The most uncomfortable spiritual gift

What comes to mind when you think of the spiritual gift of hospitality? Opening your home? Serving a fancy dinner? Having a welcoming attitude?

All these things reflect hospitality, but this spiritual gift can be summed up in one word: inclusion.

To be hospitable is to include someone in your life with others and with God, even if it's just for the length of a conversation.

However, as we delve a little deeper, it becomes more challenging, because hospitality is not really about opening your home or life to your friends and family (that's just a natural part of life with friends and family). It's about opening your life and including others who are not like you.

Have you noticed in the Gospels that Jesus performs a miraculous feeding twice? He feeds 5,000 (Mark 6), and then a little later he does it again and feeds 4,000 (Mark 8). Why would he do this? I believe it's because he wants to teach his disciples about God's hospitality.

When Jesus feeds the 5,000, he is in a Jewish region. When he feeds the 4,000, he is near the Decapolis, which is a Gentile region. In other words, God's compassion and hospitality included not only the Jews (which they expected), but also the Gentiles (which they did not expect). So, if we also want to reflect God's hospitality, it means including people in our life and community and homes that are unlike us.

I read this question the other day, which I pass on to you:

"Who were the last five people you personally or digitally spent time with? How like you were they in age, gender, class, race, income, or interests?"

If we are like most people, the answer is probably, "Pretty similar." If we are like Jesus, the answer is, "Pretty different."

PAUSE and REFLECT: In order to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, who do you need to make time for this week? Who do you need to welcome and include in your life this week?

As we walk with Jesus, we discover that welcoming and including Jesus means the "unlike ones" must also be welcomed and included in our life. However, we also discover that welcoming and including the "unlike ones" means Jesus is more deeply welcomed and included in our heart.

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Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash