Let me tell you how I learned an absolutely unforgettable lesson about the real (and profound) meaning of hospitality.
My “competitive sport” (if I may put it that way) during my university years wasn’t soccer, football, basketball, or baseball. It was debate. My male debate partner and I never settled for anything less than clear victories, and – at least on the university level – we were always successful.
There was an equally successful female debate team – led by a woman from the Middle East. Their victories in match-ups with other female debate teams were also 100%.
Then came a university-wide debate that was meant to be a model – two undefeated debate teams, one male and one female, were to have a public debate for all the university students to witness as a model.
My partner and I (as the Affirmative side in the debate) decided to use a tactic that wasn’t wrong – but would be utterly unexpected by our female opponents. It was a debate curve-ball of debate curve-balls.
We used it. We won – technically. But, in the process, we utterly humiliated the other side. And the Middle Eastern female was infuriated. From that point on there was war between her – and us.
Some years later (while I was studying in seminary), my wife and I received a – to say the very least – completely unexpected invitation to come to the Middle Eastern woman’s home for dinner with her (her name was Marie) and her husband. We accepted – I with some trepidation – not knowing what would happen on that Friday evening.
We were greeted warmly by Marie and her husband. We were treated to a magnificent Middle Eastern meal as we caught up on one another’s lives over the years since university days.
And then, toward the end of the meal, I received my lesson in the real meaning of hospitality. I can honestly say it was one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned.
“Do you know what this meal means?” Marie asked – clearly relishing the opportunity to illuminate me.
“Not really”, I responded, “But we’re certainly enjoying your lavish hospitality to us.”
“In our Middle Eastern culture”, she responded with a smile, “Having a meal together with former enemies means that we are no longer enemies, but friends – and part of our family.”
I was floored. I wanted to cry. I will never forget the lesson. It was a portal for me to what is one of the richest themes of the Word of God: Hospitality: God’s and Ours.
It’s not an overstatement to say that we are saved by God’s hospitality. By nature, we are His enemies: strangers to God’s covenant promises, having no hope, and without God in the worldas the apostle Paul writes in the Bible book of
Ephesians. But then – when God’s rescuing grace comes to us – we come to Christ, the Door to God and His house. The hostility between God and us is broken down by the atoning work of Christ on the cross; and, through faith in Him, we are no longer strangers and aliens, but we become fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God – so Paul continues in the powerful second chapter of Ephesians. (I urge you to read it.) God brings us into His house (which, this side of heaven, is to be represented in local churches). He feeds us by the Holy Spirit using the Word of God. And He invites us to His Son’s table – called the Lord’s Supper – in which He gives us regular assurances that – to use Marie’s words, “We are no longer enemies, but friends – and part of His family.”
But the lesson doesn’t stop there. Marie and her husband’s Christian Middle Eastern hospitality – hospitality they showed my wife and me – was (and was meant to be) a tangible demonstration of God’s own hospitality. We’re saved by God’s hospitality, and we’re meant to show that hospitality to others. I am convinced by experience (and by the Word of God) that this is one of the most important – if not THE most important -ways of showing the Gospel to the watching world.
- The patriarch Abraham showed hospitality to three angelic visitors – one of whom was Christ Himself as He appeared on the stage of Old Testament history. He was blessed as a result. And Abraham’s faithful obedience in this area (as in so many others) is repeatedly held forth in the New Testament as a pattern for all believers.
- Jesus was not only a guest in people’s homes (and being a good guest is also part of hospitality), but He Himself showed hospitality by washing His disciples’ feet and hosting the meal that anticipated His own self-giving death and the Lord’s Supper as its remembrance.
- Who isn’t constantly challenged by Jesus’s Parable of the Good Samaritan, and what it says about hospitality?
- The early Christians opened their homes to one another, shared their goods with one another, demonstrating that they were a grace-formed family of brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons, and daughters.
- Church leaders that we know of as “elders” are to be “given to hospitality” – no doubt because they have an official role of representing God in Christ – the God whose hospitality saves us.
- Christians are told to, among other things: Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality (literally, hospitality means “love of the stranger”). Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Which is probably alluding to Abraham’s hospitality to the three angelic visitors).
- And most remarkably, in Jesus description of the Last Day given in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, our Lord says that those who showed hospitality to the least of His brothers and sisters by welcoming them, feeding them, giving them drink, clothing them, and visiting them when they were sick or in prison actually showed that hospitality to Him. (And NOT to do that was to NOT show hospitality to Christ.) Read that section, and you’ll learn that the consequences of showing or no showing hospitality are very, very serious.
And I’ve just scratched the surface of what the Bible – the Word of God – says about God’s hospitality (the great original), and ours as a mirror.
Being convinced (as I am, and as I want you to be) that all Christians – and particularly pastors and their wives(and children, too) – are to mirror God’s hospitality by their own, I want to devote today’s Visit to the Pastor’s Study to exploring the topic of Hospitality: God’s and Ours.
For this program, I’ve recruited my wife, Margaret, to help me give you a window on our experiences with hospitality over the past 40 plus years – most of which were years of showing hospitality as a pastor and his wife. We want to encourage you to be blessed by the ministry of hospitality – just as we have been blessed beyond words.
Margaret Shishko – Mrs. Pastor Bill – welcome to A Visit to the Pastor’s Study….
Here’s a link to the full program:
Yours in the King of Kings,
Pastor Bill