Macclesfield Team Ministry Link Magazine Article - July 2014
The Hospitality industry will be in full swing again this summer as we head for our holidays and enjoy trips and excursions during our ‘time off’; wether it be time off work, off school, college or university or just in retirement. The hospitality and leisure industries are now very big business, they encompass pre-booked holidays, cruises, hotels, theme parks, cinemas and just about everything to do with the business of paid-for enjoyment. The word ‘hospitality’ may now lead us towards a business of entertainment typified by ‘hospitality suites’ at major sporting events, where people benefit from sponsored sporting entertainment.
The Hospitality industry will be in full swing again this summer as we head for our holidays and enjoy trips and excursions during our ‘time off’; wether it be time off work, off school, college or university or just in retirement. The hospitality and leisure industries are now very big business, they encompass pre-booked holidays, cruises, hotels, theme parks, cinemas and just about everything to do with the business of paid-for enjoyment. The word ‘hospitality’ may now lead us towards a business of entertainment typified by ‘hospitality suites’ at major sporting events, where people benefit from sponsored sporting entertainment.
The risk of using the term hospitality to describe things which we buy such as trips, holidays or entertainment is that we come to see hospitality as something that it was never meant to be; we come to see and expect hospitality to be a commercial exchange with no investment within us or for our deeper spiritual selves. The term hospitality is now at risk of being solely associated with a process in which - I pay and you entertain me, or I pay and you provide me with a holiday, or I give you free tickets to this hospitality suite and you give me more business.
We should take care not to lose a deeper, spiritual sense of hospitality, one in which the giver does not expect something in return, and one in which the receiver is not left feeling that they are in debt. In a deeper, spiritual sense of hospitality, someone does not always have to pay and life is not a business transaction. When the hospitality in our lives which we receive and give to others, is limited to exchanging and rewarding, thinking about what we owe, what we are due and what is our right, then we can lose the sense of God within us and a spirituality of God around us.
In Jewish culture, hospitality is concerned with welcoming the stranger and even those we may be in fear of. The story of the ‘Hospitality of Abraham’ in Genesis 18:1-15 tells us that Abraham is visited by three men who are depicted as angels, Abraham greets them and meets their needs, Abraham looks after them for no apparent reason other than they are ‘near him’ and he ‘saw them’, but they had clearly been strangers to him. As the story continues and some time later, Abraham and Sarah are blessed unexpectedly with a son. The depth of Abraham’s hospitality can be only imagined in this story, but what the story does clearly tell us is that Abraham gave something significant of himself in hospitality to the strangers and that all Israel receives a blessing in return. Abraham is the father of all Israel. In this sense hospitality is much more than a transaction; it is the source of all blessing. Hospitality is of necessity, the welcoming of strangers and the welcoming of God.
We should take care not to lose a deeper, spiritual sense of hospitality, one in which the giver does not expect something in return, and one in which the receiver is not left feeling that they are in debt. In a deeper, spiritual sense of hospitality, someone does not always have to pay and life is not a business transaction. When the hospitality in our lives which we receive and give to others, is limited to exchanging and rewarding, thinking about what we owe, what we are due and what is our right, then we can lose the sense of God within us and a spirituality of God around us.
In Jewish culture, hospitality is concerned with welcoming the stranger and even those we may be in fear of. The story of the ‘Hospitality of Abraham’ in Genesis 18:1-15 tells us that Abraham is visited by three men who are depicted as angels, Abraham greets them and meets their needs, Abraham looks after them for no apparent reason other than they are ‘near him’ and he ‘saw them’, but they had clearly been strangers to him. As the story continues and some time later, Abraham and Sarah are blessed unexpectedly with a son. The depth of Abraham’s hospitality can be only imagined in this story, but what the story does clearly tell us is that Abraham gave something significant of himself in hospitality to the strangers and that all Israel receives a blessing in return. Abraham is the father of all Israel. In this sense hospitality is much more than a transaction; it is the source of all blessing. Hospitality is of necessity, the welcoming of strangers and the welcoming of God.