dwell.  At this point a long and sordid history unfolds.  God’s people (Abraham’s descendants) circle in and out, cycling through worship of this generous God and rejection and outright rebellion against His hospitable presence in their lives.  These cycles continue until God himself steps into their lives in a new and unparalleled way: the Incarnation.

The incarnation is a glorious and deep doctrine of the christian faith with far reaching implications that would require an eternity to map out.  The advent of Jesus, this God-in-the-flesh adds layers and layers to our understanding of hospitality and what it means to reach out to those around us. Jesus reminded his hearers regularly that he had not come to be a doctor to those that had no illnesses, but he had come to find the sick, to seek and save the lost, to charge after the one sheep.  Jesus came to receive sinful people, to bring them in to the kingdom he was building, to graft them into the people of God.  Jesus took alienated strangers, people who were enemies of God and made them the sons and daughters of God.

This welcoming of strangers was an act of generosity like the world has never seen.  Hospitality isn’t cheap.  Welcoming others is a costly thing to do.  Jesus models this for us by giving up his own life in order to welcome strangers to the household of God.