there are many dimesions to hospitality that Jesus followers must understand, but one that i think is worth being singled out is the aspect of being fully attentive in one’s presence to the other. this is the one facet of hospitality that has always struck me as particularly difficult for those of western culture and yet completely necessary in that it is the mark of truly making room for the other. i’ve always been in awe of how abraham is recounted to have provided hospitality to angelic guests. while abraham is far from perfect, he seems to get hospitality and and being attentive. we are often far too busy and absorbed in what’s going on in our own lives to be fully present to the other, even though we continue to interact with others without making ourselves fully available.
the practice of being fully attentive to the other is very difficult to achieve when we live in a world of task orientation and view time as a precious commodity. then there is the fact that we live within a world of high stimulation that condition us to have short attention spans. you may have dozed off already. and let’s not forget to mention that in an entertainment culture everyone’s story is not cinema worthy (by holly wood standards). in the time and place that i live it is nothing short of amazing that i’m able to be attentive to anything, save for that which i can manipulate to my own advantage, but even that is not making yourself fully available. the act of being fully attentive will certainly need to be a discipline to be practiced within our context.
i could recount for you some examples of my own inattentiveness (and they’re numerous), but i won’t bore you with my dirty laundry. we have plenty of examples of our own inattentiveness or that of others toward us to draw upon. i would rather explore the root cause(s) of such human ineptitude. as i think about it, much of my own inattentiveness is caused by the agendas that i hold to be important. and i deem important that which usually raises my own level of significance and purpose. theologically, the root of it all stems from our lack of trust that God is good and that He will be present with us and provide us with all that we need daily. if God provides for the birds of the air all that they need, then how much more should we trust that He will do the same and more for us (matt. 6:26)? we should be free to practice hospitality by being attentive to those we encounter but we cannot do it when our own existential anxst is getting in the way.
this is not to say that we should ignore our human finitude and the inherit limitations and boundaries that come with it, but to say that we ought to be discerning how we might be making ourselves more fully available to others without worrying about all the tasks that are upon our plates, whether by our choice or not. we cannot give our full attention to everyone we meet, nor can we offer hospitality to everyone likewise. but i do think that as we embrace the position of foriegner and alien, as i discussed sometime ago, we begin to lean more heavily upon God and we seek His voice as we try and figure out to whom we need to be more attentive in our lives.
but when we do discern clearly who we ought to provide hospitality to, how are we at being fully attentive? how are you at giving your full, undivided attention to someone else as you encounter them? i encourage you to make it a practice to be more fully present to those who are in your life already, but with more intentionality, to those who God brings into your life. it definitely will be a challenging discipline as you seek to extend hospitality, but it can also be a rewarding one as relationships can become stronger and strengthen communities which offers the world around us an alternative to the way things are currently.
I think that you bring up an important aspect of hospitality here, Jake, that of being fully present and attentive – one that is often overlooked. However, I think that not all instances of hospitality involve being fully attentive; sometimes sharing a piece of your life with a person involves letting them in on the chaos of the moment, and it’s important to strike a balance (not meaning 50-50, but an appropriate, meaningful balance) in times spent being fully attentive and times spent in just doing life. I appreciate you calling this out as I believe it to be an important component in genuine hospitality and one that most all of us can benefit from being more intentional about, but I also think that not all times must be like that, and that we shouldn’t feel pressured or guilty if all our times of hospitality don’t meet the fully attentive description, particularly if the situation doesn’t call for it – but to be sensitive to looking for and responding to the times when the situation does. I think it depends a fair amount on what your relationship looks like, too. Do you get together specifically to hang out? Then being distracted by your phone or the internet in a time best suited to being fully present and attentive is probably not the most hospitable approach. Does this person spend a ton of time with you, including in your day to day living? Is the purpose of getting together oriented around a specific task, or is it a really laid back group setting? Then allowing the focus to wander off the person is probably normal, and to focus on an individual may not be natural for that context.
Trusting that the world won’t end if I take a few extra minutes, or hours, to be with someone, to really be present for as long as it takes, takes a shift of the mindset out of the typical “Go-Go-Go!” of daily living. Asking God to provide for our daily needs, particularly if we reorient our use of time around his priorities in a way that might otherwise produce anxiety regarding our daily needs, can be a reassuring expression of trust in God and in his ways.
You rightly point out that offering hospitality isn’t always about one side being fully attentive as there are other aspects to it. In my opinion, this is the just the component of hospitality that folks in our context have more trouble with than any other of the hospitality discipline. However, I’m not sure striking a balance is really what we should be shooting for. Rather, we ought to be discerning when to stop ourselves in our tracks and be fully attentive. The go-go-go doesn’t simply stop us from extending hospitality, it also keeps us from listening to our creator, which is what is needed to discern when to be attentive as well as when we offer hospitality to whatever degree with whatever components. If we are just trying to maintain a comfortable balance then I fear it becomes more about our own needs than about listening to God. In other words, we are listening to ourselves rather than to God. Do you see the difference?
I think what you’re saying in your comment here is the same thing as what I was trying to articulate in mine; we’re on the same page. I didn’t mean a ‘comfortable balance’, I meant discerning when to be attentive. And I also agree that this is probably one aspect of hospitality that can be the most challenging in our context.
I get both of your points. I tend to agree though that you can’t be fully attentive in every situation, at least I can’t, simply because of the stage of life that I’m in (kids, etc.). Although I agree that if I agreed to “host” someone or meet them for coffee, in other words, mutually agreeing to set aside time for one another, in my mind, it would be incredibly rude if I spent the entire time on my iPhone or something like that. This issue is a tough one though and it does probably highly depend on the situation. And – let’s be honest, Abraham did not have all the responsibilitie that are piled upon people today, so not quite a fair comparison 🙂
I also struggle with the “God will provide” if only we let him and that will help us be more attentive. I don’t think that God will do my grocery shopping or clean the bathroom or check off any other item on my list of things to do before I can go to bed for the night, so if I also have to add “hosting” into my duties of an already full night, it seems to just delay me getting to my list. I know this is more literal than what you meant it to be, but it’s my reality at this point in my life.
Good food for thought though.
Old Abe sure didn’t have it the same as we do today, but I’d be careful with thinking you have it tougher than him. We all live the human experience and we all have to do certain things to live that we can call our responsibilities 🙂
That said, this notion of “God will provide” is something that I think we can misunderstand in the conversation of faith and trusting God. While God created us to be totally dependent upon Him, this notion of God’s provision is not void of human responsibility. Its best seen through the lens of covenant where God and human beings have an arrangement where both play a roll. God does the things that God does faithfully but God chooses to work in partnership with humans who are not always faithful. This is what makes what God does that much more amazing because He ties a finite chain around His waist and pulls the weight of humanity who often works against His plan of restoration.
But we are limited as human beings and God doesn’t expect us to be everything to everyone. Trying to be is idolatry. We are to be human and to be truly human is to be dependent upon God. Jesus models this in His life and ministry. God’s provision is to be seen in terms of His being the Giver of life, Redeemer, and Sustainer. God makes it rain on the crops so that they grow and we have food, but humans have to plant crops. He doesn’t just provide full grown crops. We are told to play our roll and God will give the increase. There is a dimension of synergism that has to play out.
This is all to say that we ought to be listening to God speak to us for when we are to be offering hospitality. When God speaks to you, prompting you to engage in hospitality, do you listen, inspite of the groceries that have to be bought and the various other tasks. Listening for and being faithful to the voice of God in many ways is part of what it means, I think, to take up one’s cross and to die to one’s self.