Hospitality

I think I've blogged about hospitality before, but the idea came up again recently in a specific way, which I've often thought about but maybe not often articulated: That is, the kind of hospitality that is not reciprocated; it perhaps is not even possible to be reciprocated. I believe this is the kind of hospitality Jesus teaches, saying things like "When you throw a party, don't invite your friends, but invite people who would never be able to throw a party and invite you in return." When I consider my own life in light of this, it challenges me. How much true hospitality do I show, without expecting some kind of return? Sometimes I might do things for others simply out of a generous spirit, but the fact remains that they are able in some way to reciprocate. But how often do I give to those who are not able to do anything at all for me?
Another challenge: How often do I receive such hospitality?
In one of my pastoral counseling classes, a classmate leading a centering exercise instructed us to think of a positive, peaceful memory - a memory of a time we sensed God's presence. Into my mind flashed a picture: A small lake in the middle of a forest, a wooden dock, and me. I remembered with pleasure a time when I dipped my hands into the water of that lake, and some little fish came up to nibble on my skin. More memories of that dear place came to mind, and I was filled with gratitude for the hospitality shown to my family and me when I was a child, by a distant relative who let us vacation at her lake house for many summers. A few days later I wrote her a thank-you note, and it was a note of pure gratitude. I knew there is nothing I can say or do that will ever repay the gift she had given. For a single mom with three kids and a tiny budget, the gift of a place to stay, rest and recreation, and the enjoyment of nature, all of which were formational in my life... that is true hospitality. And it is humbling to receive.
If I draw a connection, and of course I do, between this kind of hospitality and the grace of God, then it is pretty easy to see that grace is effective in us not only when we receive what we don't deserve and can't repay, but also when we allow ourselves to be moved enough by the needs of others that we share our  resources freely. As Henri Nouwen puts it:
"Hospitality is the virtue which allows us to break through the narrowness of our fears and to open our houses to the stranger, with the intuition that salvation comes to us in the form of a tired traveler." 
To be on the receiving end of true hospitality causes me to face the reality of my own needs and confront my own limitations to what I can do for myself or earn from others. It leaves me with a choice to accept and receive, without self-justification or self-condemnation, or to be proud and falsely deny my need and the other's gift.
Likewise, to be open to another's need and to give, with no guarantee of "getting back," requires letting go of a self-reliant security and control, and putting my trust in this very process of giving and receiving - this hospitality without reciprocity, this grace.

Yogurt

I have a sore throat, and this morning the only thing I could find to eat that "felt good" on my throat was some plain yogurt. And it was good. In fact, it tasted so good to my otherwise unwell-feeling body, that I thought: This is the best yogurt I've had in a long time. Since... and then I remembered when, a little over a year ago, I sat in a tent home in the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank and ate a bowl of yogurt served by the Palestinian family that hosted us there on their native land. Since I can't eat gluten (and the best way our translator could explain that was by telling them I had a "weak stomach"), they brought me a special item with breakfast. While my friend Stephanie and our translator Jessica ate bread, I ate the most powerful, delicious, goat-milk yogurt. And I was blessed, I was nourished, by this family who let me sleep under the same roof (er, tent-flaps) as their own children and then went out of their way to feed me something I could eat. Even though we don't speak the same language. Even though they live in a remote village without electricity or plumbing (in very much the same way their ancestors have lived there for centuries) and I come from a rich, Western nation and wear pants and loose hair in the midst of their culture of more modest female dress. Even though they are Muslim and I and my fellow visitors are Christian. Even though they are struggling to keep their home and farm on their land in the midst of a terrible military occupation that my government continues to support and help finance. This family was indeed gracious in their hospitality to me. I will never forget that visit, and will always remember it as a perfect example of the kind of hospitality I want to be able to give and receive.
Walter Brueggemann puts it well, in writing about the importance of hospitality (in Sojourners magazine, May 2010, p. 48):

Perhaps the practice of hospitality is the ultimate outcome of the Easter season, when there is no fear of others, but readiness to host (see Romans 12:13)... God's readiness to take up residence in our habitat contradicts all the fearful aggressiveness of the world. The risen Christ came and said "peace" (John 14:27). Where he comes, there is peace. The news of Easter is that the enlivened Christ invites us away from the deathliness of the world, not to withdraw, but to listen and host and welcome, and so to reverse the vicious cycles that keep wounding nations, communities, and persons.