The Gold Standard of Hospitality

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Heaven in popular imagination invokes a brightly lit realm above the clouds, a realm devoid of walls, private spaces or homes, where the heavenly denizens are free to roam and wander at will with no one complaining about another invading their private space. But our Lord’s own description seems far from this: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2) At one level, the Jews who first heard these words would have thought immediately of the Temple. If God was indeed Jesus’ father, the Temple which is God’s House (literally this is what the Hebrew word “Bethel” meant) is the “Father’s house” which our Lord is referring to in this text. The Temple of Jerusalem was indeed made up of several rooms or spaces and the closer you get to the inner sanctum of the Temple, the more groups of people would be excluded. For all purposes, it was not a very welcoming or hospitable house.

So, our Lord’s reference to the “Father’s house” which He was returning to, the house with “many rooms”, the house where He was preparing a place to welcome us, could not possibly be referring to this building. In the year 70 AD, after the siege of Jerusalem, the Temple would be destroyed by the Romans, the Jews would be dispersed to the far corners of the empire, and they would be a homeless and stateless nation as once their ancestors were in Egypt and later in Babylon. For our Lord, the true home which He was preparing, would not just be a place to visit, but one to stay. It would be a “dwelling place.”

This is at the heart of God’s hospitality that we encounter in today’s set of readings. The first reading and the gospel provides us with two stellar examples of hospitality - Abraham and Martha. But there is a twist to the ending of both tales demonstrating that as much as we wish to offer hospitality to others and to God, it is we who are the real beneficiaries of hospitality, especially of God’s.

The first reading is not just a story of Abraham’s hospitality offered to his visitors, but more importantly, it is the hospitality offered by the three visitors, which Christians would later identify as the Most Holy Trinity, to Abraham. Our attention is usually focused on the acts of hospitality which Abraham shows to his guests, but are we correct in doing so? The ending of the story which tells us how the three guests would bless Abraham and his seemingly barren wife, both in their old age, with a child, should be the key that unlocks the secret of this tale.

When Abraham gives his guests water, who really gives the water of life? When Abraham refreshes them by washing their feet, who really makes who clean? And when Abraham offers them bread, who really gives the bread of life? If you can figure out this riddle, you are one step closer to enlightenment. I’ll give you a clue… it isn’t Abraham who is the giver of all gifts. This isn’t a story about ordinary hospitality. And neither is the Gospel reading too. It wasn’t Abraham who was really being hospitable. It was God, God giving Abraham the bread of life and the water of life and the washing of salvation.

We turn our attention to the gospel. In wanting to show hospitality to the Lord, Martha expresses hostility towards her own sister whom she believes is unsympathetic to her hard work in the kitchen. For Martha, the “better part" of hospitality is to make her guest feel welcomed, accepted, and loved. Many of us would agree with her.

But our Lord by pointing to the action of Mary shows us that the “better part” is to sit at His feet and listen to His life-giving Word. The best hospitality we can give to the Lord is to listen to Him, which is another way of saying, to accept His hospitality.

Throughout scriptures, it is God who offers hospitality to us. The two bookends of the Bible speak of God’s hospitality - Eden and the Heavenly Jerusalem, both representative of God’s desire to dwell with us and among us. Everything that comes in-between shows God’s unwavering attempt to draw estranged fallen humanity home - whether it be through the establishment of a family of nations under the patriarchs, the call of the prophets to return to the covenants and finally the sending of His only begotten Son to save mankind.

Rather than assume that we can do something exceedingly great for God like Martha, we should imitate Mary in her docility in humbly accepting the gift of hospitality from Jesus, which is salvation. Our place is at His feet in humble adoration and submission. And unless, we recognise that our place is at His feet instead of arrogantly barking orders to others or even to God in order to get our way, our feeble attempts at hospitality would only result in more hostility. The best thing we can do for God, to please Him, is to accept His hospitality without any conditions. The astounding paradoxical truth is this: we don’t serve God. God serves us. We don’t need to feed God. God feeds us. We don’t need to provide for God. God provides for us. We don’t need to protect God. God heals and holds us in our brokenness. We don’t need to sacrifice to God. God has already sacrificed Himself for us.

Both of these apparently simple but exceedingly profound biblical stories offer a guiding word to Christians who yearn and thirst for hospitality, as we struggle to offer the warmth of hospitality to others. At this and every Eucharist, God invites us to the altar of His perfect sacrifice, to the meal which is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, to have a seat at the table and share in the fellowship of the Most Holy Trinity. It is here where we will be fed, we will be refreshed, and where we are saved. As we nervously approach the altar, fully aware of our unworthiness, we hear the Lord who beckons to us, as how He had gently spoken to Abraham, Mary and Martha: “Come… sit down… and taste. Fret no longer in what you can do but pay attention to what I can do for you. With me you will learn love. With me you will discover life. With me you will find a most welcoming eternal home.” If we have received such astounding hospitality at the hands of God, it should not be difficult for us to share a fraction of that with others. Remember: “You received without charge, give without charge.”