How important is
hospitality to you?
Etymologically, the notion
of hospitality involves a mutual, reciprocal relationship: the Latin word hospitem is the word for a guest or stranger, a visitor or
sojourner; it is also the source of our word host, the person who receives a guest or visitor. (In French, the word hôte can mean both guest and host.)
Such reciprocity of relationship in the context of our relationship with
God may well give us pause: what can we
offer to God? Isn’t God the one who does
the giving, as the host, while we are
mere guests?
Consider the story of the
woman of Shunem in 2 Kings, a woman of influence who opens her table and her
home to the prophet Elisha as he passes through her land. Elisha naturally would like to thank the
woman for her hospitality: Can something be done for her?, he asks
his servant Gehazi. Ultimately, the
woman will bear a baby son; her
generous hospitality to Elisha is thus mutually beneficial – each is, in a
sense, both host and guest, enjoying the fruits of kindness and faithfulness in
relationship.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus
also insists on the mutuality of relationship, albeit in a way that might at
first seem off-putting. Whoever loves father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me, he says. Our
gift to God is to put God first, before all else – to be faithful to the covenant
relationship God offers, a life of kindness
and faithfulness the psalmist
describes in Psalm 89. God’s most generous
gift to us will become clear to the disciples after Jesus’ death: he died
to sin once and for all, Paul tells the Romans. Taking our sins to the
cross, Jesus offered us the greatest possible gift: that of his life. Moreover, Jesus knows that if our
relationship with God is our first priority, we can love others better, for to
embrace God’s love is to be transformed by it; to embrace an existence in which
God, Jesus, is our first love is to live
for God in Christ Jesus, enjoying
newness of life as we wait for the
fullness of perfect union with him. In
the meantime, we are called to offer hospitality – to receive all, from prophets
and the righteous to the little ones in Christ, to be gift to
others as we recognize the gift others are in our own lives. As with God, so with us: let us live lives of generous hospitality, singing the goodness of the Lord in all
we say, living for God in all we do.
Image source: Wordle
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