Anyone Who Welcomes You, Welcomes Me
Hospitality:
People like to think of themselves as friendly and welcoming. But at least in the spontaneous, instinctive sense of hospitality, times have changed. Today’s would-be casual visitor should ring first, dodge the various TV soaps and sports, while being aware of the growing ‘early-to-bed’ regime. From gated developments to security lighting to doorbells that beckon fetchingly through a locked porch door, the edge has gone off ‘Ireland of the welcomes’.
But turning to the neighbour is simply turning to the Gospel: ‘Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me’. We may think that unlike Elisha’s day (First Reading), Christianity is a non-prophet organisation – but we’re very wrong. Look closer and you will see Christ gazing back at you in every face and culture.
Ultimately hospitality is about attitude more than plenitude. The 19th century writer Thoreau put it this way: ‘I sat at a table where rich food and wine …but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the hospitable board. They talked of the fame of the vintage; but I thought … purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had not got, and could not buy.’
Christian hospitality is much more than cups of tea; it’s about buckets of tolerance and understanding that satisfy the deepest thirst.