What Does Hospitality Look Like?
Hebrews 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
What Does Hospitality Look Like?
The visual image this verse brings to mind feels like the plot to a classic movie. The main character opens themselves up to be kind to a stranger, and that stranger turns out to be an angel on a mission from God. As a story, it’s a satisfying conclusion. But we tend to have a different response to strangers today. Maybe because as kids we’re taught not to talk to strangers, we tend to view people we don’t know, people that are different than us, through a lens of suspicion and even fear. Most of us look for the people we already know in any setting, and gravitate in their direction.
The picture at the top of this devotion is of some relatively new lights put on a path near me, next to the intercoastal waterway. People had mentioned that without the lights, they were afraid to walk by the water at night. But now, the waterway has opened up to be one of the favorite places for newcomers and old-timers to take a walk, and greet strangers from other parts of the world.
This story made me think about the structures we have in place in our public and private lives that might get in the way of welcoming strangers. Have we built impediments into the way we see people, talk to people? I wonder if we have put fear-based rules at the center of the way we respond to people. Or perhaps we’ve built structures that don’t even see the people that we don’t already know.
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.” It is a concept I want to spend time contemplating this week.
Reflection Questions:
1) How do you respond to the word strangers?
2) How do you define being welcoming?
3) Who are you ready to welcome in the places you work, worship, gather? Try to look with the eyes of someone who isn’t already part of your community, and imagine what they would experience.
Prayer:
Dear God, Please help us to find our way toward being hospitable to strangers in the different areas of our lives. In Jesus Name, Amen
