what is hospitality?

When I hear the word hospitality I think of friends coming to dinner at a Pinterst perfect home. I image women bringing casseroles and to die for desserts, women talking about the latest gossip, and all while sipping on wine.

A few days ago I started an in-depth study of hospitality from She Reads Truth. For the last few years I had this idea of hospitality but what I learned was completely different. Amanda Williams wrote what I had been thinking, and challenged me to do more. She said

“When I look at Jesus; our cultures false definition of hospitality as dinner invitations and etiquette, clean homes, and casseroles, pales in light of the bold example of the most radically welcoming person who ever lived.”

Okay so maybe hospitality is not a perfect dinner, but it definitely is inviting friends over for dinner and watching football. As I continued reading, she started talking about the Greek roots for the word hospitality. Normally when people start talking about the Greek language I tune out, simply because it confuses me. But this time it was simple and and clear. 

The Greek word for hospitality is philoxenos. The first part of the word, Phileo, means “brotherly love”. The second part of the word Xenos can be translated to “strangers”.

WAIT WHAT?

I was shocked, so hospitality is giving ourselves in love to STRANGERS.

STRANGERS…. Are you kidding me? I don’t know if its just me, but one that word kind of scares me and two you’re now telling me to invite people I do not know to MY table. I then started thinking about the word invite; what does it really mean? How do I even go about inviting a stranger to my table? So I turned to scripture. God extended an invitation to me, and He did it through Jesus who is a perfect example of someone exmplifiying hospitality. 

JESUS WAS THE ULTIMATE INVITER.

“He beckoned disciples with a simple “Follow me,” received children by saying “Come to me,” invited strangers to “Walk with me,” and welcomed sinners to the table, saying, “Eat with me.” And then, in extension of glorious invitation, He gave His life on a cross for us. Because of the Cross, our life in Christ opens us up to becoming a people of audacious invitation, too.”

WE WELCOME BECAUSE HE FIRST WELCOMED US.

WE INVITE BECAUSE HE FIRST INVITED US.

WE LOVE BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US. 

The posture of our hearts should be to welcome strangers in response to the invitation we have been given by the gospel. To live a life full of invitations starts in the soil of a heart cultivated by the Father.


INVITE STRANGERS. EAT WITH SINNERS. LIVE OUT HOSPITALITY. 

The Table

 Growing up my family spent a lot of time around the table. Sometimes we sat around the antique table in our dining room or sometimes we sat around a table at Jorge's (the local mexican food favorite). Something happened every time we ate together; we prayed, we talked and listened to each other tell stories of things that had happened that day. There is just something that happens when you spend time around the table. As I got into high school and moved away for college, these moments became a celebrated occasion. But the moments I had spent at the table would last a lifetime. 

“I can’t imagine life without a table between us.”

-Shauna Niequist

Bread and Wine

When I moved out of the dorms, I moved into an off campus apartment. We tried our best to decorate it and make it cute. After a few months of eating off a card table, my roommate's parents gave us a real table. It had six chairs and I loved the moments were friends sat around this table with me. I remember the times that someone else cooked spaghetti and we ate and talked with each other. I remember the laughs and the tears that were shed around this table. 

                 

“The funny thing about tables is you sit all the way around them, which means someone is sitting across from you. I always find it interesting that the way our churches are usually set up we are always looking at the back of people’s heads. But at the table, we are looking into their eyes. Their face. Their expressions.”

                                                -Jefferson Bethke

Tables in the Wilderness

Last December my roommate and I moved to a new apartment. In our new apartment, there was no room for this table.  So we looked for a smaller one and could never find a table that fit. One day a good friend told me that he had made a coffee table that was to big for his dorm room. So we carried the 100 pound pallet table up all three flights of stairs and it fit perfectly.

This table is not so much an eating table but one that normally has piles of books, purses, computers, candles and flowers on it. But, it is the center point of the living room. I love having people over and watching some college football. This past weekend some friends came over on a cool fall day, we watched some football, cooked some chili and enjoyed some sprinkles cupcakes. After everyone left, I had a mound of dishes sitting in the sink and the table was a complete mess but at that moment it didn’t care about the messiness of the apartment. I had just enjoyed sitting around the table with some of my closest friends and enjoyed the fellowship that is talked about in Acts.

“They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple flowed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God.”

-Acts 2:46

My favorite way to see the table is messy with friends sitting around it. 

There is something special about relationships built at the table, there is something incredible about the community that is shared around food and there is something unexplainable about the conversations that take place around the table.