Thoughts on Hospitality

Growing up, almost every Sunday was Hospitality Day. My mom would often call someone during the week and invite them to have lunch with us after church. Other times, she would have the meal and house prepared, and would offer a spontaneous invitation to a new person she met during the greeting time of the service.

It usually wasn't anything fancy. She would make a couple casseroles, taco salad, or sometimes something as simple as tuna sandwiches. The important thing was what took place around the dining room table. Stories were told, laughter was shared, lives were woven together--all because one lady took the time to ask, "Do you have lunch plans today?"

I've tried to emulate my mom in her hospitality, but I think I have a ways to go in opening up my home as freely as she did (and often still does, as her health allows).  Geoff and I both want to make it a point to open up our home to others more this year. Jen Hatmaker, in her book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess motivates me with this beautiful picture of hospitality:

There is something so nourishing about sharing your living space with people where they see your junk mail pile and pee wee football schedule on the fridge and pile of shoes by the front door. Opening your home says, "You are welcome into my real life." This square footage is where we laugh and hold family meetings and make homemade corn dogs and work through meltdowns. Here is the railing our kids pulled off the wall. This is the toilet paper we prefer. These are the pictures we frame, the books we're reading, the projects we're undertaking--the raw material of our family. It's unsanitized and truthful. We invite you into this intimate place, saturated with our family character.

I know some common objections to offering hospitality are the work that it takes to make the house look descent, or the idea that the food has to be some elaborate, gourmet production, but Jen's words actually make the opposite sound more appealing. To let others see the real us, in our real element--not some magazine cover version of us--this is the stuff of genuine fellowship. This type of authenticity provides the fertile ground needed for actually growing relationships, rather than unintentionally keeping others at a distance because of our facade of perfection. Of course, there is nothing wrong with making a nice dinner and setting a pretty table. Some people really have fun in this area and find that their creativity can be expressed best in the kitchen. But if you don't fall into this category, you really don't need to feel like you have to be Martha Stewart to have people sit at your table and eat your food. Years from now, it's doubtful that people will remember what you fed them, but they'll remember the love that they felt in your home, and perhaps that your invitation was the springboard to a lasting friendship. And if cooking really scares you, you can always order pizza! Or have someone over for a cup of coffee or tea.

I think this is where the difference between entertaining and hospitality comes in. Although the two don't necessarily need to be mutually exclusive, entertaining seems to have more to do with impressing, while hospitality is about loving your neighbor. Entertaining is usually for your favorite people, or for acquaintances who you wouldn't mind entering your inner circle. Hospitality can include your favorite people, but if done in the spirit of Christian love, it will inevitably extend to strangers and people who, at first glance, may seem unlikely friends. People who might not smell very nice. People who require an extra amount of prayer for help in loving (and haven't we probably been that person for someone else?).

Romans12: 13 says to "...always be eager to practice hospitality" (NLT). As I seek to grow in this area, I look forward to a deepening of the community I am blessed to be a part of. But I also hope for an ever widening of that community, for a hospitality that includes those who have nothing to offer but their presence--and an opportunity for me to obey Jesus (Luke 14:12-14).