Hospitality

Hospitality

1. The Host

Everyone should be given to hospitality, for by it love is manifested and brothers dwell together more often. This results in many blessings that have been commanded where brothers dwell together in unity.

Do not sigh or grumble when someone visits you, thinking that now you have to be hospitable—because you are not! Do as you wish according to the law of liberty—but then comes the judgment! If you have been hospitable, you can expect hospitality on that Day.

Being hospitable is not a matter of convenience; it is a matter of accommodating the visitor. You are not meant to serve yourself but the visitor!

The effort you expend on hospitality is well spent. It is to your advantage. You can expect greater rewards in return. Who knows—a guest can even be someone whom God has chosen for your special salvation in one way or another. Imagine if you should turn him away out of ignorance!

You can exercise hospitality with everything that is yours. If you do not have any surplus so you can afford to buy food for others, you still have room in your house. If you don’t have a spring mattress and a feather bed, you can still offer him what you have; then the guest is free to choose and do what he wants. If, for the sake of brotherhood, he would like to eat with you, you can tell him that it is possible if he pays for the cost of the food. Money will also be saved in this way, love is manifested, and the Lord commands a blessing, according to His word. So there will be a feast anyway despite the fact that you do not have a surplus.

A person’s willingness is praiseworthy according to what he has. Do not be so foolish and so weak that you end up buying expensive food without being able to pay for it because you think you have to be so hospitable, or you want to receive vain praise. This is utter madness!

Do not excuse yourself for not having a good enough room or bedding before you have offered it to your guest as it is. Perhaps he is so God-fearing that he is thankful for getting it as you have it? Perhaps he appreciates brotherhood more than earthly well-being? Or perhaps you could contribute to teaching him to be content with simple things? How good that would be!

Think not only about hospitality every time a guest is slow to say good-bye, every time he is hinting at being invited. For if your hospitality that you are obliged to extend can be a blessing, how much more of a blessing it is to do it of your own free will! Therefore seek out opportunities; look up the brothers in the hotels and take them home with you. Perhaps those who go straight to the hotel are the very ones who bring the greatest blessings with them?

Do not sigh with relief when the visitor takes his bag and leaves—perhaps your greatest salvation and blessing is leaving at the same time.

2. The Person Who Can Expect Hospitality

It is not the intention that he should go around, expecting the others to offer him room and board. For just as surely as it is a virtue for the others to extend hospitality to you, so it is a vice of yours to slink around in order to accept it. In that case other people don’t even have ample opportunity to practice virtue, for then the host is obliged, because of your tactlessness, to invite you, and thus the opportunity to invite you of his own free will falls away. Thus you also contribute to the host performing a work of bondage.

You should remember that even though you are being smiled at at the table, this does not cover up the fact that there can be much sighing because of the work involved with preparing the food and the bedding.

People are unspeakably weak. You can presume they are far too weak to say that they do not have a surplus, and can therefore not offer you a meal. Because of your tactlessness they are obliged to be unrighteous in order to please you. If this is not your desire, then you should hold back.

You cannot reckon that you are familiar with people’s economic situation, because you never know anything certain about it. For even if they had received thousands the day before, it is possible that they may have given away the rest of it just before you came. What do you know about that?

Life is deep and varied. There are many causes and many effects. There are many weights to be put on the scales before judgment can be pronounced.

Have you even thought about people’s health in connection with hospitality? How delighted would you be with the comforter and the tasty food, knowing that the use of it would contribute to the breakdown of the hostess’ health, especially if you— because of your tactlessness— had obliged her to invite you?!

It is possible that your brother’s reason for not inviting you can be such a righteous thought, that your heart could never entertain it for the rest of your life!

If no one invites you, you can as a rule—without any harm being done—go straight to a hotel. If someone really wants to have you as a guest, you will be sure to be notified. In this way you can always know that the hospitality you are enjoying is voluntary, to everyone’s perfect delight.