Luke 14:12-14 Common English Bible (CEB)
12 Then Jesus said to the person who had invited him, “When you host a lunch or dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers and sisters, your relatives, or rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return and that will be your reward. 13 Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they can’t repay you. Instead, you will be repaid when the just are resurrected.
Entertaining. Not exactly something that’s on everyone’s mind right now. But when we do entertain there is a sort of expectation that they will return the invitation. If nothing else, they’ll pay for the pizza next time. We might not have a schedule showing whose turn it is, but in the back of our minds we do keep track. And we do get a bit miffed if it seems like they don’t ever take their turn.
Jesus tells the Pharisee who has invited him for dinner that what he should do is invite people who cannot reciprocate, pointing out that when you know someone is going to pay you back it’s not really a gift - it’s not really hospitality. Hospitality in the sense it was meant in Jesus’ time is to make another welcome without expectation of payment simply because it is the right thing to do. Indeed, to deny food and shelter to a traveler could cause their death. Denying hospitality was one of the most heinous sins in the ancient world. It is the sin that caused God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2) There are folk stories in probably every culture about offering hospitality to some random wandering stranger and having it turn out later that they were a king or some such. Indeed, this is the point behind Jesus’ words in Matthew 25. “And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” If you treat everyone as if they are a king - or Jesus - without expectation of reward, you will be blessed.
Right now we aren’t able to offer hospitality in the traditional way, by inviting others to our home. But many are offering hospitality in a different way. Delivering meals or groceries to people who cannot get out. Making masks and giving them away. Going over to chat with people who live alone through a screen door from six feet away. Dropping off pieces of lemon meringue pie (thank you!) All with no expectation of reward, for the doing of these things is blessing enough.
How have you experienced hospitality being freely offered during shelter in place?
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