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Sunday, November 10, 2013

choose hospitality

On November 6, 2010 I tweeted the Most Regrettable Tweet of my mediocre social media career. In anticipation of the holiday season, I decided to weigh in on hospitality. The tweet was a flawless blend of selective memory and self-righteousness, designed to heap condemnation on the heads of my followers under the guise of offering wise counsel. It was a verbal “selfie” snapped from my best angle, positioned to make me look very, very good. Let’s have a look at it, shall we?



Note the double-whammy: if your house isn’t orderly on a daily basis, you will withhold hospitality from others and set a bad example for your children. Moms everywhere, be encouraged!

Three years later, I still cringe remembering that tweet, mainly because I have failed to live up to it repeatedly ever since. I presume my house was clean on November 6, 2010, but it has rarely been so in recent months. Even as I type, I am looking out across a disordered landscape of scattered laundry, schoolbooks, dusty baseboards and chipped paint. That tweet neglected to mention what my house looked like when my children were small, how I would hide clutter in the dryer when guests came, how hard I found it just to get dinner on the table for my own family, much less for someone else’s. So I regret that I proposed to moms a standard to which I could not hold myself.

But more importantly, I regret that tweet because I have come to recognize that the standard it proposed is flawed. It revealed my own lack of understanding about the nature and purpose of hospitality. In my self-righteous desire to offer advice, I had confused hospitality with its evil twin, entertaining. The two ideas could not be more different.

entertaining versus hospitality: what’s the difference?

Entertaining involves setting the perfect tablescape after an exhaustive search on Pinterest. It chooses a menu that will impress, and then frets its way through each stage of preparation. It requires every throw pillow to be in place, every cobweb to be eradicated, every child to be neat and orderly. It plans extra time to don the perfect outfit before the first guest touches the doorbell on the seasonally decorated doorstep. And should any element of the plan fall short, entertaining perceives the entire evening to have been tainted. Entertaining focuses attention on self.

Hospitality involves setting a table that makes everyone feel comfortable. It chooses a menu that allows face time with guests instead of being chained to the cook top. It picks up the house to make things pleasant, but doesn’t feel the need to conceal evidences of everyday life. It sometimes sits down to dinner with flour in its hair. It allows the gathering to be shaped by the quality of the conversation rather than the cuisine. Hospitality shows interest in the thoughts, feelings, pursuits and preferences of its guests. It is good at asking questions and listening intently to answers. Hospitality focuses attention on others.

Entertaining is always thinking about the next course. Hospitality burns the rolls because it was listening to a story.

Entertaining obsesses over what went wrong. Hospitality savors what was shared.

Entertaining, exhausted, says “It was nothing, really!” Hospitality thinks it was nothing. Really.

Entertaining seeks to impress. Hospitality seeks to bless.

But the two practices can look so similar. Two people can set the same beautiful tablescape and serve the same gourmet meal, one with a motive to impress, the other with a motive to bless. How can we know the difference? Only the second of the two would invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind to pull up a chair and sip from the stemware. Our motives are revealed not just in how we set our tables, but in who we invite to join us at the feast. Entertaining invites those whom it will enjoy. Hospitality takes all comers.

why be hospitable?

Hospitality is about many things, but it is not about keeping a perpetually orderly home. So, forgive me, Twitterverse, for my deplorable tweet. I could not have been more wrong. And may I have a do-over?



Orderly house or not, hospitality throws wide the doors. It offers itself expecting nothing in return. It keeps no record of its service, counts no cost, craves no thanks. It is nothing less than the joyous, habitual offering of those who recall a gracious table set before them in the presence of their enemies, of those who look forward to a glorious table yet to come.

It is a means by which we imitate our infinitely hospitable God.

So, three years later, here is my advice to myself as the holiday season begins: Forgo the empty pleasure of entertaining. Serve instead the high-heaped feast of hospitality, even as it has been served to you.

19 comments:

  1. I love this post. Really good stuff as far as everyday life hospitality goes. If you haven't read Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist, you should. It goes along nicely with this post. The only thing I don't completely agree with is that sometimes entertaining isn't to impress. It can be just as much to bless as hospitality is. Sometimes by "entertaining," you are doing so to show them they are so very worthwhile to you. This weekend I threw a baby shower for my best friend. It was perfect down to the very last minute detail. I spent hours on Pinterest while my girls were napping, hours at night working after they'd gone to sleep- dreaming, planning, and executing. Were people impressed? Sure. But that wasn't my intention. I did it because I love my friend so very much that I wanted everything to be perfect for her. It was an expression to her of how much she means to me and how important she is that I would go to those lengths to make a day wonderful for her. Could it still have been a great day if I'd just gotten a cake and some punch? Sure. But by going the extra mile, I showed her in my love language how much I love her and it was a day she won't forget anytime soon. Hospitality is wonderful and is what we should be practicing everyday, but there is certainly a place for entertaining as well, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

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    1. Jennifer, I think we agree! What you describe having done for your friend fits my definition of hospitality. Hospitality often looks just like entertaining, but its motive is to serve instead of to garner praise. I love that you went to great effort to bless your friend. To be that kind of friend and to have that kind of friend is a rare gift.

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    2. I re-read and yes, I do think we agree. I thought you were trying to say if we put effort into it, we aren't being hospitable. I missed the part about them looking similar. I think I was too busy being offended that you would insinuate that my hospitality/entertaining wasn't genuine. ;-) Thankful for grace!

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    3. Well, for someone who was frustrated with the post, you showed quite a bit of grace in your response. :) I didn't find your comment offensive at all. Thanks for reading!

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    4. Jennifer, I love your point above about the effort being made out of a heart to bless a friend. I mostly keep hospitality stuff low-key, but I also enjoy making things pretty--because it brings me joy and to (hopefully) bless others.
      And some friends appreciate that kind of thing more than others, so at times I find myself trying to speak their language by "going the extra mile," even if I wouldn't usually spend quite so much time on Pinterest :).

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  2. This reminds me of a baby shower I went to many years ago that was one of the most elegant showers I had been to. However, I never saw the hostess because she spent all afternoon in the kitchen washing her fine china. I missed her company, and I know she missed the party as well.

    Happy Thanksgiving, Jennifer! Thank you for being real!

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    1. You will be happy to know I used plasticware and spent the whole shower at the table with the guests. I ain't no fool! ;-)

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  3. Yes, yes, yes! And amen. For reals. I just finished writing about hospitality for 31 days but just when I thought I was exhausted by the topic, you got me excited again :).

    I will end by saying that my husband quoted you tonight--from the parenting talks y'all did @ The Village. Back in '11, we were all like, "welp, we have a 18 month old--better learn how to parent." So we listened to your series together and were super thankful for it. Still learning how to parent though ;). Guess that's what the Holy Spirit's for.

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  4. Wonderful post, Jen! Reminds me of a Henry Nouwen quote: "Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place."

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  5. I loved all of this post, but my fave part is your humility! :) I'm new in blogland. I like the idea of the Christian blogosphere being a place of biblical truth, and so I also think it should be a place where we're able to live out the gospel implications that we're always talking about so much. If my identity is really rooted in Christ, then I can say, "You know, that one was totally off or wrong! Please forgive me!" I think we get that on an individual level, but I still think we often miss it on a public or corporate level. At any rate, thanks for being a great example!

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  6. This post made me smile! :) The object of our hospitality should be to touch the heart of another and meet some small need. SO many times I've put undo pressure on myself.

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  7. This is really really awesome. Thank you so much for sharing it - I definitely felt convicted about some of my motives to "entertain" sometimes!

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  8. I just read your post "A Holiday Parable" in my feedly reader and absolutely LOVED it, but now I can't find it on your site... did you take it down? I hope not. =)

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  9. Jen, I just finished your study 1 Peter, A living Hope in Christ. I would love a copy of what you wrote about Hospitality and Entertaining. How can I get a copy of what you read? Thanks for answering me. Judie Sherrell, Sugar Creek Baptist Church, Sugar Land, Texas

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    1. Hi Judie, this is the post that I read in the 1 Peter study. You've successfully found it! I love and miss SCBC! Jen

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  10. Hi Jen. I listen to your talk on a local christian radio in Carson City Nevada and the Holy Spirit led me to find the full message so I could take really good notes. I was totally blessed by God's wisdom through you on 1st Peter 1 with the message: Living Resurrection Life, at a conference with the gospel coalition. I have listened and relistened to the video parts of your talk to meditate on the scriptures and I'm totally blessed by your obedience to speak it. It's such a simple message and yet I needed to hear it at this time in my life. God bless you and thank you!

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