Inconvenient Hospitality
Whoa, it has been a long time since I’ve written a Friday Post. Months in fact. Having been going through my own trials I needed to plug out of 10 years of mostly consistent Friday Posts, and go through my own things. I simply didn’t have anything post-wise to pour into others. For those who may not know, I became born-again in October 2012 and in the days following, where my intimacy with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was so raw, Holy Spirit pressed upon my heart to start writing Friday Posts to people, to encourage with words that He pressed into my heart for others.
It’s now time to start writing again and as I was riding this morning, the Lord laid upon my heart: inconvenient hospitality. Meaning, the moments in which we are inconvenienced to be hospitable to others.
In 2018, I thought God was calling me back to Berlin to live and in this moment of seeking His will for my next steps, I housesat for a friend and her husband. When I got off at the train station closest to their home, I had to manage with a big suitcase and my backpack. One of the two was in her home country while her husband would join in a few days. I struggled with my suitcase to their home. Thankfully at the train station a Turkish man helped me carry my suitcase up and down the stairs to the exit. Without him I would have really struggled.
Lord knows the times I’ve struggled with my luggage around the world in the places He has taken me. Pushing a big suitcase is ok for a few feet, maybe even for a short block, but they lived a 10-minute walk from the train station. Two minutes in my arms and back began to ache. I remember feeling that her husband could have picked me up with their car. I finally made it. I housesat for them for a month, and in that time, God revealed to me that He was taking me to Lebanon next. The morning I left I had to leave early. It was like 5 AM, just enough light outside that I could walk to the station. They knew I had to leave early, as I mentioned it days before in an awkward conversation that I gleamed they didn’t want to be inconvenienced to wake up early. I tried my hardest to carry my big suitcase down the stairs to not disturb them, but what kept ringing in my head was that though it was early, they could have woken up and the husband could have helped me carry my bag down- even could have given me a ride the train station. I’d like to add that these are mature middle-aged Christians.
Last November when I was leaving Dubai, I had stayed with a friend’s family. I had a lot of luggage as I was heading to the US. The morning I left, his family woke up at 4am to help me carry my bags down and put them in the taxi. I told them the night before they didn’t have to bother at all. They insisted because this is the heart and hospitality of Muslims, of Arabs to do this for guests.
I remember when I was in university, there was an Egyptian family living in the US city I studied in. And, I remember the son speaking of a cultural clash moment, that when guests would leave he and his parents’ home they would wait at the front door to make sure they made it into their car. He shared that an American told him he didn’t have to wait and insisted that he and his father didn’t need to wait on them, to which they thought different and strange. This shows American individualism and the Arab sense of community.
The last thing I’ll note is that when I lived in Lebanon, I firstly lived in a strong Muslim area. After some time, I went up to live in Beirut, where there is a stronger Maronite Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical presence. Muslims by far were nicer to me than Lebanese Christians, Muslims were by far more hospitable than Christians.
What I’m hitting at here is my seeing a Christ-like heart more in Muslims than in Christians. I have another example of a lack of hospitality that I have seen in Christian missionaries in France and Spain but for the sake of time I won’t share. The Bible charges the church in 1 Peter 4:9 to be hospitable, even to the point of being inconvenienced, “show hospitality to one another without grumbling.”
Jesus also directly charges the church in Matthew 25:
““For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?” ”
The mark of Jesus is to show hospitality, of course not to the point of exhausting ourselves. But, if we are to see Act 3 miracles, we are to be there for one another. Have you heard people in the West say: “I’ll join your church when I see you acting like a Christian.” If we Christians aren’t looking like Jesus, if we aren’t acting like Jesus, is we aren’t treating like Jesus, if we aren’t talking like Jesus, if we aren’t loving like Jesus, if we aren’t inconveniencing ourselves like Jesus- and He inconvenienced Himself most of all by leaving Heaven to come to earth for 33 years to share the Gospel message and to die so that mankind might have a way back to Heaven if they so choose. If are behavior and character isn’t like Him then why should others listen to the Gospel message, must less come to Him? We can lose sight of this, not realizing we aren’t’ showing any incentive for Jesus.
The truth is, if I or you had been staying at Jesus’ house, and He knew we had early flights, He would have been up cooking breakfast. He would have then carried our bags down, got in the car at 5AM and drove us not to the s-bahn station but to the airport. He would have dropped us off at the front, gone to park the car, come back and walk us in to get checked in, then waved us through security, and as we would have turned around to wave goodbye, once we cleared security, He would have still been there waiting.
How is it that I have seen Jesus more in Muslims than in His church? And I don’t say this to say there aren’t Christians who would have inconvenienced themselves, because there are millions who go the extra mile and inconvenience themselves. But, I am reminding you and me that even giving a cup of water to someone is a big deal. And though inside we may not want to be bothered, we may not want to be inconvenienced, we may want to grumble, it’s the mark of Jesus to show hospitality. We’re both at times inconvenienced and the inconvenience’r, so, let us rejoice in both situations that we can be there to help others or have others help us.