1 Peter 4.9 says sim­ply: “Be hos­pitable to one another … .” Hos­pi­tal­ity is a cru­cial Chris­t­ian prac­tice that man­i­fests the wel­come of God extended to human­ity through the death, res­ur­rec­tion and ascen­sion of his son, Jesus Christ. Through this event God made a way for strangers, alien­ated from him on account of their sin (unbe­lief, rebel­lion and idol­a­try) to become part of his house­hold (Coloe, “Wel­come into the House­hold of God”, 412).

The prac­tice of hos­pi­tal­ity has a long and rich his­tory in the bible. The well known account of Abra­ham, a for­eigner in Canaan, extend­ing hos­pi­tal­ity to three men asso­ci­ated with God is nar­rated in Gen­e­sis 18:1–8. The event is set in the con­text of the covenant that forms the basis of the estab­lish­ment of the peo­ple of God. (Gen 17: 11–14). Abra­ham is depicted as leav­ing the com­fort and safety of his tent, hur­ry­ing towards the men lin­ger­ing near his abode, bow­ing before them and implor­ing them to “not to pass him by” (Gen 18:3). Abraham’s lav­ish pro­vi­sions for his guests included water so that the men “may wash their feet” (Gen 18:4, 6–8). He arranged for a feast to be pre­pared for them, slaugh­ter­ing a “choice calf” (Gen 18:7) which he served to his guests. Upon com­ple­tion of the meal the men announced the good news that a son will be born to Abra­ham and Sarah (Gen 18:10). Isaac was the promised seed from whom were born the peo­ple of God later known as Israel. It is sig­nif­i­cant that the bible jux­ta­poses Abraham’s right action towards the strangers and the bless­ing of life bestowed upon him and Sarah with the injus­tice and immoral­ity, indica­tive also of a lack of wel­come, of Sodom and Gomor­rah that pre­cip­i­tates their sub­se­quent destruc­tion (Gen 19).

The Gospel of John takes us to another scene of hos­pi­tal­ity, this time in Jerusalem. It is set in the con­text of the Passover fes­ti­val, a meal that com­mem­o­rates the deliv­er­ance of Joseph’s descen­dants from enslave­ment in Egypt and their for­ma­tion as the peo­ple of God in the wilder­ness (John 13–17). The meal had com­menced but Jesus sud­denly got up and started wash­ing the feet of his dis­ci­ples, tak­ing on the role of the host who wel­comes his guests by cleans­ing them of the dirt accu­mu­lated along their jour­ney thereby prepar­ing them to come to his table (John 13:1–17). It is against the back­ground of the foot wash­ing and the meal that Jesus announced that he was going to pre­pare a place for his dis­ci­ples in His Father’s house (John 14:1–14). These acts of hos­pi­tal­ity framed Jesus’ cru­ci­fix­ion, res­ur­rec­tion, ascen­sion and the send­ing of the Holy Spirit which become the way through which the new house­hold of God was estab­lished, set apart for God in Christ (Coloe, “Wel­come into the House­hold of God”, 411–415). Seen against this back­drop, the many meals Jesus shared with those barred from the tem­ple, can be under­stood as fore­shad­ow­ing the mes­sianic ban­quet (Tor­rance, Atone­ment, 416,417) as the scat­tered peo­ple of God are gath­ered to him after being cleansed by the host. Jesus’ words, “Today sal­va­tion has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abra­ham” (Luke 19:9) to Zac­cheus, a tax col­lec­tor despised by the Jews, indi­cate the restora­tion inher­ent in inclu­sion among the peo­ple of God.

When Jesus sent his dis­ci­ples and the sev­enty two as emis­saries pro­claim­ing the good news of the King­dom it became clear that receiv­ing them amounted to receiv­ing the King and his bless­ing while reject­ing them invited destruc­tion sim­i­lar to Sodom (Luke 9,10). Early Chris­tians there­fore con­sid­ered hos­pi­tal­ity towards Chris­t­ian strangers imper­a­tive since receiv­ing them was tan­ta­mount to receiv­ing Christ him­self. (Arter­bury, “The Ancient Cus­tom of Hos­pi­tal­ity” 56). Itin­er­ant evan­ge­lists such as Peter and Paul spread the gospel in the con­text of hos­pi­tal­ity and it is not inci­den­tal that the most promi­nent con­ver­sion in Acts involved an act of wel­come. In this instance Peter played the part of the host who received Cor­nelius’ emis­saries thereby in effect accept­ing Cor­nelius, a gen­tile, among the peo­ple of God (Acts 10:23 ff). This was a pow­er­ful act that sig­nalled a breach in the bar­ri­ers that had hereto­fore pre­vented non-​​Jews from being included among God’s chosen.

Today we cel­e­brate the Lord’s sup­per as one of the two sacra­ments of the protes­tant church. This meal at which Jesus is still host is cen­tral to under­stand­ing the nature and func­tion of the church. At this meal the church is anchored firmly in the his­tor­i­cal event of Jesus’ death and res­ur­rec­tion which made the way for table fel­low­ship with God. This is sym­bol­ized by the break­ing of the bread that sig­ni­fies “rat­i­fi­ca­tion into a spir­i­tual covenant and ini­ti­a­tion into reli­gious fel­low­ship” in accor­dance with ancient Hebrew cus­tom. (Cohen, Abraham’s Hos­pi­tal­ity, 171).

The cur­rent era inau­gu­rated by Jesus’ life, min­istry, cross, res­ur­rec­tion and ascen­sion is one of hos­pi­tal­ity. At this time the procla­ma­tion of the good news of God’s king­dom comes in the form of an invi­ta­tion to become part of the house­hold of God, by plac­ing our trust in Christ as the one through whom rela­tion­ship with God is restored. But as Jesus’ com­mis­sion to his dis­ci­ples and his vis­its with peo­ple like Zac­cheus demon­strated, belief is sig­ni­fied by wel­com­ing the king and his emis­saries. This means mak­ing room for them, set­ting aside usual rou­tines and goals to cater to them, fol­low­ing Abraham’s exam­ple who inter­rupted his rest to attend to his guests with the best of his time and resources. It means allow­ing the king to set the agenda, rear­rang­ing pri­or­i­ties and bring­ing our time, resources, space, tal­ents and gifts and let­ting him deter­mine what to do with it. In return the church is assured of his sus­tain­ing pres­ence and power as they labour under often dis­cour­ag­ing circumstances.

For the church to exer­cise the min­istry of hos­pi­tal­ity means liv­ing out its call to invite peo­ple to enter into and share the Chris­t­ian story as Jesus invited the out­casts, the mis­fits, the pros­ti­tutes and sin­ners to share in God’s king­dom. The church is meant to sym­bol­ize God’s wel­come by receiv­ing the stranger and wel­com­ing them into his story, the nar­ra­tive of the bible. This can be threat­en­ing as the alien brings with him or her, views, beliefs and behav­iours that are dif­fer­ent from ours and it requires that we hold in ten­sion the need to be faith­ful to Christ while being in rela­tion­ship with those out­side the covenant as the early church had to do. While an obe­di­ent rela­tion­ship to Jesus safe­guards our iden­tity as the fam­ily of God, the prac­tice of hos­pi­tal­ity to the stranger and alien assists us to ful­fill the com­mis­sion to spread the gospel (Matt 25: 28 ) and care for the for­eigner and the mar­ginal, bring­ing God’s jus­tice to bear in a money and power ori­ented world. It also pre­vents the church from dete­ri­o­rat­ing into a pious ghetto as long as we remem­ber that the intent is for all who enter Christ’s domain to leave behind the story that they were liv­ing, the nar­ra­tive that dom­i­nated and deter­mined their lives, to embrace life that unfolds in accor­dance with his will and purpose.

Bib­li­og­ra­phy

• Arter­bury, A. “The ancient cus­tom of hos­pi­tal­ity: the Greek nov­els, and Acts 10:1–11:18.” Per­spec­tives in Reli­gious Stud­ies 29 (2002): 53–72.
• Cohen, J. “Abraham’s hos­pi­tal­ity.” Jew­ish Bible Quar­terly 34 (2006): 168–172.
• Coloe, Mary L. “Wel­come into the House­hold of God: The Foot Wash­ing in John 13.” Catholic Bib­li­cal Quar­terly 66 (2004): 400–415.
• Koyama, K. “‘Extend Hos­pi­tal­ity to Strangers’: A Mis­si­ol­ogy of The­olo­gia Cru­cis.” Cur­rents in The­ol­ogy and Mis­sion 20 (1993): 165–176.
• Tor­rance, T. F. Atone­ment: The Per­son and Work of Christ. Edited by Robert T. Walker; Col­orado Springs: Pater­nos­ter; Down­ers Grove, Ill.: IVP Aca­d­e­mic, 2009.