Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42
The Image of God
“Try to imagine meeting an alien being who is pure energy; who has no physical form; who is pure intellect; and who is immortal. How would you be able to relate to such a being? How would you communicate? How would you be able to love such a being? This is not science fiction. It is a description of the problems we have in dealing with God. Of course, God is not an alien. God is an infinitely loving creator. But we are so unlike God that we might as well be aliens ourselves.
God solved the problem by appearing on earth in the person of Jesus. We can relate to God because we can relate to God’s human form. Paul tells us that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God.” In other words, the qualities of love and mercy and humility [and hospitality] that we see in Christ are a perfect reflection of the same qualities in God. Jesus is God made visible. [v19]” -Richard Lonsdale
As God visible Jesus reaches out to us to reconcile with God and take our place in God’s family. Paul spells it out: Jesus is God’s Son, the first of many children. We are God’s family. (v20)
The gospel reading inspires the topic of hospitality. What does it mean to receive God’s hospitality and to offer the same to others.
Offering care and compassion to all
The words, ‘hospitality’ and ‘hospital’ come from the same root word, ‘hospes’, which is Latin for ‘guest’. Both words convey care of and compassion for guests. They may be people we know or they may be strangers. Hospitality is about the care we show. This includes the practical provision we make, which of course depends on our circumstances. We often think of the good ol’ cuppa when we think of hospitality and we can do that in our homes, I do it at church here in the mornings through the week, others do it by buying their guest a cuppa at a cafe. Likewise for a meal. But there are many ways we can show hospitality.
Don’t despair if you cannot entertain a large family to lunch or offer an open home. Hospitality has many expressions! It can be through taking a person into our home for a night or longer or providing shelter in another way. Our daughter-in-law in Australia is involved in a group trying to provide shelter for homeless people and they’re even using tents because there is so little spare housing in their town. Hospitality comes in many forms and is essentially us sharing what we have for others’ benefit.
Hospitality is also seen in the provision God makes for us. Paul reminds us in Colossians that ‘in him all things hold together’. God is on a mission to restore all that was damaged by the fall, at the beginning of time. It is God who makes the sun shine, the rain fall, the crops grow. He provides us with family, friends, shelter and comfort. God provides for our needs in this life and will continue to provide all we need in the next life (John 14:2,3).
Perhaps the best known incident of hospitality in the New Testament involved Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), in Bethany (John 11:1). While Jesus clearly valued the kindness shown to him and recognised the importance of domestic hospitality, he used Martha’s ‘distractedness’ (v 40) to underline the need for his followers to get their priorities right (v 42). It is also all too easy for busyness and a preoccupation with practical tasks, perhaps performed in the context of church life, to become all-consuming. Appropriate ‘hospitality’ towards Jesus should combine hands-on service with an overriding concern to develop our relationship with him and learn from him.
Preparing to offer hospitality
Integral to provision is preparation. If someone is coming to stay, we will get a room and food ready.
The New Testament contains many references to hospitality. It formed the setting for much of Jesus’ ministry (see Luke 19:1-10). Also its importance for the early church in a variety of circumstances is found in passages such as Acts 2:46; 10:6; 16:15; Romans 12:13; 1 Timothy 3:2 and Hebrews 13:2. Hospitality is seen as the means by which unity among God’s people can be built up, practical needs met and the ministry of itinerant workers aided.
God too is preparing a place for us. He has already invited us to come to his banquet and Jesus has gone to the Father to get everything ready. He offers us hospitality. But there is more to it than that.
One of the commonest comments from retired nurses is that things have become so medically focused that there is no time to spend with patients as people. This is the other side of hospitality. Hospitality is not just about being ready and providing, not just about the cuppa or the meal or the bed or the roof overhead; it is about caring enough to build relationships, to share ourselves. Hospitality is about attitude as well as action.
Building relationships
Relationship is central to understanding who God is – the three in one God. God is a loving Father who seeks to build his relationship with us and give us what will do us most good. God is involved in our hospitality to others as an openness and warmhearted kindness to others acts as a service to the Lord himself (Matthew 25:40).
Mary and Martha both offered and received hospitality. Later in the Gospels, Jesus showed hospitality to them when he restored their brother Lazarus to them. Mary had a hospitable, relational attitude and Martha demonstrated her hospitality in her actions. We need to balance hospitable actions with the time to build relationships – which Martha missed.
Hospitality is very much a two-way thing – a relationship – especially with God. God has prepared a place for us and provided the way for us to be reconciled to himself through the work of Jesus. He longs for us to develop a relationship with him. The sign I put on the footpath each day says, ‘Church open; come in for a cuppa’. When someone comes in I invite them to have a drink and something to eat and I sit down with them and we talk. The point of the cuppa is in fact that conversation. Hospitality is in fact welcoming another person into your life. Jesus welcomes us into his life for a deep and meaningful conversation that has the potential to transform us beyond recognition.
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book, “Eat, Pray, Love” describes her one-year ‘search for everything’, a search that began with a prayer. that prayer, she insists, was not a religious conversion, more the beginning of a religious conversation – the first words of an open dialogue that would bring her very close to God. I don’t know where Elizabeth Gilbert is at spiritually. I have watched the film but the film does not deal with her spiritual quest in any depth. I haven’t yet read her book, either, but I have heard some of her comments and it does seem that the open dialogue is ongoing. Open dialogue is very important for any of us in developing our friendship with and love for Jesus, God-made-visible.
So we have before us a couple of challenges.
Challenge 1
The one involves receiving God’s hospitality; accepting being accepted into his family. Have we prepared a place for the Spirit to live in us? Have we provided open access for God to renew our minds and replace our hearts of stone with ones of flesh? Are we spending time building relationship?
Challenge 2
Are we prepared to be hospitable? Have we looked at the best ways we can provide for others? Have we opened our hearts to ‘love the ones that God loves’ and build relationships with others? What are the three aspects of hospitality we looked at today? Preparation, provision and relationship.
I invite you to think how you can build relationships this week that will enable you to develop the gift of practicing hospitality.