The Grace and Call of Hospitality
The transforming meaning of Jesus' life and mission can be understood in terms of divine hospitality. The inhospitality that Jesus encounters from the time of his birth, when there was no room for him in the inn (Lk 2:7), and when Herod tried to do away with him (Mt 2:13), he continues to encounter throughout his entire lifetime. He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him (Jn 1:11). Jesus counters the inhospitality of the human heart with the hospitality of his heavenly Father. In the light of the crucified and risen Christ, the community of Christian faith proclaims that God, the Host of the world, has given us his Son and Spirit, to transform an inhospitable humankind into his own hospitable image and likeness.
The grace and call of God finds expression in the many biblical hospitality narratives. God as Host provides a garden for Adam and Eve, and walks with them in that garden. The primordial hospitality of paradise is a paradigm for human hospitality. Abraham and Sarah reflect God's primordial hospitality in hosting their guests.
Jesus reveals God's call to hospitality when he summons his hearers to extend God's hospitality, which we can never repay, to others who cannot repay us (Luke 14). God's hospitality is not on a quid pro quo basis. God offers his hospitality even to the inhospitable. He is not hospitable because he is lonely and in need of festive company. He is not hospitable out of necessity; rather, his hospitality expresses the joy and happiness that he is. The Triune God of Jesus Christ is hospitably self-giving by nature.
Jesus' parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30) tells us of a generous God, who shares his abundance that we might enjoy life abundantly. It implies that our God-given abundance should enable us to become hospitable sources of abundance for others. Jesus' parable of the talents extends the divine imperative of Genesis, to increase and multiply, beyond the limits of demography. The abundance of hospitable children evidences the life/spirit that they have received from their hospitable Creator. They are the true image and likeness of God as host. The servant who buried his two talents is indicted for his failure to enjoy, and employ, his God-given abundance as God himself. This servant recalls the warning of Jesus that the fearful person, who tries to save his life, will lose it. Such fear and insecurity, reflects the absence of God's abundantly, self-giving spirit/life.
Jesus' banquet parables reveal God's universal, and all encompassing love, as the Host of all humankind. God has prepared a banquet to which he invites all humankind. The banquet is a metaphor for the communion, community and communication of God, and all humankind, under the sovereignty of God's love. Jesus' banquet parables tell us that God has predestined all human beings to share the eternal love, joy and happiness that he is. They tell us that God's will for us is always God's happiness for us. To reject God's will, is to reject Happiness Itself. Matthew 25 contrasts the happiness and joy of the hospitable, to the unhappiness and misery of the inhospitable. Matthew, the tax-collecter, and a taker, becomes a generous banquet-giver in following Jesus. The Banquet-giving Lord is recognized in his banquet-giving disciples. The Generous/ Hospitable One is known in all who share his generous and hospitable Spirit.
The banquet parables imply the communion, community, and communication of both the host, and his guests, in freedom The host freely prepares his banquet, and freely invites his guests. All who are invited may freely accept or decline the invitation. Always an act of freedom, love is never violent. God forces no one to love him.
The banquet parables tell of both the freedom of God's grace and call, and of the freedom of our accepting, or declining, God's invitation to the communion, community and communication of the banquet. Divine and human hospitality, express divine and human love and freedom.
Matthew 25 associates hospitality with the joy of eternal life. Persons who, even though unwittingly had been hospitable to the Son of Man, are welcomed into the kingdom of God. Jesus' parables of banquets and wedding feasts associate God's hospitality with joy. Invitations to banquets are a call to share the joy and festivity of the host. The elder son in the parable of the prodigal son is the resentful refuser of festivity. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins associates participation in the hospitality of the bridegroom's wedding feast with wisdom. It is an eschatological festivity and hospitality that eludes the foolish.
Hospitality is associated with beauty. The Greek word for beauty derives from the verb to "beckon." Beauty beckons or attracts us. The hospitable banquet giver of the parables invites guests to his festivities. Beauty is the inviting quality of the self-giving host. The Greek adjective, kalos, means both "good" and "beautiful"; hence, the Beautiful Shepherd is the Good Shepherd, whose beauty consists in the love that lays down his life for others, and draws them to himself. The eucharistic hospitality of bread and wine in communion, celebrates the self-sacrificing love of the Beautiful Shepherd, whose beauty draws us to himself.
The transforming power of messianic hospitality in Isaiah 25, liberates us from sadness and death. The hospitality of God's messiah, makes us joyfully hospitable persons (the sacramental effect of the Eucharist) just as God's love makes us lovely, and his friendship makes us friendly: "See how they love one another" (Jn 13:35).
We are all God's guests on planet earth, which is like an airport hotel, where God hosts us until the next flight to the mansions, where he will host those who love their divine host. Each day, flights arrive with all God's newly created persons to whom he has given free tickets as his guests on planet earth. None of the new arrivals paid for his ticket.
God not only hosts everyone on planet earth, but he also knocks on our doors looking for hospitality: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me (Rev 3:20). Our generous Host (gratia operans) has provided us with all the resources for becoming reciprocally hospitable (gratia co-operans). God hosts all human persons within his creation, starting with Adam and Eve in paradise.
Abraham is the paradigm of human reciprocity: in hosting the three angel guests, he unwittingly hosts the divine Host, who rewards Abraham's hospitality with the promise of which Jesus Christ is the fulfillment. Abraham's hospitality is that of the welcoming human heart that hears the Lord knocking at the door, and opens it for communion with him (see Rev. 3:20). Mary's "Let it be done unto me," is that of the welcoming human heart of the new creation. The hospitality of Abraham achieves its fulfillment in hospitality of Mary's welcoming heart, hearing the Lord who stands and knocks at her door, and welcomes him into her life. Mary's hospitality participates in that of the Triune God, whose Son became man, that all humankind might enjoy God's eternal hospitality in the mansions that his crucified and risen Son has prepared for those who open their doors in hospitality to him.
Three key moments of divine and human hospitality in salvation history
The Abraham pattern of divine and human hospitality recurs throughout the Bible: from the time of the promise to Abraham, to its fulfillment in Christ, and at the Last Judgment. The Host of the world is welcomed and shown hospitality, in three key moments of salvation history, by persons who had no idea that they were hosting the Host of all humankind. Abraham hosted his three visitors; the Samaritan woman at the well is asked to host Jesus with the water he had requested; and, the blessed of the Father had no idea that they had hosted the hungry and thirsty Son of Man, who welcomes them into the kingdom his Father had prepared for them, since the foundation of the world.
- Abraham–At the time of the promise (Genesis 15);
- Samaritan woman–At the fulfillment of the promise in Christ the messiah (Jn 4);
- The just at the Last Judgment–At the end of time - (Matthew 25).
The scriptures of the Christian community of faith tell us, in these three key moments of salvation history, that we encounter the Other in our hospitality to others: we encounter God in our hospitality towards strangers. In all three stories, there is an implicitly theocentric, self-transcendence–transcending ourselves, our families and our nations–in welcoming the transcendent, Ultimate Reality that is the Origin, Ground and Destiny of all humankind. In hosting those whom the Host of humankind is hosting, we are hosting the Host.
That the hospitable persons in the three above instances were unwittingly hosting the Host of the world, implies that their hospitality was not calculated on a quid pro quo, or payback basis. Their hospitality had all the freedom, and sheer gratuity, of the divine hospitality, what we mean by "grace."
By the grace of God, we are what we are. Our worth is a gift given to us from the moment of our creation. The marvel of our life in Christ is not in getting something, from the outside to the inside, by achieving. Instead, the marvel is our coming to recognize what is already inside, by the grace of creation, and learning to bring this outside, by the sharing and serving that is divine and human hospitality. It consists of seeing the first thing that happened to us–our birth–the way God sees it, and regarding it, with God, as something "very, very good."
The abundance of the Generous One is the ultimate source and resource of our Christian hope in the face of death, grounding our conviction that after death, there is more where that came from. There is an artesian well in everyone whose Source is the abundance of the Generous One, the Host of the world. We are what we are because of who our Parent is, and once this identity becomes deeply rooted in us, then an unself-conscious giving of self will become our way of life. This is another way of saying that we "inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34).
Our creation is, at bottom, an act of generosity–God sharing his bounty. We have been created in the image of the Generous One for generosity. Our Creator's magnanimity lies at the root of our being the kind of creatures that we are meant to be. Just as there is delight in our recognizing how much we have that we do not deserve or create, so there is a godly delight in seeing our hospitality bless and energize others.
The hospitable city of God
The City of God is the community that welcomes and enjoys the hospitality of God. Its hospitality implies a real relationship among those who are different, and the willingness to be moved out of our comfort zone in order to be transformed in the encounter. The German word for hospitality, Gastfreundschaft, which means "friendship for the guest," captures the meaning of this transformation, with its implication that hospitality creates a free space where the stranger can enter, becoming a friend instead of an alien. The Christian community of faith believes that God extends, to all humankind, a divine and inexhaustible welcome in the transforming experience of hospitality, where the door is always open, the table always set, the arms flung wide and outstretched.
The hospitable spirit of the City of God transcends mere tolerance–that passive magnanimity of the powerful towards the less favored. The Rule of St. Benedict (Chapter 53) contributes to our understanding of Christian hospitality when it affirms that: "All guests who arrive, are to be received as Christ....for he himself will say, I was the stranger and you took me in." That Christ is the stranger implies more than merely giving food and board to a passing guest. "All guests" implies and emphasizes the importance of inclusiveness, and its particular link to strangeness or otherness, in contrast to the familiarity of those who are like us. The second word, "those who
arrive," underscores the point even more. It suggests the unexpected–not merely those who did not write in-advance, but those who are a surprise to us in broader terms. Christian disciples are not to be choosy about the company they keep. The nicely ambiguous Latin word, hospes, can be translated as "stranger," as well as "guest." The former sense is reinforced by the Rule's reference to Matthew 25:35. And finally, the Latin word, "suscipiantur," means literally "to be received," but its deeper meaning is "to be cherished."
The spirit of hospitality in the City of God can be identified with the concept of solidarity. Solidarity is a moral imperative, based on a belief in the fundamental unity of the human family, which is rooted in the doctrines of the Trinity and the Communion of Saints. It demands a profound conversion of heart, and a conscious commitment to the quest for the common good, as an essential ethical virtue. With the spirit of hospitality, the City of God sees the world with the vision of God–as a mixture of good and bad. But most importantly, it realizes that, from all eternity, the gaze of God is redemptive, transforming and enlivening. ■
Fr. John Navone, S.J., is professor emeritus of theology at the Gregorian University in Rome. He has written scores of articles for various publications, and is best known for his contributions to narrative theology. The author of twenty books, his most recent book is, Lead Radiant Spirit–Our Gospel Quest (2001).
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