6 MINUTE READ

From Luke’s Journal June 2024  |  Vol.29 No.2  |  Christian Hospitality

When working in healthcare, hospitality can be a powerful part of our life’s witness and our outreach to others. Whether to colleagues or trainees, or the person on the street, our reaching out to provide genuine hospitality provides a way for us to let others into our lives, and share with them our lived experience, extending beyond the settings of the patients for whom we care.

Part of our call as Christian healthcare workers is to make our lives more open to others, to bear witness to the power of the Gospel. We need to recognise that each person we encounter is like a fellow traveller on a train. We share time and space with them for a period of time in the journey of our lives. Then we change trains or platforms, and we each continue on our journey. What are the consequences of those moments that we share together, however brief? Will our life’s witness point people toward our final destination, which for us is to be with Christ in glory? Or does our life witness from that moment set people on a different direction? Do we show the reverence and gentleness (1 Peter 3:15) that attracts people to the divine light that we reflect? Or is our light buried under a bushel (Matthew 5:15)?

Many cultures have strong traditions of welcoming strangers, and providing support and lodging to them. Is the hospitality that we provide to others as Christians a reflection only of our cultural background, or does it go well beyond that? Is there an openness that invites others in, to share our lives, much as Jesus accepted the children coming to him, and then connected with them at their level. It is clear from the parables that God welcomes the undeserving, the lonely and the hungry, and does this in an unselfish way. It is not merely about welcoming and being present to another person because of expectations of reciprocity, and therefore, advantageous to us.

“It is not merely about welcoming and being present to another person because of expectations of reciprocity, and therefore, advantageous to us.”

When reflecting further on this topic, I was reminded of a situation where I was travelling home from a training course in Boston late in the winter. Heavy snowfalls and bad weather had caused many flights to be cancelled, and there was pandemonium as people tried to reorganise their travels. Waiting for my flight to Los Angeles airport (LAX) at the airport gate, I picked up the sound of a strong Australian accent, and heard a man whose travel plans had just been thrown into disarray tell the airline desk he had never been through LAX, and didn’t think he would be able to make the new connecting flights he had been given. He was clearly in some distress. As it turned out, we were on the same flight to LAX. I went over and said that I would take care of him at LAX, and make sure he made his flight. He was at first surprised and then relieved. After landing at LAX, I waited on the airbridge for him, and took him to the airport lounge for a meal, and then to his terminal and boarding gate, and made sure he was safely on his way back to Sydney.

We shared a lot of conversation over our time together. Initially, he said that he could not figure out why someone would take their time to help somebody else in this way. It was a perfect opening to share some of my life with him, and to explain that Jesus went out of his way to reach the outcast, the stranger and the person in need. He was the person in need, and I was the one prompted by the Spirit to be there, to support him, and bring blessing into his life. I let him know that thirty years before when I was a foreigner moving to the US to study and work, Christians there had reached out and supported myself and my young family when we were the strangers in need. This is the spirit of unconditional hospitality. It goes beyond helping those who have social status and who are like us, to a genuine compassion to those who are at a moment of need in their lives. The phrase, “I have no hands but yours” captures this very point.

It is often said that the best qualities of people come out in situations of emergency and distress, such as natural disasters. Why should we have to wait until there is a calamity before we open our hearts and lives to our neighbours and colleagues? Or are these people, who we may see almost every day, the aliens in our lives? Why do we refuse to provide a generous welcome to them?

How much is the hospitality we provide metered out only to our friends and relatives? Do we go out of our way to perform random acts of kindness, and reach out to others in need in an unselfish way that is not based on reasons of self-advantage, or driven by guilt? Does our hospitality come from a true generosity of spirit?

“If the answer to these questions is, “No”, we need to reflect on our personal relationship with Jesus, and how much of His spirit is filling our life.”

If the answer to these questions is, “No”, we need to reflect on our personal relationship with Jesus, and how much of His spirit is filling our life. If we cannot make ourselves available to welcome others with a generous spirit, how much has the door of our lives been closed off to He who would stand at that door and knock (Revelations 3:20)?

May we all be open to the opportunities in our lives, to offer a kind word, welcome the stranger, and extend kindness to the people around us in their moment of need. May we have a generous heart of compassion, to extend the love of Christ who is in our midst to those around us.  

---