know what's real: hospitality v. entertaining

Today I thought I'd talk about the difference between Biblical hospitality and the prevalent idea of entertaining.  This is a really long post because I wanted to make sure to include a lot of practical application. :)

Hospitality

As you might suspect if you've been reading all of these "know what's real" posts, Biblical hospitality focuses on our heart attitude rather than our external circumstances.  (That has been true with all of the topics we've looked at so far.)  

You'll be happy to know that it is possible to be a truly hospitable person even if you are broke, even if you are shy or feel that you are socially awkward, even if you do not have a fancy house or fancy dishes, and even if you do not know how to cook. :)

Before we look specifically at what the Bible has to say about hospitality, I thought it would be fun if we look at what Queen Elizabeth II has to say about hospitality, because really, when you think "formal entertaining," there is probably nothing more formal than going to dinner at the Palace with the Queen of England, is there? 

Isn't that why we learn good table manners -- in case we have to have dinner with the Queen? :D

If you zoom ahead to minute 4:56 in the video below, and listen to it until about minute 6:22, you'll hear the Queen's own thoughts on "putting out the red carpet" for people, and why she believes this is done. 

Listen carefully for her distinction between the "externals" of entertaining, and the "inner heart" of hospitality.  She doesn't quite go so far as to say that the externals don't matter (it seems like she's about to say that, but then she kind of flutters over it, where I typed ellipses), but she definitely isn't making the fine china tantamount to a welcoming spirit. She says:

If you do put out the best china and glass, it doesn't necessarily make it overwhelming, if you don't accept it as overwhelming, because if people are kind to you, and make you feel at home, I don't think that the outward and visible signs are really . . . it's, it's what goes on inside that really matters.  

So even in this most formal of settings with this most formal of women, there is an understanding that the purpose of the outward niceties are to reflect the inner heart.

I have no idea what the Queen would say if she were off camera and could speak freely. I don't know if she'd take it further, and acknowledge the Biblical basis for true hospitality.  But her distinction between those outward "entertaining" forms and the inner "hospitality" heart is heading in the right direction.

I guess it sounds kind of presumptuous of me to suggest that the Queen of England "is heading in the right direction" as far as hospitality is concerned. Ha. 

But I say this not because of my own practice of or concept of hospitality (which is very wobbly at best), but because of what the Bible has to say about hospitality.  

Just as we said that we need to encourage people and not just flatter them, so it's true as believers that we need to be hospitable to people and not just entertain them.

(click below to continue reading this long post!)

Let's look at Romans 12:9-21.  This is a big chunk of text, but I hope that seeing the context surrounding the word "hospitality" here gives you a good sense that God looks at hospitality as a mark of a true Christian believer.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

As you read this passage carefully, you'll see that hospitality has all kinds of great benefits: (1) hospitality is a way for us to "do" love, (2) hospitality is a way for us to serve the Lord, (3) hospitality is a way for us to serve one another and bless each other, (4) hospitality is a way for us to contribute to the unity of the body of Christ, (5) hospitality is a way for us to minister to our enemies, and (6) hospitality is a way for us to overcome evil.

Hospitality as a way to minister to our enemies! Hospitality as a way to overcome evil! What?!?

Right here, Kaboom!, we can see that Biblical hospitality is talking about something more than having the best caterer or florist in town, right?  

Let's look at this aspect of hospitality that would come least naturally to us: ministering to an enemy. When I think "ministering to an enemy," I automatically think of the story of the Good Samaritan. You may have grown up hearing this story as one in a string of somewhat disconnected Bible stories that you followed on a flannel graph board while you were eating graham crackers and drinking apple juice. 

But the story of the Good Samaritan speaks very clearly to the bigger picture of God's hospitality to us! 

If you are not familiar with the context of this story, it's important to know that the Jews and the Samaritans had centuries of animosity between them.  Samaritans had originally come from the northern Jewish kingdom, had intermarried with foreigners, and had rejected all of the Old Testament except for their own versions of the first five books of Moses. The Samaritans and the Jewish people were enemies.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 

And the lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 

Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 

Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 

So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”

He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”

And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Here we see Jesus broadening the lawyer's concept of the word "neighbor" to include his enemy!  It is hard enough to swallow the idea that we are to love our neighbor (or anyone) as much as we love ourselves, but to love our enemies as we love ourselves? Wow. I am guessing the lawyer was not too thrilled by this reply to his question.  

Did you know that we were still God's enemies when Jesus died for us?  Romans 5:7,8 says:

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die -- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Mankind was still in full-blown rebellion against God when He sent His son and offered us His mercy and grace. Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. He is not interested in our externals, or how good we appear to other people. He does not want us coming to him with a shiny semblance of perfection. He sees our hearts, and He knows we are not perfect. He is not interested in facades. He wants us to accept His mercy and grace, and to turn away from our old ways as our hearts are changed.

Wait, how did I get from talking about hospitality to talking about the Gospel? :) 

Because true, Biblical hospitality is about showing Christ's own hospitality to other people. We're not hospitable to people to show them what an awesome hostess we are, and we're not even being hospitable to people just to be "nice."  When we are hospitable to people, we are meeting their needs and comforting them to show them how much God loves them. 

Let's just look at a couple instances of Jesus's own hospitality.  I am especially fond of this interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 

The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Do you see how the woman's idea of hospitality is limited to the idea of meeting someone's physical needs (water), but that Jesus then talks about meeting her spiritual needs (living water)? 

She offers him water, and He offers her eternal life.  

(By the way, culturally, it is completely astounding that Jesus is even talking to this woman, let alone offering to meet her spiritual needs.  We might not get the sense of this in our modern times, but a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman and offering to minister to her is truly mind-boggling for that time.)  

I can just see myself standing there as the Samaritan woman did, saying to Jesus, "Here, have a puff-pastry h'ors d'oeuvre.  I got the recipe from Martha Stewart Living."  I'm not trying to be flip, I'm trying to illustrate how limited our idea of hospitality can be if we're thinking about it the way the world does.

Isaiah 55 speaks to this same kind of spiritual hospitality:

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live . . .

Now don't get me wrong. Jesus met people's physical needs, and He showed practical hospitality. He multiplied five loaves and two fish into enough food to feed five thousand when people were hungry, and he took seven loaves and a few fish and made it enough to feed four thousand when people were hungry again, and he turned somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of water into wine at a wedding at Cana in Galilee.  That's a lot of hospitality!  And the Bible is bursting with further examples.   

Not surprisingly, since Jesus was hospitable, we're commanded to be likewise.  Hebrews 13:2 admonishes us, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers," and 1 Peter 4:9 says "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling."

What is the purpose of our hospitality?  Do you remember when we were looking at encouragement versus flattery, and were talking about why we should encourage each other?  We looked at Romans 15:2, which says "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up."  A few verses further down, we see Romans 15:7:

Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

I made that text stand out because it's the main point of this whole post. :) Christ has welcomed us, and we are likewise to welcome other people!

"That's all well and good," you might be thinking, "but how do I put that into practice?"

I don't want to embarrass our Linda B. here in suziebeezieland, who is one of my real-life friends, but one of my favorite things about her is her pragmatism.  When she reads about something in the Bible, her response is, "Okay, now how do I do that? How do I put that into action?" 

She made me laugh out loud when she said, "I always thought of myself as hospitable, and then I realized that I was not having anyone over."

Her practical applications of her living faith have been a great blessing to me over the years. With her permission, I'm going to share with you a little list she's written for herself about "being hospitable." I just love it.

Being Hospitable 

1) Have people over to your house.
If you don’t have people in your home regularly, you may be the most organized, hospitable person in the world and it will all be for naught. 

2) Have people over frequently and on short notice.
Say yes as often as you can to a “short notice” opportunity. This is incredibly liberating. It will teach you that you can enjoy someone’s company even when there are dishes in the sink and dust on the mantle. 

3) Don’t turn hospitality into “entertaining.”
Entertaining is a code-word for showing-off. Perfectly clean house, perfectly prepared food, perfectly arranged decor becomes primary. And at the center of it all is you, the entertainer. ”Look at all that I did and how wonderfully I did it. Admire my home, my food, my effort,” is the heart of the entertainer, as opposed to the one offering hospitality. 

4) Don’t let your home be so messy or dirty that it’s a distraction.
This can be just as detrimental as the “entertainer” problem. As much as people may say it doesn’t matter, having a reasonably-ordered home does matter. It is uncomfortable to be in a pig sty. 

5) Include your guests as part of your family.
Invite them to participate in everything. If it’s your custom to sing and pray before dinner, fold them into that activity. 

6) Let your guests give you a hand.
If they ask if they can help, let your usual answer be, “Yes!” There are two reasons to do this: you probably could use the help, and most people feel more comfortable when they’re useful. 

7) Have saints and strangers over.
The Bible is explicit that it’s very important to show hospitality to saints (Romans 12:13, 1 Peter 4:9), meaning fellow Christians, and to strangers (Hebrews 13:2). This takes intentionality and effort. 

8) Have large and intimate gatherings.
Have thirty people over, then have one. 

9) Treat all your guests the same when it comes to the work you put into it.
Don’t make everything extra nice for people with status that you admire or rich people and let things go for others. Do not show favoritism. Sometimes we do this without realizing it. 

10) Be conversational!
Talk! Share! Share more than just your food and home, share yourself. Offer your opinions and ask for other people’s. Give people a peek at your history and ask about theirs. 

11) Invite unlikely and likely people over: the person who is alone or lonely; the person who has a special diet; the big family who feels like they put people at an imposition; loud people and quiet people; the person who seems to abound with friends and busy-ness (sometimes these people get overlooked because of these facts); the person who is always having people over to their house (they would probably be blessed by the offer). There are many benefits to being hospitable: meeting neat people, making friends, deepening existing friendships. The list could go on. But even these benefits should not be our primary reason for being hospitable. We are hospitable because of duty (God commands it) and delight (his commands produce godliness and joy in us). 

Finally, this piece of advice, which isn’t about being hospitable, but rather about learning to be a good receiver: accept invitations to other people’s homes when offered and allow them to practice hospitality with you.

Good stuff, huh? Thank you, Linda!  

So that's hospitality!  What about "entertaining"?

Entertaining

See number three in the "Being Hospitable" list above to get a good description of what "entertaining" is. Really, do I need to say anything else about it?  

The Entertaining tab over on the Martha Stewart website can be a good resource for implementing the practice of hospitality, but just try to find anything substantive about hospitality on that website.  Because really, that's how the world sees entertaining . . . it's pretty "me" centered, and all about the big "tah dah, look what I did for everyone" moments.

Under "hostessing and houseguests" and then under "etiquette" and then under "preparing for guests," there is a little blurb about "making people feel welcome" and ensuring that "their time with you is memorable," but boy, is that it?  

There is really a lot more emphasis on the STUFF of entertaining rather than the servant heart behind it all.

My prayer today as I type this is that I would be more hospitable, and that I wouldn't freak out when people come over and my house is messy. (I err in the direction of being too house-proud. I never invite people in when my house is not clean.) 

Most of all, I pray that my hospitality would reflect Jesus's own hospitality and heart-focused concern for other people.  I pray that my hospitality would seek to glorify God and not seek to glorify me.  

This is also my prayer for all the women who read this today. :)