The Hospitality of God
Genesis 18. 1-10a; Colossians 1.15-28; Luke 10.38-end
Dear Lord, through our thoughts, words and prayers may we be ever more
reconciled to your divine majesty where hospitality abounds and love is never
ceasing, in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
Today’s reading from
Genesis stands to prove one old adage: ‘behind every successful man, there is a
good woman’!
Abraham clearly sees hospitality
to strangers as being central to remaining faithful to the living God. For
Abraham, the two are interconnected in a deep and meaningful way. But when
Abraham recognises the urgent need to entertain new guests, it is to Sarah that
he turns asking her to prepare the bread, the wine, the meal. Abraham’s
excellent entertaining skills are rooted in Sarah’s magnificence around the
home (or tent).
Saint Benedict, the
founder of Western monasticism, considered hospitality to be central to monastic
living. Benedict presupposes visitors! His rule, dating from the sixth century,
outlines exactly what it takes to engage appropriately with guests whilst
remaining true to the communal life of prayer and work.[1]
A porter (or guest-master) is to be
appointed to care for a guest for the entirety of their stay. He (or she) must
be a person able to attend to the guest’s needs, be able to appropriately order
the guest quarters and be welcoming and friendly.
Furthermore, every guest
should be greeted by the Abbott (or deputy) during their stay, because every
guest may well be Christ in disguise.[2]
The welcome then is everything, but Benedict recognises that welcome is not the
same thing as merely giving aid. In order for a guest to feel welcome, they
need to be appreciated, feel they are respected and be listened to in a kind
and friendly way. In other words, the hearts of the monks attending to a guest
must be ‘open’ and embracing of their new visitor and not distracted by other
tasks. Most importantly, no matter how busy the monks may be, or how hard they
work, they must do so with a willing heart because the person in front of them
might well be sent by God. Nothing can be too much trouble. Such an approach
finds good grounding in our biblical material and may have deep lessons for our
churches…
Abraham is renowned for his
welcome and hospitality. As a stranger to the land of Canaan, his need for
hospitality in the early years of his wanderings will have been great. Abraham
never forgets this. Time and again his kindness to visiting strangers pays off.
It builds friendships and trust, and on more than one occasion his guests
actually turn out to be angels sent from God.
In today’s reading, Sarah
and Abraham go to some lengths to make their guests feel welcome. They willingly
attend to the necessary chores without grumble or complaint. Abraham makes time
for his visitors and listens to their concerns. It is Abraham’s and Sarah’s kindness, faith and trust that sees them then being
promised the one thing they desperately want, but it seemed they could never have;
a child.
In today’s Gospel reading,
it is Jesus who finds himself in need to hospitality. After equipping ministry
on a massive scale and overseeing its first endeavours. And after receiving the
seventy new disciples back from their travels and conducting the necessary debrief;
Jesus himself journeys on.[3]
This is where today’s Gospel passage begins. He finds he is in need of
hospitality and so he enters a village where Martha welcomes him into her home.
The hospitality he receives from Martha and her sister Mary is exquisite. In
fact, it is so good that they become life-long friends. He is comfortable in
their company and he sees in their openness a place of welcome and love.
During this early
encounter, however, Martha is distracted.[4]
Having such an important guest under her roof is proving a burden to her, and it
is easy to picture the scene. They have probably already eaten. Jesus is seated
on the best, most comfortable seat in the house and Mary, having already done
enough to make Jesus feel at home, sits and listens intently to his words.
But Martha cannot rest.
There is the next meal to prepare, beds to make, sweeping to do. Martha wants
the house to remain in pristine condition during Jesus’ stay, and her sister
sits idly by. But Martha’s heart is in the wrong place. In her attempts to make
the house as hospitable as possible, she makes herself appear quite unconcerned
with the real essence of hospitality – paying attention to one’s guest. A
little like a child complaining to the teacher she makes her irritation clear
to Jesus; she grumbles.[5]
With just a few honest words, Martha reveals her weakness. Her apathy to what Jesus
is teaching shows that her hospitality is rooted in self-gratification and not
attentive love. Mary is the one who ‘has chosen the better part’[6],
for she cares for whom Jesus truly is and desperately wants to know him better.
This is the woman whose love runs so deep that she anoints his feet with
precious oil and wipes them with her hair.[7]
Benedict, Abraham, Sarah
and Mary all recognise something that poor Martha overlooks. Our God is a
hospitable God who cares for our inmost woes. It is this hospitality that they
strive to mirror. God pays attention to our needs and does not stop to count
the cost. He gives of himself to die on the cross without grumble or complaint.
This is a God who is prepared to make the greatest sacrifice imaginable in
order to welcome each of us back home.
This morning we will
partake in this paschal mystery. In our Eucharistic offering we will enter into
the new covenant of love and grace, secured for us through his self-giving act
of love on Calvary. As we move through this divine liturgy of the Church,
Christ moves amongst us and we receive fleeting glimpses of his eternal banquet
for which we all long.
Our God knows how to do
true hospitality! As we receive his body and blood in the Eucharistic elements
this morning, let us then pray that we may be transformed into his likeness to
live self-sacrificial lives and work according to his values of love, peace and
grace.
St Paul is the first
century genius at putting all of this into some kind of theological language
and so I leave you to ponder one short extract from today’s second reading:
‘For in him all the
fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to
reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace
through the blood of his cross’.[8]
Amen.
R.T. Parker-McGee 2013
