“Self Righteous service comes through human effort. It expends immense amounts of energy calculating and scheming how to render the service. Sociological charts and surveys are devised so we can “help those people.” True service comes from a relationship deep inside. We serve out of whispered promptings, divine urgings. Energy is expended but it is not the frantic energy of the flesh.”1
Hospitality gives service a personality. It is warm and emotional in its connection to the basic human needs. As the disciple learns to understand his or her own dependence on God for basic needs, he and she also learns the beauty of providing for those needs in others. In essence hospitality is extending the borders of the heart, of the family to encompass the neighbor and stranger, the enemy and the friend.
“Our ‘dwelling pace’ may be physical: a room, apartment, or house. It may also be a metaphor for mental and motional ‘space.’ We can invite others into our inner world of thoughts and feelings, sharing gifts of the heart and mind. Gracious inner space gives others room to play, question and converse; room to be heard and understood; room to reveal themselves as they choose.”
I can’t understand the image of Christ as stranger. How could he come to those beloved disciples on the road to Emmaus unrecognized? How could he be naked, poor, imprisoned, and we not see him there? How could he, my dear heart, be the stinking, cursing, drunk and homeless? Could he be my neighbor John who riding is bicycle home from the bar, at two AM, went over the handlebars and broke his nose? Could it have been Jesus I drove home with tears in his eyes and pain in his body? It is hard for me to see Jesus there, not because I don’t think he would stoop so low, but because I love him and don’t want to see blood pour from his nose or tears from his eyes. What would it mean to see my Jesus in all those around me? Is he there in people I know, and who don’t even know him, or just in strangers? Does he visit in the familiar as well as the strange? Perhaps he does, perhaps his incarnation is both in us as his hands and feet and in the fleshly suffering of those around us. Perhaps his paschal mystery continues in all who are hurting, naked and abandoned, just as his advent happens in us as we engage them in service and hospitality.
Seeing our neighbors and strangers as Jesus can be difficult precisely because we cannot see Jesus as coming to us in the form of a sinner.
“What does it take to see to see in every other person a sister or brother? If we cannot truly accept our weaknesses as well as our gifts, we will be unable to love others in their brokenness and giftedness.
“We are speaking again of humility. A humble heart is hospitable. It accepts people as they are - a mix of familiar and unfamiliar, good and bad. Acceptance leaves others free to be themselves in our dwelling place. It does not require them to be like us. Our guest may be friend or total stranger, mentally impaired or emotionally estranged, different in race, faith, social circumstance, or political perspective. Hospitality means giving all guests the freedom to reveal themselves as they choose. A guest should not need to fear personal attack, rejection, or conversion efforts on the part of the host. Freedom is the medium of human exchange in true hospitality.”2
God is the great Host, his hospitality for us is unmatched. There are beautiful days when I am aware of God’s grace pervading my day - those times when he lays out a feast for my soul. I have experience reading books and feeling warmth fill my body, or praying the psalms and weeping at his goodness to me, or walking the fields at my grandparents’ farm knowing he was there ministering to me in the breeze. I am left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude � overwhelming in it’s emotion, humility and a small sadness. Thompson describes it in her travels in Scotland, and in her friend’s trip to Mexico, as they received the hospitality of the locals. “My friend felt a mixture of wonder, gratitude guilt and humility.”3 That is just what I feel when God lavishes his grace on me.
Maslow meets Johari
I have often wondered how to get people to open up, to explore the depths of our relationship together and our relationship with God. Could it be that I haven’t given enough room to those around me? Have I not invited them in to a house of hospitality even when I visit their houses or talk at the restaurant?
What if the way to get people to open up is by opening up yourself. This is what the Johari window describes as self disclosure. We can also provide room by meeting the felt needs, working our way up the Maslow pyramid, giving people room to hunger for more - more us, more God. A time may then come when they will gladly give up those needs to become a deeper disciple and know their true fulfillment comes from God. He has a way of overwhelming Maslow’s pyramid.
1 Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline. HarperCollins, 1978. Pg 128.
2 Thompson, Marjorie J. Soul Fest. Westminster John Knox Press. 1995. Pg134.
3 Thompson Pg126.
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