Room For One More

It's holiday season, and with it, the onslaught of dinners with family and friends. All the more reason to recommend Christine Pohl's excellent book exploring the rich biblical and historical tradition of Christian hospitality through the centuries. It's not a "how-to" book, but more of a thoughtful read for the serious student on the topic. Especially wonderful are the chapters providing a theological framework for hospitality and the sober treatment of its limitations, boundaries, and temptations. Considering, as Pohl writes, "Hospitality is not optional for Christians, nor is it limited to those who are specially gifted for it," the book may be a worthwhile read for a lot of followers of Christ.

She puts forth that two NT texts in particular - Luke 14 and Matthew 25 - have shaped the distinction between conventional and Christian hospitality through the centuries. Of Luke 14, she notes that "Jesus challenges narrow definitions and dimensions of hospitality and presses them outward to include those with whom one least desires to have connections." Jesus is not exactly opposed to us inviting our friends or family over for dinner (certainly this the first step in hospitality and one that cannot be assumed in our postmodern world), but nor should we expect any special commendation for doing so - for even the larger society does this. What is distinctively Christian, according to Jesus, is to include the excluded, to radically alter in our eyes and company who we deem "good to be with."

In Pohl's exposition of Matthew 25, she notes, "Those who have welcomed strangers and have met the needs of persons in distress have welcomed Jesus himself, and are themselves welcomed into the Kingdom...this has been the most important passage for the entire tradition on Christian hospitality. 'I was a stranger and you welcomed me.'"

Considering that offers of food or a meal together are central to nearly all biblical stories of hospitality, the community here at Epic is exploring ways to include the stranger among us, whether that stranger is the person sitting next to us, the new visitor we're meeting for the first time, or the homeless person who walks through our doors. We no longer assume everyone can afford to go out to lunch. Or that everyone has a place to go for the holidays. Or that everyone knows somebody here. So we're experimenting with creative ways to be the church together, to open up our lives and homes to include a diversity of people. And we'd like to take the church out into our neighborhood to share our food and company with the hungry.

But there are no romantic notions here. And if there are, they will quickly vanish with the first rays of reality. Hospitality is hard work. It is inconvenient. It is uncomfortable. It challenges our core sense of privacy, of individuality, of preference. Frankly, I'm not good at it. I'm convinced this is another one of those things that cannot be done without a good amount of prayer.

As Pohl so wonderfully explains, Jesus is both stranger and host. From birth, he was a refugee. Later he was not welcomed even in his own hometown. He described himself once as one who had nowhere to lay his head. And yet he was host - to the tax collector and sinner, to the prostitute and the hungry - inclusive in his own being to those most likely to be excluded. Jesus is our inspiration. He is our reference point.

We want to be Jesus in this way. All of us are a stranger to someone. And all of us can be host to someone. This is our hope at Epic. To make room for one more. And in doing so, make room for Christ himself in our midst.