Surprising acts of Hospitality

A few years ago while at a dinner party I was introduced to a bunch of people as the evening went along. As with any event like this so many people introduce themselves to you that it is rare that you even remember the name of three of the people present. But there was something different at this party. It was the week before Passover and one of the people I was introduced to was a mother and her two daughters.

They stood out because they invited me to share Passover with them. It was jarring invitation to say the least, since I didn't really know them and they had just met me and yet here she was inviting me to join her and her family at table. It was a surprising act of hospitality.

At the heart of who we are as people of faith is hospitality. Surprising acts of hospitality define who we are as Christians and help remind us that we belong. We so often think of hospitality as little more than entertaining guests – family, friends, and sometimes, strangers. We prepare food , clean our homes and issue invitations, as a way of sharing our hearth and home with others. Sometimes we’re blessed and filled by those to whom we’ve shown hospitality, and sometimes we just wish they would go home.

Offering hospitality can be both energizing and draining, depending on our mood, the personality of the guests, and the degree of perfection we try to achieve in what we offer. At its foundation, we know that hospitality is simply welcoming others into our space and sharing the simple things of food and conversation with them. But surprising acts of hospitality are more than just food and conversation, it is about being vulnerable as the host and a sense of belonging as the guest. Jesus in his ministry often showed the least in society that they belonged to the kingdom around food, but it wasn't the food it was the feeling that endeared them to Jesus. That same thing draws us to him 2000+ years later.

We all want to be belong. If we simply remember how we felt when someone opened their heart to us, it won’t be so difficult to do it for someone else.

P.S. I did go to the Passover meal and had a wonderful time, along with making three new friends.

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
-Hebrews 13:1-2

Taking time for Time...

Last week I had lunch with a friend of mine who lives “the fast paced life”. We had to schedule our lunch almost three months out just to get it on his calendar and make time to nourish our friendship.

One of the first things that we talk about whenever we get together for lunch (or for any function for that matter) is how busy our lives have become. He said to me while the warm rolls arrived at our table, “you know I didn't grow up thinking that one of these days I’d have no time to do much of anything.”

It sounded like the lament of modern life, there is just not enough time to do the things that truly give us life. I thought a moment about what he said and found myself saying something along the lines of, “It’s your time, do what you need to do with it.”

The second those words came out of my mouth I realized I was talking to myself more than I was to my lunch companion. I thought of my calendar and how quickly it can fill up with the obligations of my vocation. How quickly I can get overwhelmed with needing to reply, respond and act on everything that comes across my desk and every invitation to engage. But in the end I am the one in charge of my time and my calendar.

We live in a busy world and often we feel pulled in seven different directions ten times a day, all this before lunch. But God calls us to make time, not just time for our friends and families but make time for ourselves and our souls to commune with God. How daring would it be if we actually scheduled that time in our blackberrys and smart phones. Would we look at the blocked out 1/2hour or hour that says “God time” on our calendars and decide that it’s expendable in favor of a meeting or an errand? Would we actually keep that appointment?

If we are so driven by our calendars and the hands of the clock maybe we do need to put “God time” on our calendars as a regular appointment, I know I will going forward. Try it! See what happens.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 A Time for Everything

1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. 9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

God is out there...

Ever since Adam and Eve drew their first breaths God has been trying to get our attention. And more often than not whenever we stop running from God and experience God's love in a profound way we seek to enshrine that experience. The "gathering of stones" to commemorate the places where we met God are scattered throughout history and the world. But like any gathering of stones we cannot encapsulate God no matter how hard we try.

I remember my childhood church. The doors were always open, night or day. I didn't even know as a child if the doors even had locks, but I suspect that they did. But that church was alive in many ways, not just in the people but in the space. My childhood church was a "pass through", it was a place that you went through on your way to some other destination. I suspect that when we lose that sense that our places of worship are pass throughs we lose a sense that God is encountered and worshiped not in a church building but in leaving that building.

Our places of worship are not destinations where go to find God, but rather they are way stations, pass throughs where we stop for a time as part of the journey with God. God isn’t enshrined in our buildings, God is a nomad, a wanderer, a holy hobo who travels daily with us, our Church buildings are simply “sacred places” where we have communally experienced a closeness to the Divine. Like our biblical ancestors erected stones at important encounter points in their traveling so too are our church buildings. They must speak of a God who is on the move, who wanderers, who journeys not some domesticated geriatric God confined to a sacred nursing hoping for an occasional visit from the too busy family.

When we seek to encounter God as we go out into the world we are better able to allow ourselves to be pursued and found by the living God.

Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word." (Isaiah 66:1,2; ESV)