Hospitality (Session 2)

Hebrews 13:1-9 (ESV)

¹ Let brotherly love continue. ² Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ³ Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. ⁴ Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. ⁵ Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” ⁶ So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” ⁷ Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

This morning I encouraged us to reflect on the twelfth chapter of Romans. I wanted us to consider this passage because within that chapter Paul depicts the life we are striving to live. In it he encourages us to become discerning, to test the things of this world and the teaching we hear against what we know is good. And that we should strive to use the gifts that we have been given to encourage those around us in our faith.

When people consider spiritual gifts, we often think of them as being these miraculous powers granted to us by God. That is not completely wrong. Some teach that we should strive to achieve certain gifts and to pray for them and to practice them. Again it is not completely wrong. When I think of spiritual giftedness I do not think we should be considering them on an individualistic basis, instead it is a team sport. Albert, as you all know, has played hockey for nine years. I have watched his team grow together. Some of you may have watched or coached youth soccer and you too have watched them grow as a team. When they first begin you do not see the game, every kid is in one giant mob, like this huge amoeba slithering over the field or ice. Then there is the one or two kids that do not have a clue what is going on spinning in circles on the opposite side of where the ball or puck is.

This is an adequate description of church and the undisciplined christian life. Everyone is swarmed around the one things, everyone wants to have the glory so to speak to score the goal. But often we are stepping on top of each other and tripping over our own teammates. The disciplined spiritual life is one that is discerning, this means we have looked at what is before us, we have considered what needs to be done, and we step out in faith. This is the next level of play, we spread out begin to see openings and get to them. Eventually we as a team start to click, you know where everyone on your team will be and you are able to pass the puck to that place knowing full well that they will be there even though you do not see them at that moment.

This discipline is what we are striving for. Each person working together, stepping forward to get the pass as we move forward to the goal. I do not often use sports references because not everyone is into sports. But this is what Paul means when he says for as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. We are working together as a team.

Where does giftedness come into play? As we work together things begin to click, we do not always know how things will work out, but we were participating, we were running the drill, and in an moment we were there to do what was needed at just the right time.

We experience the gifts of God, when we live within his lifestyle, when we practice his ways, and live the disciplined life.

We often speak of hospitality as a spiritual gift. There are people that just make good host or hostesses. They like having gatherings, and cooking. They have an extra room and are willing to let someone stay in it. We look at the gift of hospitality as something someone has, usually someone else. And when we look at any of the gifts listed in scripture in that manner as something someone has, or something I have we are missing the point. No single person has the gifts, we have the gifts, and God will provide the things that we need when we need them.

But I do not see hospitality as a mere gift. Hospitality is the game, hospitality is the purpose of why we are given any gift at all. The goal is hospitality.

The simple definition of Hospitality from the Lexham Bible Dictionary is “The generous and gracious treatment of guests.”¹ Who is the guest? That questions is similar to the question asked of Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Hospitality the generous and gracious treatment of anyone other than ourselves. It is how we interact with anyone around us. And the writer of Hebrews says, “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

We usually think of hospitality as how we treat people we do not know. We often get that understanding because that is where hospitality is the hardest. It is easy to treat the people we know with some degree of graciousness and generosity, especially if we have not seen them in a while. It is more difficult to treat the person we do not know with that same degree of care. Because of that difficulty those that have written about hospitality need to remind us to be hospitable.

We need to be reminded because we are suspicious people. We do not know that person, we do not know their intentions, their backgrounds. We develop stereotypes based on interactions others have had with strangers that have visited them. Or we project every bad emotion we feel onto them. This is sociological scapegoating. We have misplaced something in our house and that same day someone we do not know walked down our street, did they take it?

I will be the first to admit that I do this. The moment I recognized that had in my own mind cast blame for my own negligence onto someone unlike myself, it ripped my heart from my chest. We have to remind ourselves not to neglect the stranger. We have to remind ourselves to welcome the others. We have to challenge ourselves to embrace the differences because those are the things that bring joy and excitement to our lives.

Hospitality is the goal of human existence. It is through the practices of hospitality that our community grows. When God commissioned our first parents in their mission, he told them to go forth into all the earth and to be fruitful and multiply. We have often get a singular focus on what that means, but there are other ways to multiply. The story of Adam and Eve was written long after humanity started that mission. They had already built cities, civilizations, had wars, and made peace. They had already had a rich history of experience. But they had a question, why are we here?

That is where the epic poetry of Genesis enters. God created everything we have and he commissioned us to take care of it. So we are to go out into the world around us and multiply our lifestyle. Yes it means make babies, and it also means make friends. That is our goal our purpose and hospitality the gracious and generous care of others is how we accomplish that goal.

Then the writer of Hebrews says something strange, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Tradition tells us that Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews, but we really do not know for sure if he did or not. We assume that he did because near the end it speaks of his friend Timothy. Timothy was a pastor, and pastors know a lot of people. Some believe that maybe James wrote the letter to the Hebrews, and still others have proposed that Apollos wrote it. I personally do not know but I like the idea of Apollos writing it.

Apollos was an early church leader that originated in a different way than most of the people we read about in scripture. Most of the apostles came from Israel or Roman Palestine, but Apollos was someone that was raised in a dispersed Hebrew community in Egypt. Tradition tells us that he was a student of the Hebrew philosopher Philo. Philo is very important to religious history, because Philo was able to meld the philosophies of the Greek culture with Hebrew scripture. He was able to see the similarities and point out the richness of the differences. This is why so much of our Theological understanding has little hints of Greek philosophy. We might gasp at that statement but we need to remember that many of the stories of various cultures have similar themes, Philo used those similarities to help preserve his Hebrew culture, he used the differences to spur curiosity, and through his work the Gospel of Jesus was able to quickly spread throughout western civilization.

Apollos learned in this school of thought. I do not know if Philo was his literal teacher or if he just learned within that educational tradition. He learned and was a gifted teacher. He also like his teacher before him was able to bring current Hebrew teachings into the Greek culture, but since he lived outside of Roman Palestine, he had not yet heard the news of Jesus, instead he taught about the previous big movement, the Baptism of John. Apollos was gifted as a teacher. He would go from town to town debating and presenting his philosophical ideas in the forum and synagogues and eventually a young couple Priscilla and Aquilla listened to him. They knew this young man was a gifted teacher but they also knew that he had not yet heard the full Gospel.

Both Apollos and this couple were engaged in the commission God gave our first parents. They were all going out into the world bringing it into submission and multiplying. But there was a difference. The Gospel had not fully reached Egypt, so Apollos did not have the full story. It was through the hospitality of Priscilla and Aquilla that Apollos was brought into the fullness of the Kingdom. And Apollos grabbed hold of that gospel and carried it with him as he continued to teach. He became so popular that Paul mentions him by name as one of the primary leaders within the early church.

I like the idea of Apollos being the author of the letter to the Hebrews for that reason, he was a strong early leader, but we do not have a testimony from his voice. And much of the Book of Hebrews is urging the Hebrew people to embrace the unique message of the Church instead of going back to the traditions of the temple. And to me that sounds like the approach a man trained in Greek philosophy would take.

But he says some have entertained angels unawares. That is weird.

When I listen to those words, when I meditate upon them. I am often reminded of the old Quaker teaching, “That of God in everyone”. This is not as big of a teaching among the Evangelical Friends because it has a universalism feel to it, like we are accepting the teaching of all religions as equal. But to me I like the teaching. I do not see it as accepting that all religions are true, but instead it say to me that I could learn something from them if I listen. And what are angels except messengers from God.

When the writer of Hebrews says some have entertained angels unaware, it is as if he is saying that every person we meet might be sent to us by God to teach us something, or possibly as a test to show us if we are able to fulfill the mission God gave to us. They could be quality control, going back to report on their observations.

I want us to just stop and consider that for a moment. If we were to have an assessment of our effectiveness in being fruitful and multiplying, how would those angels submit their report? Have we been a hospitable people? Are we hospitable personally? As a church? As a nation?

If the game of life is hospitality, if that is what we are participating in collectively as humanity. If our point and purpose in life is to be generous and gracious to others as we go out into the world bringing all of creation under submission to God and being fruitful and multiplying, How are we doing?

As I mentioned I like to think that maybe the book of Hebrews was written by Apollos. I do not have any scholarly reason for my stance on that. I want to close with a passage that is not found in most of our bibles, but it would have been part of the scripture that Apollos would have used. This is from the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, which is part of the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha were the books that were in the Greek Old Testament, but not necessarily in the Hebrew collection of Scriptures. We often regard these as the extra books of scripture that the Catholics and Orthodox have in their scriptures, but Protestant Bibles do not include them. They were not added by the Catholics, they were removed by Protestant groups mainly because they were only in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures not in the Hebrew themselves. But there are good things to consider in these books at times. In Wisdom of Solomon 19:13-17 it says:

¹³ The punishments did not come upon the sinners

without prior signs in the violence of thunder,

for they justly suffered because of their wicked acts;

for they practiced a more bitter hatred of strangers.

¹⁴ Others had refused to receive strangers when they came to them,

but these made slaves of guests who were their benefactors.

¹⁵ And not only so—but, while punishment of some sort will come upon the former for having received strangers with hostility,

¹⁶ the latter, having first received them with festal celebrations,

afterward afflicted with terrible sufferings

those who had already shared the same rights.

¹⁷ They were stricken also with loss of sight—

just as were those at the door of the righteous man—

when, surrounded by yawning darkness,

all of them tried to find the way through their own doors. ²

The world is suspicious of the strangers. They a not welcoming to the guests that come to visit. And rightly so. Sometimes guest do take advantage of our generosity. Sometimes people can overstay their welcome. I am guilty as charged. But we are not called to be disciples of the world, instead we are called to transformed by the renewal of our minds. We are to be transformed to the life and lifestyle of Jesus. The Wisdom of Solomon speaks of the judgment of Egypt. They once welcomed the stranger, Israel, but then they forgot about Joseph. Joseph had saved all of Egypt from famine because of the wisdom God gave him. He saved all of Egypt from starvation, but Egypt forgot who they were.

They welcomed, they were once hospitable and because of that hospitality both Israel and Egypt flourished. Why did they flourish? Was it because of God’s divine blessing that whoever blesses Israel will be blessed and whoever curses Israel will be cursed? Sure maybe. But is that the full teaching? They flourished when they welcomed each other and engaged life together as if they were working on the same team. When they participated in hospitality they were focused on being generous and gracious to each other. This compounds and expands it spreads to others, because the more people have given to you the more willing you are to give. The more grace extended to you the gracious you will be to others. But then things change. We become suspicious again. Why are you here? Are you for us or against us? You act a little different, you look a little different. You like pickles and I think they are gross.

We begin to think about ourselves again. And suddenly we are afraid. If I give them food what will I eat? If I let them in will I lose something? We have moved from the team spread across the field, each filling their position and doing what they have trained to do and we have resorted back to mob ball. We devolve. But why do we fear?

We fail to offer hospitality because we do not trust that the people around us care. We fail to offer hospitality when do not trust God.

We can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” For our lord made himself lower than the angels for a little bit to dwell among us. He lived a complete and full life among us, showing us what life with God truly is. And he provided us a way to that life through his death and resurrection. Our God told us that he would not leave us alone, but would send a helper. And that helper would write the teachings of God on our hearts and empower us to live the life we are called to live. God has empowered us to let brotherly love continue. God has equipped us to show hospitality to strangers, and I know that if we trust and entrust our lives to him, we will entertain the angels and His kingdom will multiply around us.

1 Wilson, Douglas K. “Hospitality.” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry et al., Lexham Press, 2016.

2 The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989, p. Wis 19:13–17.