Hospitality Builds Community
“Greet one another.” Romans 16:16 (ESV)
This fall God has graciously opened doors for me to speak to several different groups on a variety of topics around the important question: “What does the Bible say about…?” Last week’s meeting with a group of high school football moms, affectionately dubbed “Moms’ Huddle,” focused on learning what the Bible has to say about biblical hospitality.
Normally when most of us consider hospitality we’re thinking about food and inviting folks into our home to share a meal. But originally the word hospitality meant “love of strangers.” Recently I read an article regarding practicing everyday hospitality. Author Kim Barnes writes:
True hospitality goes beyond setting a table or serving a meal. At its heart, it’s about making space for others—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s about seeing people as image-bearers rather than inconveniences or interruptions and welcoming them. And one of the simplest, yet most profound, ways to welcome someone—to practice hospitality—is to learn their name.
The Apostle Paul certainly understood the importance of remembering people’s names. At the end of his pastoral letter to the Romans, Paul lists 28 individuals by name, gives a brief personal commendation, and instructs the church to greet each person. Read that list and you will find 16 men and 12 women’s names included in Paul’s greetings. He understood the importance and value of recognizing people by name.
Author Margaret Feinberg discovered the same hospitality principle when she took a Wake Forest University English class from the beloved Poet Maya Angelou. Students in Ms. Angelou’s class spent the first three weeks learning each other’s first and last names and addressing each other as such. Seating arrangements were scrambled each week, and names were repeated and memorized. Ms. Angelou later asked her class why she had spent 20% of their semester class time focusing on her students’ names. She answered her own question by declaring, “because your name is a sign of your dignity.”
Hospitality begins with a name.
Last week I began our Moms’ Huddle time by asking each mom to state her name; her son’s name and football position; and what year they are in school. Much like Ms. Angelous’ class, it took a little while to go around the room and introduce each person, but the laughter, surprise, and joy that resulted as women found common ground and community around their children and each other were well worth the investment.
One young mom hesitatingly asked me, “Did you ever live in Sylacauga? If so, do you remember my mom?”
She was so surprised when I answered “Yes” to both questions and then asked, “Which daughter are you- Brooke or Blair?” Her hesitation faded and her smile broadened as she asked, “How did you remember?” Everyone else got a good laugh when I recalled that she and my son, now her son’s head football coach, went to preschool together at First Methodist Church in Sylacauga back in the mid 1980s! That community connection began with a name.
Each week our church’s Sunday morning worship service begins with an invitation to stand and greet one another. Honestly, it was initially a little uncomfortable venturing out beyond the pew behind or in front of me. But a few weeks ago, I noticed a young man sitting alone in the next section. Noah is an optometry student from Pennsylvania studying at the university in our city. Accepting an invitation to sit with our family, Noah has now joined Rosemary, a medical resident from Delaware, who is also visiting our church and studying in town. Hospitality began with a greeting, a name, and an invitation.
Hospitality builds community by creating bridges and finding common ground. Community is that reciprocal rootedness and connection that we all long for. God made us for community, both vertically with him and horizontally with man.
Author Jane Howard writing on community says, “Call it a clan, call it a tribe, call it a network, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” John Ortberg agrees saying, “The yearning to attach and connect, to love and be loved, is the fiercest longing of the soul. Our need for community with people and the God who made us is to the human spirit what food and air and water are to the human body.”
This Thanksgiving season offers us an opportunity to practice hospitality no matter where we are. Who would benefit from your smile, greeting, welcome, and remembrance of her name?
Greet one another!