The Spirit of Hospitality

Paul was travelling and sharing the Gospel and founding churches, and he had a dream in which he saw a man begging him, “Come on over to Macedonia and help us” and he interpreted the dream to mean that God was calling him to go and preach the Gospel in Macedonia, in what is now Eastern Europe. His first stop was the Roman colony of Philippi, founded by Alexander the Great’s father and then Caesar Augustus declared it a retirement community for army veterans. Because of its history, there was not a large Jewish population in Philippi. When Paul arrived, like he did everywhere he went, he first located where the Jewish people gathered for worship, to share with his fellow Jews the good news that that the Messiah had come. Since there was such a small community of Jews, there was not a synagogue, establishing a synagogue required having 10 Jewish males, so that is an indication to us how small the Jewish community in Philippi was. If a town did not have a large enough Jewish population to have a synagogue, worship was to be held by living water, by water that was running.

So, a few days after they arrive, on the Sabbath, Paul and his fellow travelers go to the river to find a worship service. There they meet a group of women, and Lydia is among them. We really don’t know much about her. She is from Thyatira, which is in the Roman Province of Lydia in Asia. So her name may not really be Lydia, she may just be identified as Lydia because she is Lydian. We know she is in the purple dye business, which means she is wealthy. Purple dye was so rare that it was a color reserved for royalty. To make a thimble full of purple dye took 30,000 murex snails, and a purple robe in today’s dollars would cost about $200,000. We also know about Lydia that she believes in God; she may or may not be Jewish. So all together, we know she is Asian and that she is living in Europe because she is in the purple dye business, and that she is quite wealthy and believes in God.

And we know that Paul joins Lydia and the women praying with her on the riverside and sits down and starts to speak to them.

Let’s pause right here to appreciate how monumental this moment was. Paul, who was taught as a child to pray every morning, “Thank you, Lord, for not making me a woman, a slave, or a Gentile,” sat down – that is the position that a rabbi assumes to teach – and spoke to the women. As a Pharisee, he was taught, “Talk not much with a woman….Everyone that talks much with a woman causes evil to himself, and desists from the words of Torah and his end is he inherits Gehinnom [Hell]” (Pirke Aboth 1:5) {Paul Walasky WBC). And yet, he was so changed by knowing the Messiah that he sat down and shared the Good News with these women.

God opened Lydia’s heart, and she was baptized and we learn something else about her. She is the head of her household because she has her whole household baptized too. And when her heart is opened, it isn’t just to be baptized. It isn’t just to accept Christ as her Lord and Savior. Lydia wants her whole life, her whole household, to be immersed in the mission. She prevails upon Paul to come and stay in her home.

We don’t really know much about Lydia, but we can learn a lot from her example. She kept the Sabbath, even though she was busy and the culture around her didn’t expect her to. She knew she needed time with God and in community with other worshipers. Lydia was a learner. When this stranger, Paul, began to teach, she was listening eagerly. She was open to the Holy Spirit. God won’t open our hearts if we don’t want them opened. God opened her heart and she responded. She chose to be baptized, but her response doesn’t stop there. Lydia extends radical hospitality to Paul and the others traveling with him.

Presbyterian pastor Rev. Dr. Robert Durham says of that hospitality is “One of the fundamental signs of Christian life blossoming in an individual’s life…. Not hospitality as we often define it, but as a welcome embrace of all those God sends to us.”

Hospitality is about the heart, about sharing who you are and what you have. Dave Brannon remembers his grandmother’s hospitality. When I was a kid, our family made a monthly excursion from Ohio to West Virginia to visit my maternal grandparents. Every time we arrived at the door of their farmhouse, Grandma Lester would greet us with the words, “Come on in and sit a spell.” It was her way of telling us to make ourselves comfortable, stay a while, and share in some “catching-up” conversation.
When God opens Lydia’s heart, she extends radical hospitality to Paul and the others traveling with him. “Come on in and sit a spell.” They stay in Philippi for three months! She must have made them feel right at home. Maybe she asked what they liked to eat, how she could make them more comfortable. Perhaps they talked about the differences in their customs from different parts of the world. Lydia had a genuine interest in them. I just imagine as she showed them around, Lydia said, “Make yourselves at home,” and she meant it. You know that line when someone says, “Make yourself at home” and you know whether or not you really can? Paul and his fellow travelers knew they could get up in the middle of the night and grab a snack because when Lydia said, “Make yourself at home” she meant it. She had a heart, a spirit of hospitality.

When I first graduated from seminary and we moved back to Memphis, Chris had a part-time job as a youth choir director in a Methodist church. So, on Sunday mornings, I went to church by myself. It was awkward. I visited many of the Presbyterian churches in the city, a Sunday or two at each one, hoping to find one that was welcoming. I arrived early and sat alone on my pew. I smiled at people who didn’t smile back or say hello. I shook hands with the pastor at the end and walked out the door to my car. It was lonely; I had to force myself week after week to go.

Maybe everyone thought it was someone else’s job to greet me. I am an introvert, so I understand; it is hard for me to strike up a conversation with someone I don’t know. But this is what I have come to realize – every person who comes to church has a reason they came.
Do you know who the host is when someone comes to visit at church? You are. Not the pastor. Not the Director of Christian Education. Not anyone else but you. Visitors decide in the first 10 minutes they are here whether or not they will be back.

You are their host. Imagine you just opened the door to your house. “I’m so glad to see you. Welcome.” What else would you say? “Come in. Can I get you a cup of coffee?” You might ask “What brought you here today?” or during Fellowship Coffee you might ask “What did you think of the service today?” You might introduce them to another person or two.

Bishop Robert Schnase, a Methodist pastor, shares the story of a woman who “was going through a rough time in her personal and professional life; and in her search for connections, hope, and direction, she began to visit a few churches. After her first two worship experiences to which she came alone, sat alone, and left alone without anyone speaking to her or greeting her, her prayer for her next visit to another church service was simply, ‘I only pray that someone speaks to me today.’”

Hospitality should be the first thing people remember about visiting the Body of Christ. Hospitality is more than speaking to a guest, though. It is being interested in the other person and making them feel so at home that they are no longer a guest. The Spirit of hospitality says, “Come on in and sit a spell. Make yourself at home.”