What If…

Within just a few centuries John Chrysostom spoke highly and often about the need for Christians to be hospitable. His limits on hospitality were said to have been nearly boundless (Pohl 2006) . Chrysostom often reminded the wealthy among the church of God’s outlook on the self-indulgent. Using Luke 16:14-31 as the text the audience is drawn in as the rich man in the story. Chrysostom would later give the famous image of the almsgiver as a harbor for people who are in need. “A harbor receives all who have encountered shipwreck, and frees them from danger…So you likewise, when you see on earth the man who has encountered the shipwreck of poverty, do not judge him, do not seek an account of his life, but free him from his misfortune.” (Husbands and Greenman 2008)

In The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark paints a picture of a hospitable church appears that would no doubt be appealing to the pagan cultures that hosted them. One of the cities he studies is Antioch, where the followers of Christ were first called Christians. This city was a missional launching pad for much of what the church did and became the home base of Christianity early in the Christian story but this city had it’s issues. During the 600 years of Roman rule it was taken by unfriendly forces eleven times; it was put to siege two other times but resisted and did not fall; it burned to the ground on at least four occasions; it suffered from hundreds of small earthquakes and eight that leveled the city to the ground; three severe plagues hit the city with at least 25 percent mortality rates and finally, it experienced 5 harsh famines. In all at least 41 natural or social disasters hit the city during that time. It was if they experienced 9/11 over and over again. Large numbers of people obviously died and large numbers came and went but the Christians stayed and they formed a community that stood in the face of the fear and misery that this city so often experienced. They cared for the sick that were left to die. They cared for orphans and widows when Greco-Roman culture would allow these people to be lost to slavery or death. They took care of the homeless and offered family to those who had none. They responded quickly to needs and it was in this way that they won the city. All of these acts of hospitality helped to create a family fabric among Christians and aided in the creation of disciples who took the Christian story outward into the world (Stark 1997) .

Augustine as well chimed in on the conversation in his time arguing that hospitable acts fit into a network of need. The giver and the recipient were in need before God. While God does not need what the giver has he has taken up a position in the place of the needy and the poor. God is there with them and as we serve them we serve our king (Augustine)

Benedict of Nursia, St. Benedict, was also a proponent of hospitality. His writings would form the churches most well accepted and understood principles of hospitality which would literally last and function for the past 1500 years (O’Gorman) . His Chapter 53, entitled The Reception of Guests, is the foundation of all western European religious hospitality and would influence church and monasteries for centuries[1]. His way of life focused on communal living, physical labor and the giving of alms and food to the poor.

Monasteries across the world would pick up on these practices and to this day give these accommodations to those in their surroundings. In the medieval period the monasteries took up comprehensive houses and even added guest housing for those who were in transit or in need of respite (Lenoir 1852) .

As the church expanded westward across Europe with the Roman Empire there were often struggles in reaching out to groups of peoples who were seen as barbarians. Some groups were just written off as unable to receive the gospel due to their barbaric state. It is into a setting that was perceived to be unredeemable that St. Patrick used a variation of hospitality to spread Christianity into Ireland. The people that filled this land were adversarial to Roman occupation and rule and have been labeled barbaric by the church; they were thus beyond hope (Winter et al. 2009) .

Patrick made an unprecedented move in that he took time to get to know the people he now lived among, the barbarians. This was unheard of in church circles. Because he took time to get to know them, to understand them, they believed that maybe his “high god” would too. Previous Roman models of evangelism had been based on presenting the gospel, asking for a decision then fellowship could happen. Patrick turned this system upside down. He sought fellowship first. He shared conversations and meals with people inviting them to fellowship first. He would then find joint projects that they could work on together. He played on shared communal interests. He would then move to belief and eventually to conversion. His method was incredibly successful and won of whole groups of people who had been labeled barbarians – people who were without sufficient knowledge or hope(Hunter 2000)
[2].

Hospitality as a mandate transcended time, travels and exiles of the Israelites and was with them solidly in the time of the New Testament. Jesus in his travels is dependent on the hospitality of others and often uses it to set the stage for his teachings (Matthew 26:6, Mark 1:29, 7:24,12:9, 2:15, 14:3, Luke 10:34, 11:4, 14:12, John 12:1-2). One of the more famous pictures is when Jesus receives hospitality from Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42 setting the stage for a moment of teaching (Ryken et al. 1998).

Jesus also setup hospitality as a rule for his followers and the missionaries that he sent out. His followers were sent out on the assumption that they would receive hospitality from host families in Matthew 10:9-14. Jesus then instructs them on how to handle what they will be given. He made it a marker for who would enter into the kingdom in Matthew 25:35 and villages that didn’t provide it are consigned to doom (Matthew 10:14-15, Mark 6:11, Luke 9:5). Jesus is keen as well to take homes like that of Zaccheus and transition them then leave them as places of hospitality (Luke 19:1-10)[1]. The life of the house owner does not have to be rejected. There is much work to be done there.

The gospel of Luke seems particularly interested in hospitality. This gospel alone gives us the story of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Rich Man and Lazarus, Zaccheus and the Emmaus appearance of Jesus (Koenig 1992). In each of these stories it can easily be said that the guest is sacred. For Luke, whose Gospel probably had the largest gentile audience; the welcoming of outsiders seemed to be a key piece of Jesus character.

Hospitality did not come with out its hazards, as one pitfall that corrupted hospitality was the tendency of groups to neglect hospitality towards other ethnic groups. Jews and Samaritans are one example. Because of their disdain for each other they would serve only their own group and would steer clear of the other group. The story in Luke 11:5-8 shows us that hospitality is readily and easily offered to those who are like us, but it is harder when demanded by those that we label outside of our circles. Jesus’ teaching even point to the fact that hospitality must not be shown to only those who can reciprocate – this would be behaving as the pagans do. The parable of the banquet speaks to this idea (Luke 14:15-24, Matthew 22:1-14) (Destro 2003).

Hospitality for the people of God presents a struggle that has always existed and exists still to this day. The struggle is this: it is very easy to accept the position but the vocation is difficult. By this statement I mean that it has always been the struggle of God’s people to understand and live out our role as givers of love as quickly as we are willing to accept the position that receiving his love has given us. It is much easier to claim the position and set ones self up as judge of others than it is to take up the vocation of servant and see others as better than me.

The early church assimilated the idea of hospitality and service rapidly and continued with continuity the Jewish idea of hospitality that had been expanded upon by Jesus. The missionary efforts of the early church depended on hospitality for itinerate teachers and apostles (Alexander and Rosner 2000). Peter (Acts 10:6, 18, 23, 48) and Paul (Acts 16:15; 18:7; 21:4, 8, 16; 28:7) depended upon the hospitality of the Christian communities that they founded, discipled or travelled between. The New Testament has a number of instructions to extend or give hospitality (Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9) and it is even considered a must for those who would be in leadership in the early church (1 Tim 3:2; Tit 1:8). Widows as well were given a special instruction in 1 Timothy 5:10 if they wanted to be put on the church lists (Ryken et al. 1998).

The early church as well regularly practiced the Eucharist, the good gift, and recognized it as a sign of God’s hospitality. Each time the Eucharist was taken, the costliness of the divine gift was remembered (Alexander and Rosner 2000). They also saw it as a foreshadowing of how hospitable God will be in the future when all the believers join him in the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:7-9). This regular gathering around God’s table served to inspire them towards the future and remind them of the Jubilee that was part of their past and present. Jesus while present reminded them, “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” (Luke 14:13 NRSV) (Russell, Clarkson, and Ott 2009)The visions of John end with a simple call that is a model for what the church is to be when he writes, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” (Revelation 22:17 NRSV)

The tradition of hospitality carried its way into the early church years and evidenced by continued discussion about its practice. In the Didache (Did 11f.) travelling evangelists are said to have special privilege in receiving hospitality (Elliott 1986). The travelling preacher is to be given food enough to reach the next night’s lodgings and that if he asks for money he is a false prophet (Carson 1994). In Early Christian Hospitality D.W. Riddle uses the word “charming” when describing the hospitality of the early church. In a reference to patristic sources he notes,

These examples of hospitality suggest that the custom may account for a notable phenomenon of those days: the acceptance of the traveling preacher’s message by entire households…. that the primitive churches were house-churches is a detail of this, and an aspect of early Christian hospitality…. This brings the student directly to the social processes in Christianity’s expansion. One of them was early Christian hospitality. In it one sees an ultimate medium of Christianity’s growth. (Riddle 1938)

These early Christians saw themselves as resident aliens. Though they knew much of the surrounding culture they realized that they were different. Referencing the Letter to Diognetus, Husbands and Green in Ancient Faith for the Church’s Future paints the picture that for the early Christians every place was and was not their home or it could be said that every foreign land for them was their Fatherland, yet every Fatherland was a foreign land (Husbands and Greenman 2008). Jerome in more heart felt terms wrote that believers should “let the poor men and strangers be acquainted with your modest table, and with them Christ shall be your guest.” (Jerome)

Next: Hospitality, Part 3

*Today we make the turn to consider the second of our variables and the most literature intensive: hospitality. The literature is absolutely voluminous…so, I tried to provide a good timeline here and pull a couple or precedents that in turn I am hoping to build on. I absolutely loved this part of my reading. Again, I would appreciate any interaction.

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In I Was a Stranger Arthur Sutherland writes that hospitality is “the practice by which the church stands or falls.” (Sutherland 2006) Hospitality in our day has been greatly been misconstrued to be a means to simply make other feel better about being where they are. With the wide scale advent of hotel, restaurant, conference and event industries a whole culture of business that revolves around making people comfortable has evolved. All of these fall far short though of the biblical understanding of hospitality and place that it has in the “chord of redemption” that runs throughout the scriptures and history (Oden 2001)[1]. Hospitality runs beyond the offerings of food and drink or even entertainment. For true hospitality to occur respect for the other must exist. The problem with much of the modern concept of hospitality is that it depends on the end result – often returning customers but the Biblical view is different. End results are not the goal – entering into each others presence and dwelling there with them and the God who created and loves them and us is the goal (Pohl 2005).

Sutherland would later expand on why hospitality is a must. He notes that as life goes on we become more and more aware of our loneliness and our illusions of what the world could be fade away. This is where God and the Christian community step in. God’s goal for creation is a homecoming (2006: 83). God is giving and gracious. He continually welcomes the stranger and as He does this relieving loneliness and clearing up illusions we too are invited into the process. We do this; we enter in, because it has been done for us. We also live out this role because we know that every human being is created in the imago dei, the image of God. Just as we do, they carry in them a world of possibility and hope that we have an opportunity to help bring out.

In the coming pages, I will show that in the literature reviewed hospitality is very much what Sutherland explained it to be – a must for kingdom expansion. Jean Vanier of L’Arche says that “Welcome is one of the signs that community is alive.” He also states, “A community which refuses to welcome whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors is dying spiritually (Pohl 2005) .” A community must be welcoming and hospitable. Part of its DNA must be set on bringing the stranger in so that they can go out as friends. We are God’s earthly hosts welcoming all into his house. Beyond the biblical and theological mandate I will show that hospitality has been a driving force behind church expansion in various eras of history, that there are discernable characteristics of hospitable people and places and that hospitality can and must be a key component of forming effective lifestyles for the formation of missional communities if the exurbs are to be influenced for the Kingdom of God[2].

Hospitality is a theme that is found through out the scriptures occurring direct situations 71 times throughout the biblical story (Alexander and Rosner 2000) . Hospitality literally means “love of strangers” and was a key component in the world of the Jews through out the biblical story and in the cultures of the Mideast (Youngblood et al. 1995) . Much of the ancient world saw hospitality as common good that was demanded of everyone. It was a virtue and those who were virtuous displayed hospitality by honoring guests and strangers.

Israelite hospitality extended beyond this ethic to a place of mandate as they saw in their calling out at Sinai a God given directive protect and go above and beyond in providing hospitality to all. They were to be the model and the launching pad for God’s hospitable gift to the world (Ryken et al. 1998) . Abraham their ancestor had been a sojourner and depended on hospitality and famously gave it. Coming out of Egypt God had provided for the people so they would graciously return the favor that had been placed upon them. They would be challenged to remember and “to know the heart of an alien, for you were once aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9 NRSV)

Israel’s hospitality went beyond the customary provision and protection of the guest but lived out some basic well-designed ideas of what it meant to receive and send out a guest. The idea was that strangers would be changed to guests (Youngblood et al. 1995) [3]. Guests were welcomed and provided for through the customary washing of feet (Genesis 18:4, 19:2, 24:32) water, lodging and a meal was provided. This was not just a normal meal but also a meal that was the best that the host could provide[4].

The people of God also recognized that very early in their story the patriarch Abraham in Genesis 18 had entertained angels and provided them with provision and honor. He was blessed with the promise of a son within a year because of this action and the people often discussed that maybe sometimes we do entertain the divine. Some times angels visit us and we don’t know it so we should be vigilant (Hebrews 13:2). These divine appointments could be extraordinary and part of god’s redemptive story and the Israelites believed that there were times when divine messages or blessings from God came through strangers or angels (Richards 1997) [5].

Guests also seem to have a role in this relationship. Different than the Greco-Roman idea of hospitality, where I am blessed and bless in hopes of building a network for status and advancement, biblical guests are different. The biblical guest in receiving hospitality allows the host to use his or her gifts. The guest takes on a humble state allowing others to serve him or her. Being a guest is one way that we are taught humility and reminded that we need each other. The guest in the biblical world would receive the evaluation, the welcome rituals, and the sending away as a friend. The guest would show honor to the host by not overstaying their welcome – generally no more than two nights stay. Their ultimate goal was to come into a new strange place and leave as a honored righteous friend who did not disrupt the harmony of the home or community (Ryken et al. 1998) .