Hospitality

When I first travelled to Egypt, I had this idea that my presence would be an encouragement to the Christians there. And it was. But those relationships were also an encouragement to me. I gained as much, or more, from that first trip, and every trip since, as I’ve offered to our brothers and sisters in Egypt.

Worthy of Being Fed by Lisle Gwynn Garrity, A Sanctified Art

That might sound strange, but there’s something about relationships like these.

In the Christian tradition we call it hospitality. A helpful definition of Christian hospitality is this: “Hospitality creates a safe, open place where a friend or stranger can enter and experience the welcoming spirit of Christ in another.”

Jesus himself was formed in this tradition of hospitality. It wasn’t just something he once learned, but it was something he lived and embodied in his life. Jesus befriended the stranger, defended those who are marginalized and blamed for their condition. He insisted on welcoming children. He ate with sinners. And even reached out to touch those deemed unclean. In Jesus’ life, he created a safe, open place where all could enter and experience the love and welcome of God.

Author Barbara Brown Taylor calls this the practice of encounter. She writes, “At its most basic level, the everyday practice of being with other people is the practice of loving the neighbor as the self. More intricately, it is the practice of coming face-to-face with another human being, preferably someone different enough qualify as a capital “O” Other – and at least entertaining the possibility that this is one of the faces of God.”

Given the way Jesus lived his life, and what he modeled for his disciples, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that the last thing Jesus teaches the crowds and his disciples before his arrest, crucifixion, and death is about this kind of encounter.

Jesus speaks of the future day “when the Son of Man comes in his glory.” All the nations will assemble before him, and he will separate all people into two groups. The ones who will inherit the “kingdom,” Jesus says, are the ones who gave him food when he was hungry, clothing when he was naked, and care when he was sick.

The thing is those who are said to inherit the kingdom are baffled because they don’t recall ever doing this for Jesus. Jesus says to them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

What’s that mean?

Jesus, the Son of God, is in the places we least expect. In the hungry and the thirsty and the stranger and the naked and the sick and the prisoner.

The place Jesus can be found is in the Other, in the one we’d rather avoid, in the one we might not even notice as we pass by. But it is in those that we see the face of God. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “No one made in God’s image is negligible in the revelation of that same God.” Which is another way of saying that because of people are created in the image of God, we see Christ in all people.

It's as easy as that. Or maybe as hard as that.

Grace and peace,

Kimmy