This evening and tomorrow we will finish up a four-part series on the biblical theme of hospitality. There haven't been as many participants as I had hoped for, with 20 between the two groups, but I have really enjoyed the conversation in each.
As is so often the case with study groups I feel as though I have learned more than I have offered. I now realize that practicing hospitality, creating a safe place for the stranger, is essential to virtually everything else we hope for in the Christian life. I have used three books: Radical Hospitality by Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt; Hospitality & the Other by Amos Young; and Making Room by Christine Pohl.
I also appreciate Henri Nouwen's little book Reaching Out, in which he contends that moving from hostility to hospitality is one of three essential movements in the Christian journey. In our last session we will look at interdenominational and interfaith hospitality, and Nouwen's thoughts about hostility and suspicion are particularly helpful here.
What do you think about hospitality as a personal and Christian virtue and grace? Any reflections from those who have attended this study?
4 comments:
Hospitality has always intrigued me and has played a major part in my life. Growing up, Sundays meant church, Sunday school and either visiting or having company over - being mentored and learning the art of hospitality. My work experience has involved various aspects of hospitality - waitressing, clerking, and ministering. Yet, our lives are changing, very seldom do my friends entertain or meet in our homes - we gather in restaurants to eat and visit. Stores are becoming big box stores and employ part time or casual labour and no one knows who you are or even wants to know who you are. In so many places we are losing the personal touch - the gift of hospitality - the grace of being welcomed and loved for who we are - warts and all. Psuedo-hospitality abounds and many people accept and even praise good the imitation is and it's not. We, as a society and as a church, are poorer for that acceptance and for not doing more about changing it. The United Church is carrying a new book entitled: Encounters at the Counter: What Congregations Can Learn About Hospitiality From Business by Alan Johnson. The book talks about the link between hospitality and spirituality.
David your study sounds very interesting.
Well!
When your old man is as hospitable as mine, your house turns into a revolving door of visits, entertaining and people, people, people ... you literally LIVE the definition of the term since your diaper days!
That said, I have come to see those experiences as a way of him opening up his home and himself to the people he cares about most. So many of my childhood memories involve St. Paul's people singing, laughing and carrying on in our old place ... they are all truly special times.
If I look at the big picture, we really do the same kind of thing at church: offering a common space to meet, share milestones, laugh and cry. Hospitality ultimately means an invitation, however informal, to join the family.
I guess my father's house and my Father's house have similar themes to them (though only one has walk-in closets!)
I was sorry to miss the last in your hospitality series. The inner-faith hospitality session seemed to point to the hospitality of change which I had been thinking about.
The hospitality of my childhood was face to face,homogenius and there seemed to be time to enjoy it. People went to church on Sundays, and seemed to be able to find time to enjoy couple clubs and mid week programs and everyone pretty much looked the same. That hospitality was pretty unthreatening to beliefs and personal time.
So often today we take a defensive stance to intrusions on our personal time and to protect our stereotypical biases:not a very hospitable stance.
As I have thought about our discussions,it makes me realize that hospitality needs to adapt with our changing world. If people's sense of available time is different, we have to find other ways.(This blog is a new form of hospitality, in my mind.)
Interfaith hospitality may have been an easy non-issue of our faith in years gone by because our neighbours were just like us. Not anymore though...but Love your neighbour is still our commandment.
I really appreciate these three very thoughtful responses. I hope other readers give them the attention they deserve.
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