Hospitality as Habit. {And a bit on Memorial Day}

There is something to be said about a good cup of tea. Or is it cuppa?

I guess that depends on where the “spot” is brewed.

When I was in Ireland it was virtually impossible to not notice their voracious appetites for the beverage. I mean, they drink it like 5 times a day. Why don’t Americans do something similar, apart from our Mt. Dew/Diet Coke addictions?
Anyway, because of this tea-ness they have over there, it opened up a few very eye-opening experiences for me.
The first one was brought on by a rainy afternoon and a change of plans. Rather than going to the Titanic museum (which we did end up going to days later and is amazing! If you are ever in Northern Ireland….GO!), we went to a friend’s house for afternoon tea. Mind you, this friend was a 23 year old single, male friend (who also had an exceptionally clean apartment), so I don’t think we were quite expecting to be asked almost immediately upon arriving two questions:

1.       Would you take some tea if I made it, and

2.       Do you take it with milk?

Yes and yes, we all chimed! Clearly we were the enamored Americans who view every new culture as if it were a shiny new toy. When he brought out an entire tea service on a tray, though, with cookies and crackers to boot, I knew that this most certainly WAS a shiny new toy.

Never in my existence have I ever been brought tea and cookies by any 23 year old man before.
Wow.

The second experience came from a friend’s mother. We had just spent the morning traipsing all over the country side, hanging out with castles, and albeit we had become a little famished.

“Mum, we’ll come for tea, yes?” my friend placed a phone call and asked his mother.
Naturally.
And what a lovely wee visit! There were cakes and cookies and sandwiches and tea and coffee if we wanted. We offered to help and she would only let us carry stuff in to the living room. She shooed us away as if our claim of “Don’t go out of your way for us! Seriously we are fine!” was something of the ridiculous.
I sat back and enjoyed my afternoon, pondering, over a perfectly placed wee spot of tea, what “mum” had done for us.

I couldn’t help but think that maybe our claims of not wanting to be a burden really were something ridiculous for them.

 Here at home I tend to feel almost like a nuisance sometimes. As if I am that girl that always happens to come over around dinner time, you know? I don’t think the people I drop in on tend to feel that I am a burden, by no means do they give me that vibe, but here at home I feel we are trained to never assume: never assume that they wanted company. After all, they might have been busy doing something else.
When I was in Ireland though, in both said instances, and the countless things our B&B host and hostess did for us (from driving us into town at night, to driving us to bus stations, to folding our laundry, to picking us up again in town and at bus stations), it never felt like a burden. But not even that we weren’t a burden, it almost felt as if that was what they expected to do for us. Almost as if it was habit. As if not doing it would have been the closest thing to ridiculous, for we needed those things, and they were in the business of fulfilling needs.

The New Testament talks a little bit about hospitality, pretty much always telling us to “practice” it (Romans 12:13, I Peter 4:9 III John vs8). I have wrongly heard some people say the phrase, “Oh, well she has the spiritual gift of hospitality,” and use it almost as cop-out for them to not be hospitalbe.  I always want to raise my little hand and say, “Ummm…actually….hospitality isn’t a gift. It’s a command. We are all called to be hospitable.” Now sure, some people seem “better” at it than others, but it’s not as if that’s natural! No one was born knowing how to make a cup of tea. Hospitality is a LEARNED trait. And more importantly it is a commanded trait. We are told to PRACTICE HOSPITALITY. Straight up. No excuses.

So what is it about those Irish people and their showings of it that stood out to me the most, for certainly I have been acted upon very hospitably here in the States? It was the fact that it seemed as natural as breathing to them. They had trained themselves to do good. They had made a habit out of the art of sustaining another person.

Sounds a little bit like the character of God doesn’t it? What if he sometimes didn’t feel up to providing for you? Or just had “better things” to do?

Hospitality is not only the tangible way to care about someone else, the most basic way to provide for someone’s needs, but I believe it is one of the most touching ways that Believers can show the love of Christ. A way they can show this truth of being in Christ: God sustains.

A very good friend of mine worked for some people who had cause to have a lot of visitors. While the people she was working for were lovely people, one thing they lacked was a “greeting” to their guests. My friend said she would be going about her work and eventually realize that the guests, who may have just come from very far, “hadn’t even been offered a glass of water!” She said she decided right then and there to be The Water Girl. “I have made it my job to at least ask, ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’”

I was struck by the simplicity of that.
I was also struck by the similarity to when Jesus says “I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.” (Mark 9:41). Maybe we all should be The Water Girl.

 Isn’t showing hospitality simply a way to tell of the character of God? Hospitality says, “All are welcome here.” “Be at rest.” “Let me serve you” (For Jesus came to serve). “Find peace here.” “Let your needs be met here; your wounds healed.”

Many a time in my life have I learned more about the character of God around a dinner table in someone’s home then any sermon ever taught me. As Christians, we are called to be walking sermons. Let your home and your habit of hospitality be a walking sermon, a walking declaration of truth, a walking show of your obedience to God.

We need to train ourselves to have hospitality as a habit. The sustaining of someone else needs to be as natural as breathing, because we know it needs to be done, we know we are capable of doing it, and because we know that every breath we have was given to us by God.

I love this passage in Isaiah. It shows most clearly that if you are in Christ, you are there because God was “hospitable” unto you; he called you into his house.

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me that your soul may live.”

(Isaiah 55:1-3)

~~~~~

I pray that you all had a memorable Memorial Day. After being in Budapest and seeing the history of how war-torn it has been over the centuries, scars still there from WWII and beyond, I am overcome with thankfulness for soldiers who fight for freedom; true freedom, not some idolized image of a so-called paradise on earth, but real freedom, liberation if you will.  So thank you, if any of you reading this are soldiers or are families of soldiers, today, and this is going to sound cheesy---but I mean it!---I salute you.

And here is a picture of some people who I am sure also felt very thankful for liberating soldiers.

 And others who weren’t reached in time.

Here is a memorial tree behind the Jewish synagogue in Budapest. Made of iron or steel it is quite large and has an inscription on every single one of its leaves.

The inscriptions are names of Hungarian Jews who lost their lives at the hand of brutal men who were attempting to create “utopia.”

This is Adolf Hitler shaking hands with the president of Hungary. Just remember, not all who say they come in peace are talking about the same peace you are.