A hospitable life.

I read a quote recently, and it’s been poking at the edge of my thoughts ever since. 

“Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, ‘I came as a guest, and you received me.’”  - The Holy Rule of St. Benedict

I’ve always associated hospitality with dinner parties: inviting people over to eat a homemade meal at a well-set table with expertly-folded napkins and JoJo-esque floral arrangements. Since I don’t have a lot of physical space for dinner parties (let alone matching napkins), I’ve thought of hospitality as something I’ll do in the future.

But as this quote continues to poke my brain, I’ve begun to consider whether hospitality might be a much broader idea, with much more serious implications, than I’ve always assumed. 

I’m realizing that this call to hospitality, while it is a call to open my home, is, even more, a call to open my life.

What does that look like? What does it mean to live a hospitable life?

It means welcoming.

Welcome has become the word we step over as we walk in the door, but even so, it hasn’t lost its richness. “You are welcome here.” Is anyone immune to those words? They are disarming, inviting, accepting. We cherish the thought of being welcome. 

I’m an introvert, so the thought of throwing wide the door of my life and letting anyone step across the threshold makes me squeamish. I don’t think being welcoming means I have to be an extrovert, nor does it mean my circles have to infinitely expand. But it does mean I have an obligation to be kind. To extend greeting. To answer any knock on my life-door with friendly courtesy.

It’s not a huge thing, welcoming people. A friendly smile, a kind word. A “how is your dog doing” or an “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” It’s small, actually. But the impact reverberates. Like an echo in a cavern, it continues long after the first sound. And it makes a difference. When I greet someone with friendly courtesy, it’s as if I’m saying, “I see you. I acknowledge your presence, and I declare that you matter.”

Do I welcome people? 

It means creating space.

Every time I give someone a ride in my car, I have to create space for them. All my coats, Kleenex boxes, and pens are relegated to the back so that this person has physical space.

Sometimes hospitality means creating physical space. Offering my home, my couch, my coffee mugs. 

Much more often, though, hospitality means creating space in my life. It means offering my time and my attention to another person. It means being willing to give up some of my own space to share it with someone else, being willing to shift my priorities (along with my Kleenex boxes) to let them sit down and talk. 

Creating space doesn’t mean breaking boundaries. I have neither unlimited time nor unlimited space, and with what I have I must be judicious. But giving space reinforces value. And so when I can make space, it’s worth the effort. Because I know how I feel when others create space for me. “You are worth my time and my attention. You are valuable.” 

Do I create space for people?

It means offering sustenance. 

When I think of hospitality, I immediately think of food. It’s hard to imagine inviting someone over without offering them some kind of sustenance. Every home magazine reinforces the idea, with center-page spreads of immaculate tables groaning under delectable meals.

But if hospitality is broader than a dinner party, then sustenance must be bigger than whatever I have in my fridge. (Tea? Lettuce? Ice cream?)

How can I offer sustenance when people enter my life-space? It’s easy to offer food to a visitor, but am I offering something deeper? Maybe they need encouragement, or a listening ear. Maybe they need hard truth, or maybe just silence. It takes awareness and empathy and a willingness to enter into someone else’s experience to offer sustenance well. 

The thing about this is that bare cupboards don’t yield much sustenance. I can’t offer what I don’t have. I can’t offer wisdom or joy or truth or encouragement if I haven’t already received it.

I’ve been reading about Jesus’ life and ministry recently. People followed him around and entered his space all day long and into the night. And they left filled up. They left healed. They left redeemed. Then Jesus would go off alone in the early morning to pray. Do I follow his example? Am I receiving so that I can give?

Am I offering sustenance?

It means exchange.

There’s one important element of hospitality that I’m quick to overlook. When I think of the physical hospitality of opening my home and providing food and a place to sit and talk, it’s all me giving and my guest receiving. If that is my perspective—me offering everything and my guests offering nothing—it puts me in a position of power, and often of pride. 

As I invite people in and welcome them, it must be with an attitude of humility. As I create space and offer sustenance, it must be with a readiness, and even eager expectation, to receive the wisdom and joy and truth they have to share.

I can’t help but think of Mary and Martha and their guest, Jesus. Would I invite Jesus into my home, into my space and my life, with the assumption that he had nothing of value to offer? What a tragic waste that would be. 

When I invite people into my space with only my agenda in mind, thinking I have nothing to learn and everything to offer, I reduce people to projects and muffle the echos of grace that could otherwise sound. When I welcome people in with recognition of their inherent worth and their ability to extend grace as well as receive it, that is where the joyful exchange of vibrant hospitality flourishes. 

Am I willing to humbly receive grace and truth from those I welcome? Do I enter into the exchange of hospitality?

Am I living a hospitable life? Am I, as Paul says, welcoming others as Christ has welcomed me?

May I receive all guests who knock on the door of my life with open arms, ready to exchange the life and joy and hope and love of Christ.