Hospitality Gone Overboard

While catching up on some reading today, I came across an article that corresponds to Sunday's sermon. Interestingly, it uses a representation of hospitality, a concierge, that I thought about including in Sunday's sermon. I decided not to because there are clear instances when serving as a concierge to someone goes beyond reaching out in a helpful, healthy way. Such as the one that begins this essay.

Although the article focuses on a sometimes unhealthy dynamic between pastors and members of their congregation, it can be an unhealthy dynamic in any relationship where one person is trying to reach out in love and hospitality to another. Sunday I focused on encouraging us to reach out to others in need of guidance, in a variety of contexts, I did not spend as much time focusing on how we need to be careful with our "audacious hospitality" toward others.

If we spend all of our time and energy catering to others needs and desires, we will discover that we've neglected our own. There is a balance in most things, and there must be a balance in hospitality/ministry/care for others too. We must learn to not be so stingy with our time and our attention, but, having learned this, we must not go overboard and become so giving of our time that we neglect our own needs and desires.

There are all sorts of expectations in relationships and cultures that make "audacious hospitality" difficult to keep in a healthy balance. The cultures in many congregations are evidence of this, where pastors find self-worth in their being needed, and congregations measure the worth of a pastor by how well he meets all of their expectations. Like most solid relationships, there is necessarily compromise in giving and receiving hospitality. This essay is a good reminder of this.