I wonder what you think of when you hear the word, “hospitality”. For me the phrase “hospitality industry” comes to mind. A catch all term for hotels, restaurants, cafes and that type of thing. To my mind it’s a slightly strange combination of terms, the idea that hospitality can be an industry. There’s certainly a lot of very hard working, industrious, people working in that part of the economy, it just feels a bit odd thinking of it as an industry. The irony is that the places and venues that we most enjoy visiting are usually those who manage to hide the “industry” bit and make us feel welcome – who are genuinely hospitable, whereas those places that feel like you’re on the end of a production line when you receive your food or drink are those that often feel least hospitable.
Why am I wittering on about this? For the last month or so, we have been exploring together different aspects of church life, their importance in our community, and how we might get involved in different ways. We’ve talked about getting involved in leadership, in worship, and in prayer. This morning, it might not surprise you to hear, we are exploring getting involved in hospitality.
The reason I began with my reflections on the hospitality industry is that it seems to me that there are some helpful insights there for us to take seriously as we consider this.
Firstly, I believe that it is important that we are intentional about hospitality, but it can’t become a method or a means to an end. This means that we think about it, talk about it, make deliberate decisions to be involved in hospitality. As with many of the things that we have talked about over the last few weeks, getting involved in hospitality is an aspect of showing our love for each other, which is a response to our experience of God’s love for us, which itself is expressed in God’s involvement in hospitality with us.
The second thing that looking at the hospitality industry prompts us to think about is that it can be hard work. Some of that hard work might be dealing with people who might not be the easiest, or are demanding, or take you for granted. Some of that hard work might be in the preparation and clearing away of hospitality. The backroom stuff of the carrot chopping and the washing up.
The third aspect of the hospitality industry that struck me when I was thinking about this is that for the hospitality industry to work, there have to be people wanting to provide hospitality and people wanting to receive it. If you have chefs and waiters but no diners, then you don’t have a restaurant. Similarly if you have lots of guests but no rooms for them to stay in, you don’t have a hotel. I wonder if you had noticed that I have been talking about being involved in hospitality. Not just about showing or giving hospitality. For there to be hospitality there has to be those giving it and those receiving it. Both giving and receiving hospitality are ways of getting involved in hospitality.
As we explore being involved in hospitality, I’m going to focus mainly on our reading from Luke’s historical account of the good news of Jesus. Before we dive into that, though, we are going to remind ourselves of what Peter wrote to the members of the early church. He encouraged them to show hospitality to each other without grumbling, and that they were to do so in response to God’s love, as an expression of the grace they had received. This is the baseline position for being involved in Christian hospitality – whether giving or receiving, it is founded in love, and grumbling is to be resisted!
So, having got that sorted, let’s turn our attention to Luke. We pick up the story in the last week of Jesus’ life. He has arrived in the area of Jerusalem for the last time, and has spent a few days staying with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany overnight and going into Jerusalem during the day, to the Temple Courts where he has been talking with the crowds and the religious leaders and scholars.
Now it is the time for the Passover festival, the feast at which the people of God remember and celebrate their escape from slavery in Egypt, led by Moses, who had been sent by God to free them. On that first passover they had prepared bread without yeast, unleavened bread, that would be easy to travel with, and sacrificed lambs, whose blood they had put on the doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over their houses. In commemoration of this, the people of God marked the festival by eating unleavened bread and roast lamb.
Jesus wants to celebrate the feast with his friends, so he sends them off to find somewhere to have a meal together.
As I said, hospitality often involves hard work well before the party starts. Then, we have this unusual instruction – follow the man carrying water. They obviously didn’t have TripAdvisor to find an AirBnB they could hire for the night, but even so, this was a strange way of going about finding a room.
Anyway, they got there, and some of the preparation had been done, and they organised the rest, all the special food and the wine.
Then we get the account of that last supper, of the passover meal that Jesus shared with his disciples, and the way in which he took the symbols of the old covenant, flesh and blood, bread and wine and repurposed them in a new covenant. No longer was the bread the symbol of the journey and the blood that of a lamb that had to be sacrificed every year. Now the bread was his body, and the wine his blood, the one perfect sacrifice, made once for all, never having to be repeated, but remembered and celebrated as we receive God’s hospitality week by week at God’s table.
As we reflect on this, I’d like to think for a moment about who is giving and receiving hospitality in this story. We have the host of the party – the owner of the venue. As far as we know he was giving hospitality, though he may also have been sat at the table and shared in the meal, receiving hospitality. We know that the two sent ahead, Peter and John, gave hospitality – they prepared the meal, and that they received it, they were sat at the table. Jesus received hospitality – the welcome of the host and the preparation work of Peter and John, and gave it – distributing the bread and wine. The rest of the disciples, though, were receiving hospitality. But they all had to be there, for it to work, for it to be a passover meal. They were all involved in hospitality, a glorious mixture of giving it and receiving it.
So, what does this all mean for us? What does it mean for the way in which we get involved in hospitality? The first thing that I would like to suggest is that the first and most important step in getting involved in hospitality is for us to receive God’s hospitality. For some of us receiving communion is a profound expression and reminder of that. The importance of us sharing this hospitality together as a whole family of God is why we have this structure of Church Family Communion. For others of us, there will be other things, but whatever it is for us, it is important that our involvement in Christian hospitality flows from our receiving God’s hospitality to us, and then for us to show hospitality to God. Not just to make room for God, but to welcome God in every aspect of our lives, to open our hearts and homes to Jesus. When we pray, “Come Holy Spirit.” it is not because we think we need to persuade the Holy Spirit, or because we don’t understand that he’s here already, but because we are stating our intent to make him welcome, and to be open and hospitable to his work in our lives, work that draws us closer to Jesus.
With that, foundational, understanding of being involved in hospitality in place, we are then in a good place to get involved in the hospitality that Peter talks about in his letter, hospitality to each other. A couple of practical examples in the life of All Saints are Luncheon Sunday and Oasis. Once every couple of months, people who live on their own have the opportunity to go for Sunday lunch at someone’s house. You can be involved in this, either by blessing a family by receiving their offer of hospitality, or by offering to host. Oasis lunch club meets once a month in the Parish Centre, a meal together for over-60s, with an after lunch speaker. Again, there’s always room for more – either as guests or on the kitchen team. If you’d like to know about either of these opportunities, talk to me afterwards and I’ll point you in the right direction.
Of course, I know that there is loads of hospitality that goes on informally around the church and in our community. I love that about All Saints. It is my hope that as we go on growing so our love for each other and for God will be strengthened and deepened by our experience together of being involved in hospitality, in all its variety.
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