Sunday, March 3, 2013

Hospitality - How important is it in the Bible?

In Sunday school this morning we read chapter 18 of Genesis in which 3 angels are taken under Abraham's roof in an act of hospitality, then 2 of those angels are taken into Lot's hospitality, but there the residents of Sodom demand that Lot hand them over for sex. The conclusion among the folks in the room this morning was that Sodom's sin was homosexuality. When I brought up that hospitality was certainly at issue as well, they were fairly uncomfortable with that -- apparently because the hospitality argument has been used by gays to prove that homosexuality isn't an issue in the Bible but hospitality is. The leader of the discussion stated that the homosexuality was the far more serious grievance because there is no where in the Bible where lack of hospitality is stated to be a grievous sin and he does find such verses regarding homosexuality. Well, that made my ears prick right up because any time someone makes a global statement regarding what the Bible does or doesn't say, and I can't think of examples off the top of my head that would agree with the statement, I figure that's when it's time to start digging.

So I plan to do a little digging on hospitality. I'm not going to dig at all into the homosexuality question. That's been hashed and rehashed umpteen times and if you're interested in following that route, there are lots of resources out there that lean every different direction of the compass. (Although I would be curious to know the number of times hospitality is addressed either positively or negatively compared to the number of times homosexuality is addressed in the Bible. But that'll take a bit of time to tally and I'm not up for that right now.) But when I searched for pages online regarding lack of hospitality being a sin, I inevitably came up against posts that focused on this story of Sodom and they used their argument not to focus on hospitality but to focus on homosexuality. (Which goes back to the hashing and rehashing thing and doesn't really focus on the hospitality issue at all to my satisfaction.)

I do believe that lack of hospitality is a sin - even a grievous sin. And I believe there is plenty of evidence in Scriptures to prove that point. I'll start with some of the positive admonitions to be hospitable... just to set a foundation.



Romans 12:13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Hebrews 13:2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

1 Peter 4:9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.



Stories that reference hospitality positively:
* Pharoah granted hospitality to Abram and Sarai and all their household during a time of famine.
* Melchizedek showed hospitality to Abram after the rescue of Lot by bring out bread and wine for him.
* Abraham and Sarah showed hospitality to the 3 angels that came to tell them about the impending destruction of Sodom.
* Abraham's servant was shown hospitality when he went to look for a wife for Isaac. (OK, so Laban wasn't really acting honorably since he took the servant in when he saw the jewelry that was being offered, but it's still an example.)
* Joseph had his brothers shown hospitality when they came down to Egypt to get food during a famine.

* The story of the Good Samaritan who showed hospitality to his enemy.
* The parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:34-43, in which those who took care of the needy, showing them hospitality and meeting their needs, were the ones let into the kingdom.
* Simon Peter's mother-in-law showed hospitality to Jesus immediately after he had cured her from being sick. Girlfriend didn't even take time to recover. She just hopped up and started rolling out the bread dough.

I'm sure there are a jillion more examples in both the Old and New Testaments, but I think the point is clear... showing hospitality is a good thing. Duh. We all knew that. But now we really know that.

So what about not showing hospitality? Not so bad? Let's see.

The first example that I can think of was after Adam and Eve gorged themselves on the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Usually they hosted a "walk with the creator" event each day. But after their repast, God had to go looking for them. They not only failed at their daily act of hospitality, but it was a direct result of their sin and showed an immediate break in their relationship with God.

When the Israelites were escaping from Egypt they wanted to pass through Edom (the descendants of Esau) but the Edomites said, "No way Mosé." The Moabites said the same thing and Israel had to skirt around both nations. They got their come uppance later under Saul when they laid waste to those countries and subjugated them. The Edomites refused to show hospitality to the Israelites despite the fact that they were relatives (distantly) and they later paid the price for that. Ditto with the Moabites and the Ammonites and a few others.

The story of the Levite and his concubine, found in Judges 19, parallels the Genesis 19 story remarkably closely, only in this story the Levite tossed his concubine out for the men to do as they pleased. They basically raped her to death. The Levite hauled her all the way back home, cut her into pieces and mailed them off to all of the tribes of Israel to show them what the Benjamites had done to his property. (There are all sorts of issues with this story. It is my most detested story in the Bible. But I'm only going to look at the hospitality issue here. I think it's fair to say that the Benjamites hospitality absolutely sucked. And the rest of the Israelites went to war with them over it. Twenty five thousand Benjamites died in the battle and their towns were laid waste.)

In 1 Samuel 25, when David was running away from Saul-gone-lunatic (talk about lack of hospitality), they came to the land of a man named Nabal. David demanded hospitality from him but Nabal was a big fat turd and refused. His wife, Abigail, was horrified by her husband's response, so she prepared a bunch of food and provided for David and his army. David had planned on killing all of the men in Nabal's household for their lack of hospitality, but because of Abigail's quick actions, he spared them. But Nabal didn't escape judgement. God himself struck Nabal dead 10 days later.

And in Matthew 10, when Jesus sent the disciples out to spread the good news, he told them, "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet." In other words, if they're not going to receive you hospitably, have nothing to do with them.

These examples make it pretty clear that hospitality is important, to the point that God even killed a man who refused hospitality to others. I haven't found a verse that states, "Lack of hospitality is a sin," or even "bad hospitality is a sin." But I think it's safe to say that it's a big deal in God's eyes. If God punished Nabal with death because he failed to show hospitality, then there's something here that we need to pay attention to. And the fact that hospitality in both positive and negative forms is described in Genesis 19, and that those who showed hospitality are spared and those who didn't were incinerated, indicates to me that no matter what God is saying about homosexuality in this chapter, he's also making a very clear statement against the people of Sodom in terms of their aggressively anti-hospitality stance.