July 20, 2025
Hospitality is a beautiful thing. Be it hosting coffee fellowship after church, putting on a dinner or event in the parish hall, or entertaining friends or neighbors in your home, when we engage in hospitality, relationships are enriched and others are treated as honored guests.
The Bible is filled with stories of hospitality, including the reading from Genesis that we heard moments ago. In this story that takes place near the oaks of Mamre where Sarah and Abraham have pitched their tent, those on the receiving end of hospitality were unexpected visitors. Instead of planning ahead and intentionally inviting guests, Abraham and Sarah had to scurry around to prepare a feast for the surprising visitors.
Who were these visitors who showed up in the heat of the day? None other than three visitors of God. Centuries later, this story was the inspiration for a piece of iconography from the Russian artist Rublev who imaged these three visitors as the Holy Trinity. Sarah and Abraham, it turns out, were playing host to none other than God.
So Abraham quickly brought water and bread to the visitors while Sarah made them cakes. Then they had a calf prepared for the dinner, along with milk and curds. In short order the visitors were given a lavish feast.
What happens when God comes over for a visit? Usually something special happens. Something revelatory. A word or a gesture that changes everything and make the feast or the banquet something quite sacred. God comes to receive our hospitality and even more, offer a life-altering word. In this instance the three visitors brought a stunning and surprising word from God. It was the news that Sarah would give birth to a son.
Well, once disclosed to Sarah, the news made her laugh. How in the world could these two really old people give birth? It sounded sort of crazy. Isn’t the case that God’s word, when disclosed, often seems too good or strange to be true.
When you invite God over or if God shows up unexpectedly as a guest, you can expect a word from God or a gesture from God that is unsettling, laughable, but usually always a word that gives newness to our old and ordinary lives and provides true life.
Jesus showed up as guest to a dinner or party often. I suspect he never turned down an invitation. And not unlike the visit from God to Sarah and Abraham, Jesus brought a word or a gesture to the party that surprised and many times shocked both host and guests. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Jesus dined with sinners and tax collectors. In other words, the “wrong people.” Jesus didn’t discriminate, anyone and everyone was welcome to dine with him.
When I was a kid, we would pray the same prayer before dinner every day. You may know the prayer. “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blest.” Daily we asked Jesus to join us around the dinner table. We asked him to be our guest. Many years later I reflected on what kind of a daring prayer this could be, for inviting Jesus to be your guest is to invite none other than God and with that you can expect the unexpected. The really daring part of the table prayer are the last words: “and let these gifts to us be blessed.”
By asking Jesus to be present, we pray that he will make the dinner or lunch or whatever meal it might be to be a sacred meal. Embedded in this sacredness is something new and potentially life-giving. It is as if Jesus the guest, becomes the host.
This is what happened when Jesus came to the home of Mary and Martha. While Martha prepared the meal to the point of distraction, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. By sitting at Jesus’ feet she was on the receiving end of holy wisdom. Mary listened and on that day “chose the better part.” Martha invited Jesus over for dinner and the dinner guest became the host.
When Jesus was guest at a banquet or meal or feast, he was the life of the party not in a frivolous way but in a way that changed minds and hearts and lives, for those who had ears and eyes to listen and see.
This is a recurring theme throughout the Gospels.
- As a guest at the wedding party in Cana, Jesus did more than show up. He turned water into wine. This miracle brought life to the party and initiated a new age of God’s grace.
- When Jesus was guest to a great feast at the home of Levi, a much despised tax collector, Jesus’ mere presence shocked the religious folks. The newness Jesus brought to the supper that day was demonstrating a radical twist into how people understood the nature of holiness.
- One time Jesus was a guest to Simon the Pharisee. The Pharisees were among those who grumbled about Jesus’ table manners. At this event a woman showed up to anoint Jesus’ feet. She was regarded as an A-1 sinner, but Jesus surprised them and shook up their worldviews by pointing out that she was the hospitable one and her act of hospitality welled up from a grateful heart. He announced the forgiveness of her sins and told her that her faith made her well.
Be careful when you invite Jesus over as guest. He is liable to shake things up. What he says or does may be well received or poorly received. Regardless of how he is accepted, beneath that “shaking up” is something that brings good and necessary change to the other guests and it is a summons to new life.
In the Rule of St. Benedict penned in the sixth century, the founder of the Benedictine order directs the members of the community to receive all guests as Christ.
Receive all guests as Christ.
In a way, it is a directive to honor God who comes in the guise of a stranger. To receive all guests as Christ is to pour out hospitality upon another as if you were inviting Jesus to be the guest. Benedict based this on the scripture where Jesus says “I was a stranger and you took me in.”
Jesus shows up as the stranger. To welcome the stranger is to treat them in the way you would treat Jesus. Benedictine spirituality shows us that hospitality is deeper that merely providing shelter and food to the guest. He went on to say that greater care is to be extended to one who is poor or in greatest need. It is a directive to see Christ in all guests and to accept guests in humility and with great generosity.
This kind of hospitality is more than being nice, it is carrying the expectation that the stranger or guest brings something to you and your community. It is the expectation that the stranger says something you may never have thought of or seen or experienced that brings a newness to life and imparts the wisdom of God.
So, the guest comes as a gift.
Oh, how often we turn our hearts inward. How often we will be suspicious of another person, especially the stranger and how often we quickly judge that person or “those people.” But to welcome them as Christ. Well, that kind of welcome gives them space to be and to bring gifts we may have never before imagined.
In my first parish, I learned a lot from the people I served. One of my teachers was Clinton Illi, a humble plumber who was generous beyond belief and most welcoming of all people. Once in a while he would bring complete strangers into his home. They became guests of Clinton and his wife, Carol.
Invariably, if the guest was still with them, he would bring that person to church and make an effort to introduce him or her to everyone during coffee hour. I had never before seen anything like that happen. Now, that I look back I am so grateful for his witness. He provided these strangers a bed, meals, money, transportation and more. It was as if Clinton was a good Benedictine. No, actually Clinton was a full on faithful Christian whose witness gave us more than a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.
Receive all guests as Christ. This is the kind of hospitality we extend, especially to neighbors with great need. We do not take such a ministry upon us quickly or even well. We are fearful or protective, but God calls us to take the risk of love.
Welcoming all guests as Christ is a beautiful and demanding antidote to a culture of fear.
In all those meal stories where Jesus the guest becomes the host, my favorite is one that comes near the conclusion of Luke’s Gospel. It is when the Risen Christ who goes unrecognizable to followers of Jesus travelling the Road to Emmaus, comes to their home as guest. The Risen Jesus sits down at their table and there Jesus the guest became the host.
He took bread, gave thanks over the bread, broke it and began to give it to them. It was then and there that the two others recognized him.
Just so, Jesus whom we invite as guest comes to us as host at this meal and we recognize him in bread blessed, broken and shared. We recognize a most gracious host who repeatedly feeds us with newness, forgiveness, and life.
When we invite Jesus as guest, he becomes the host.
We are the honored guests. Now, how might that make us hosts to other guests?
How might we welcome all people as Christ? Amen.