Thoughts about a story from Mark 1 - part of today’s Lenten reading*:
Did Simon Peter’s mother-in-law regret their home’s open-door hospitality the day she was sick and Peter brought the gang home for dinner anyway? I imagine her hidden away in a back room, just wanting to be left alone. I can hear her groan into her pillow, “Why did Peter choose today to invite the rabbi?” I think she rather hoped Jesus wouldn’t see her in her feverish and disheveled state.
But like is typical with hospitality, she got a way bigger blessing than she bargained for. As a result of Jesus being invited to her home that day, she was healed!
This story reminds me of the Karen Burton Mains’ book Open Heart Open Home. In the chapter “On Entertaining” she points out, “My hospitality, which participates in ministry, becomes a catalyst for the miraculous.”
Other memorable things she says in that chapter:
- True hospitality comes before pride.
- For the Christian, hospitality is not an option. It is an injunction.
- Hospitality is more than just a human talent, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
- Entertaining has little to do with real hospitality. Secular entertaining is a terrible bondage. Its source is human pride, Demanding perfection, fostering the urge to impress, it is a rigorous taskmaster which enslaves. In contrast, Scriptural hospitality is a freedom which liberates.
- Entertaining always puts things before people: “As soon as I get the house finished, the living room decorated, my place settings complete...” (yada, yada, yada)...
- Because hospitality has put away its pride, it doesn’t care if other people see our humanness. Because we are maintaining no false pretensions, people relax and feel that perhaps we can be friends.
- Once the gift of hospitality has been developed in our homes, churches, and neighborhoods, we can begin to participate in a larger and more difficult effort: that of playing roles of significance in our society.... There is no better place to be about the redemption of society than in the Christian servant’s home; and the more we deal with the captive, the blind, the downtrodden, the more we realize that in this inhospitable world, a Christian home is a miracle to be shared.
- The real essence of hospitality is a heart open to God with room prepared for the Guestness of the Holy Spirit, which welcomes the presence of Christ. This is what we share with those to whom we open our doors. We give to them Him and think nothing of what we give of ourselves.
Okay. I admit it. More than once I've been caught in the 'Entertainment' trap. I need to go to Hospitality School!
* Lent reading challenge here.
photo: by me
filed: House and Home
tags: hospitality, entertaining, home, Christianity
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