Rev. Cheryl M. Peterson, PhD
Hospitality is listed among several exhortations at the end of the letter to the Hebrews, almost like a coda or add-on to this Epistle. But if we read these exhortations in view of the whole chapter—indeed, the whole letter to the Hebrews, centered as it is on Jesus’ sacrificial death – we learn that hospitality is more than hosting a good party! Considered in this context, we see that hospitality flows from the continuation of mutual love. But even more striking is what comes in the next verse, which connects hospitality to a form of solidarity that is truly sacrificial (13:3).
According to Erik Heen, it is no accident that “hospitality” has the primary place in the list of practices that mark a Christian community shaped by the sacrificial death of Jesus. The Greek word that is traditionally translated in English by “hospitality” is philoxenia, which literally means, “love of the strange.”
Because life was difficult and mobility limited, most people in ancient times lived their lives in routines that kept them close to home. In such a context, one of the only ways to enlarge one’s world was to open one’s home (however modest) to those that came from “outside.” “Hospitality was provided, then,” Heen explains, “by those who had “love of the strange,” those who were curious about the wider world. Travelers brought news (and stories) of the wider world, providing an opportunity for their hosts to be blessed by their encounters,
Christian hospitality is more than welcoming people into our congregations, to join our community. It is practicing the love of the strange, and allowing ourselves to be blessed and transformed by those whom we welcome not only into our worship and fellowship, but also into the way of discipleship, shaped by the cross the way of the cross. It is a journey where we best learn to walk together, with those who are familiar and those who are strange to us, recognizing that those who join us on the way have as much (or more!) to teach us, than to learn from us.
The author of Hebrews tells us that in the church’s practice of “love of the strange,” we just might be “entertaining angels unaware.” Indeed, we may encounter none other than Christ himself, the ultimate “stranger” in our midst, the God made flesh who suffered abuse and was crucified outside of the city gates (Heb 13:12). For on the cross, Jesus sacrificed everything, dying to bring us, who were ourselves strangers to God on account of our sin, back “home” into God’s family, into God’s embrace.
