Bread and wine as symbols of hospitality. Thomas O’Loughlin
Hospitality is something we all know about. We have all experienced true, warm hospitality that puts us at our ease. Inhospitality has also left a trail in our memories.
In Matthew hospitality is offered as a key to discipleship, and inhospitality is presented as the signal of failure in following Jesus.
“I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me” (Mt 25:43).
Think of even a small gathering of a few friends, and notice how welcome and hospitality, just putting people at their ease, is a higher level concern than whether you are going to eat.
And yes, then think of the darker side: those times when you hosted a shared meal which was used as an instrument to serve another purpose.
We have all tried to offer real hospitality; and yes, as imperfect humans, we have all gone through the motions and put up a mere front of hospitality.
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It is at this point that we can consider the hospitality that is part of the Christian way. There are at least four dimensions to hospitality within the gospels. Let’s look at just one passage for each.
The hospitality of love for the stranger: The most succinct expression – some would argue it contains the core of the message of discipleship – is in Mt 25: 31-45, often called ‘The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats’.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me.… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these, my sisters and brothers, you did for me.”
Pattern
Offering hospitality is to be a pattern, perhaps the pattern for our way of living.
The hospitality of reconciliation: In Luke we have a sequence of three parables that highlight the hospitality Jesus showed to sinners. The chapter opens with these words: “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to listen to Jesus. So the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble: ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them’.”
Then we have the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the high-point of which is the wonderful hospitality of the father’s meal welcoming back his lost son: “‘Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate” (Lk 15:23-4).
The hospitality of mercy: Faced with the question as to who is our neighbour (Lk 10:29), Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-37). The Samaritan is the one who showed mercy, cared for the sick man, and paid for his stay in the inn.
The hospitality of gratitude: We all recall that Zacchaeus (Lk 19:1-10), the crooked tax collector, had his sins forgiven and promised to repay those he had defrauded, but we forget that the conversion comes when Jesus is staying in his house.
Zacchaeus offers Jesus hospitality, and “salvation comes to his house”. In giving and receiving hospitality we can be transformed.
There is a challenge here for the Church. We all like to think of ourselves – and the groups we belong to – as hospitable. A look at what we do should make us more hesitant to declare that.
Where is the nearest hotel housing refugees? Do we have a sneaking like for populist drum-beaters of nationalism who claim that ‘they are taking our jobs’?
Do we as Christians even think it is important? Looking at many of our celebrations, it would be hard to imagine that hospitality is anything more than a formality – and words are cheap.
Celebrations
Are our celebrations of the Eucharist events when we actually experience hospitality and practice it? Many are simply ‘had to be there’ events which feel very unlike a welcoming meal. Are we even offered the cup to drink – or is that just for the clergy?
Many are more marked by who cannot eat and drink, than by the forgiving welcome of the Lord. How we behave officially in the liturgy are signals of inhospitality that we would never permit at home.
Maybe it is because we have such an inhospitable liturgy that we do not link this charism with the Gospel.
Is our presentation of Jesus that of ‘the one who ate with sinners’? And if we recall that mercy, do we practice it towards strangers, outcasts, and refugees?
We know what hospitality feels like; the challenge is in practising it.
Thomas O’Loughlin is professor emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham.