A Better Kind of Hospitality

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a certain idea of what good hospitality should look like in the church. But this idea of hospitality wasn't the most biblical or effective. It's akin to how fellowship is often seen in the church; for most church-goers, fellowship evokes images of pizza and board games and has little to do with Christ or the gospel.

Thankfully, the pandemic is changing our views of both fellowship and hospitality. COVID-19 has shown us how to be real and how to appreciate authenticity like never before. When even Fortune 500 executives are forced to hold meetings at home over Zoom, with kids running and around and dogs barking in the background, there is little room or need for pretense. We have been chastened for our former preoccupation with maintaining carefully manicured masks and have been given the freedom to let go and be ourselves.

After all, once everyone has seen us in our knickers, there's nothing left to hide.

Biblical Hospitality

The worldly view of hospitality actually has more in common with the notion of entertaining than biblical hospitality. Worldly hospitality, particularly in the West, is thought of in terms of being presentable and showing guests a good time. It involves making the house immaculate, having a gourmet meal prepared, and having fun and engaging activities planned in advance. In essence, it's about putting on an event and impressing others.

Biblical hospitality has a focus and purpose that are altogether different. Biblical hospitality isn't an event but a lifestyle (we often hear this about worship but not about hospitality), and it isn't about impressing others but inviting others into our lives.

“Biblical hospitality isn't an event but a lifestyle, and it isn't about impressing others but inviting others into our lives.”

When you think about it from the guest's point of view, a house so clean it could be a model home, a meal so well-prepared it makes you suspect Gordon Ramsey is in the kitchen, and activities so excellently run that the hosts could be event planners at Disney World could actually hinder relationship rather than build it. When we make our homes and lives to be so presentable and have such a high standard, it puts us on a false pedestal and creates more distance between us and the people in our lives.

If the point of true hospitality is to invite people into our homes and lives, then we must bring them into our real homes and our real lives, with all their glorious mess and problems. Sanitized hospitality does little to build relationship because it starts with deception (albeit, good natured), which erodes trust.

The Hospitality of Christ

When Jesus ministered on the earth, He shared His entire life with His disciples. He could have taken the approach of building a home for Himself (He was a carpenter, after all) and living on His own, inviting people in only for set times of teaching and ministry, and then sending them away as He retired for the night and did His own thing. But this is not the approach He took.

“They saw His triumphs and His travails. He invited them to witness both His glory at the transfiguration and His agony in Gethsemane.”

Rather, Jesus opened His life to His people. He was an open book to them. They saw His triumphs and His travails. He invited them to witness both His glory at the transfiguration and His agony in Gethsemane. And although Jesus never built a home for His people here on earth, He ascended to heaven to prepare rooms for them in His Father's house (John 14:2-3). The hospitality of Christ was always focused on inviting people into authentic relationship with Himself.

As it says in Romans 15:7, "Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God."

Conclusion

Moving forward, when we have guests over at our houses, let's remember what the focus and purpose of biblical hospitality are. Go ahead and tidy up a bit, but leaving a bit of a mess is okay. Sharing a meal of mac 'n cheese and pigs in a blanket (or rice, kimchi, and SPAM if you're Korean) is okay, especially if that's what you would have eaten yourself. Sitting around on a couch covered in kids toys or unfolded laundry, doing nothing in particular but having deep, authentic conversation is okay.

It's better than okay, in fact. That's what sharing life looks like.

It's giving people the right to come and crash on your floor mattress anytime they want. It's giving people refrigerator rights. It's taking turns watching each other's kids so that couples can go out on dates. It's doing errands together in one messy car just so that you can squeeze in a few more minutes of heart-level conversation every week.

When the pandemic is over, let's do hospitality like this. We've already seen what happens backstage already anyway. No point in going back to the days of pretending our lives are prettier and more presentable than they are.