Introduction
In his description of the Last Judgment, Jesus listed six specific acts (feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned). He repeated the list four times, and said about them that whatever you do for the least of his people, you do for him. Nearly everyone who recalls that list (including me until quite recently) skips one on the list, about welcoming strangers. It doesn’t seem to fit.
When I noticed the odd intrusion in Jesus’ list, I went back to the Old Testament, hoping to figure out why Jesus added strangers. I was deeply shocked by the rich teaching that I had not noticed before. Hospitality is central to God’s revelation, a ray from the luminous heart of God.
Hospitality is not the whole of the Gospel, but it is a reality of God’s life that is significant enough that it is possible to review all of Scripture, focusing on hosts and guests and welcomes, and see more deeply into every bit of revelation. It’s like sacrificial love, or covenant, or family; it’s a huge reality, shining amid God’s glory. It is not the whole light, but it is a ray straight from the luminous heart of God.
The Lord comes to us as a brother, familiar and protective. But the Lord also comes as Other, challenging and often vulnerable. If we aren’t ready to welcome this Other, we aren’t ready to welcome our Brother. If we welcome the Other, the Lord swears that our lives will explode with unimaginable blessings. Alternatively, if we turn our backs on the Other, the Lord states firmly that we will destroy ourselves.
The teaching in Scripture about hospitality is everywhere. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. And once you see it, you find it everywhere – the blessings, the promises, the joys, the challenges. The lordship of Jesus is not a matter of swords and power and pomp; his lordship is more about making us welcome in the courts of the Lord, a guest at his feast, where it’s hard to explain who is host and who is guest, hard to be sort out who is serving and who is served. The life of the Lord is a life of love: of course hospitality and welcome are central! Of course!
Central or not, we can overlook it. As a culture, we have overlooked it, especially recently. The stranger at the door is God: perhaps we knew that once, but we forgot it. It’s easy to mush it up and shove it aside, or to put it on a pedestal with other bits of irrelevant plaster, or box it up on a bumper sticker stuck where we can’t see.
I was shocked when I found the Biblical teaching on hospitality. But the first time I tried to explain what I had found, my brilliant godson remarked that it’s nice to have lots of nice words. Let me try again.
