Healing Hospitality

Repeated headlines about violence can make us “feel like locking our doors and never entering society again,” writes pastor and author Max Lucado. After another mass shooting, he penned an online opinion piece that urged people to do the exact opposite by opening their doors, their hearts, and their circles.

“It’s no accident that hospitality and hospital come from the same Latin word,” Lucado writes, “for they both lead to the same result: healing. When you open your door to someone, you are sending this message: ‘You matter.’”

Because daily life is filled with rejections, extending an invitation — even to a simple meal — can be life-altering, Lucado contends. What you think is a messy house might be a sanctuary to someone else, “and to those who eat alone every night, pork and beans on paper plates tastes like filet mignon.” Our kitchen tables are “God’s secret weapons in the war on fear,” Lucado says. “We never know what one meal will do.”

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.  Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.   1 Peter 4:8-10