on Hospitality

I've been thinking about hospitality and this idea of mutual hospitality lately. 

It started since last week when we had our church picnic and the sermon was on uncomfortable hospitality. To show hospitality is not just a matter of inviting someone to your house and serving them something. Its an attitude of the heart. That is true hospitality that Jesus showed in His ministry on earth. The fact that He who is the Son of the Living God is would take up the role of a servant, a human, to be amongst us to show us what God is like. 

Just like Jesus, for us to be hospitable is to go into the realm of uncomfortable to show the abundance of grace and love that God has for us. 

What does this mean? 

Well here's a real example: after Hugh preached his sermon on hospitality, during the church picnic he had to clean the male toilet because someone had done a tsunami (to put it in a nice term) in there. It meant going eating dinner with people who might not have the same standard as you and still be grateful for the fact that they give out of the lack that they have to show God's love to others. 

Hospitality doesn't always just mean you giving something, it also shows when you receive something from others. To allow mutual serving and give people the grace and thankfulness they deserve even if it's not what we prefer. To let go of our preference or some of what we have for the good of others.

If we as Christians practice these kinds of hospitality. To hang out with people who are different from us. To allow others to be serve and to serve us in return in their own way. To be an open yet not rude but loving and gracious community. Imagine the impact it will have in the lives of the people involved and those who are also watching. 

3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

Phil 2:3-11

Here's a picture by Caravaggio, an artist known to have used prostitutes and criminals and normal poor people for his art depictions of Biblical scenes. I love the concept and I think a true depiction of what it would've liked when Jesus was on earth.