If there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality
Why is hospitality important? I want to tackle a misnomer about this word that carries so much baggage and that we tend to put in a box. It is not just tea given in a hospital (hospital-tea) or making a Mary Berry worthy Victoria sponge. It is not entertainment! No, it holds a far deeper importance, for we have a God who is hospitality in essence. So what does God’s hospitality look like? God created the world, a spacious and gracious place. He created space for a relationship with him, a welcoming place. So hospitality is about making room for others and about welcoming them. We are going to take a journey to think about how we can create these kinds of spaces: spaces of conversation and community that feel welcoming to those who don’t yet know Jesus.
Creating Space for Conversation
Toby Lloyd and Andrew Wilson: Broadcast Bartender
Then we see Jesus who came and ate with people to express His identification with them. As Tim Chester says ‘that’s why Jesus’ habit of eating with tax collectors and sinners was so scandalous. He was saying, ‘These are my sort of people.’’[3] His countercultural gracious table challenged reciprocity - drawing together the rich and poor and tearing down the structures of outsider and insider. Jesus’ table expressed the vision of the kingdom of God.
Jesus also gave us the Passover table, the Lord’s supper, a meal that is to be eaten ‘before the Lord your God.’ [4] This was a meal in the presence of God. We marvel at the bloody cost of this hospitality - the bloody cost of the cross enabled us to eat in God’s presence. At God’s table, sat in His presence, hospitality holds a weighty glorious richness.
Gestures of Welcome
Ana Prvacki: The Greeting Committee
And God doesn’t only welcome His friends or those He is comfortable with. No, He welcomes those who have been estranged from Him. He welcomes us who have turned our backs on Him. When rebellion takes on skin in our hearts, here estrangement enters in. But Jesus died for us so that we could once more feast in fatherly presence wrapped in bloody sheepskin. Jesus found “no room!” in the inn and was called a stranger so that he could make room for us, who were to no longer be called strangers! As Henry Nouwen says ‘to fully appreciate what hospitality can mean, we possibly have to become first a stranger ourselves.’[6]
The idea of God welcoming us when we were strangers is also found in the etymology of the word hospitality, which is derived from the Latin hospes meaning ‘host’, ‘guest’, or ‘stranger’. Hospes is formed from hostis, which means ‘stranger’ or ‘enemy’. So hospitality is in essence the welcome of the stranger. It is when the stranger becomes a guest and the guest becomes family.
Building Community
MotiRoti: Potluck
Moments of mutual generosity such as is seen in the work of MotiRoti allow the community to come as both hosts and guests. This is true in a potluck dinner but it is also true as we bring the gifts God has given us, to the table of the body of the church. We are all different, with different characters and gifting, perhaps a seemingly incompatible group of people, but it is the common dependency on our Lord Jesus that unifies us. There is hospitality in making room in Christian community for each member of the body to serve and be served. This is when we grow: when we are unified in Jesus and celebrating our diversity as people. Think about how Jesus transformed Zacchaeus by enabling and empowering him to become a host for the very first time.
THIS is the hospitality of God. Making room for the stranger. Welcoming others. And it’s costly. God totally blows the walls off our hospitality Mary Berry cake boxes. If we see God’s hospitality in how he grants us, who were strangers, such astounding access to a relationship with him, surely our hearts should yearn to live out this hospitality in our own lives. To image God’s gracious and welcoming hospitality to the stranger. That’s the hospitality we are looking to image as Christians.
In my own art practice, I seek to critique the idea that hospitality is just something that we do in the practice of cooking a meal and inviting people round. Instead I seek to explore it as a way of life; a constant making room for others and God. KILN tent is a hand printed portable space where I host meals and conversations to grow a more critical understanding of hospitality (making room for another) and commensality (being together around a table) within the public and private sectors. I want to develop a genuine culture within society of hospitality as a way of life rather than something that we do. The name KILN stands for kl i lbb nphsh, which in Hebrew means all of my heart and soul. It involves the whole of our lives. KILN is a way of life in which we breathe creative hospitality.
This involves hospitality in the everyday. When C.S. Lewis was a student, he lived in a cramped student dorm and could only afford a packet of biscuits as an offering for guests. But he still sought to be hospitable with the meager offerings that he had. He opened his dorm room for younger students to come and drink tea with biscuits as they talked of struggles and joys. Hospitality doesn’t have to be big and fancy. A cuppa and a digestive is adequate enough. We are only called to give what God has given us.
Poverty is the inner disposition that allows us to take away our defences and convert our enemies into friends. We can only perceive the stranger as an enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we say, ‘Please enter – my house is your house, my joy is your joy, my sadness is your sadness and my life is your life’, we have nothing to defend, since we have nothing to lose but all to give.
I am also the Director of Shieldfield Art Works (SAW), a project of the Methodist Church in Newcastle upon Tyne which is seeking the good of the city through creative practice. We are a team of artists who support others to be creative, and use our creativity to support others. We believe that the arts help us to articulate what it is to be human and that arts participation enables joy and flourishing in unique and unexpected ways.
As a Christian organisation we believe each and every person has inherent worth, bearing the image of our creator. This motivates us to listen to and seek out those whose stories may not be being heard, so that we may better understand and love those around us. We are particularly committed to our area of Newcastle, Shieldfield, just east of the city centre. We devise and commission art projects that tell Shieldlfield’s story, and consider how stories from our local area relate to life outside of Shieldfield. In attempting to reflect a God who is interested in all areas of life, we are interested in the micro to the macro - art that speaks truths about the human condition, to art which speaks to the condition of our planet, and everything in between. We recently commissioned a project called 100 PEOPLE, an experimental approach to film-making which aims to support people who either live, work or play in the residential area of Shieldfield to collaboratively identify and articulate their stories. It was a co-created, complicated and multi-voiced portrait of place. SAW has been in Shieldfield for 13 years, taking time to listen and understand and be a part of the community and people here. We have cultivated active spaces for telling stories, giving platform to unheard voices and fostering reflection and discussion: creating a space shaped by faith and creativity.
Hospitality is always better done with someone else. In community. Partnering in the gospel. So let’s get creative. Ask for help and offer help. Look at what God has given you and where he has placed you and pray that God will show you how to use it wisely to live out hospitality. Ask yourself how you can specifically use your creativity and practice to foster hospitality. I want the whole body of Christ to know that we are called to and able to live out hospitable lives, and I pray that we would do that in rich creative ways.
Practical Hospitality
After thinking through the questions posed on our journey through hospitality, here are a few more practical creative ideas you could try. Why not think through other creatives who you could partner with to try them:
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Host exhibition opportunities or residencies from your home (there are many ways to do this when you are renting if you get creative with curation) - the domestic environment is a really interesting place to curate. Slugtown operated from a residential property in Newcastle for a few years.
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Host dinners on particular topics where you create a space for people to share their views and hear the views of others (this really helps in a world where people often just talk past each other and aren’t good at listening well or disagreeing well)
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Similarly host an evening like SAW Reflects where we gather to reflect, either on an exhibition or the wider world, exploring how it relates to ourselves, our world and our beliefs.
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Invite people to come and make with you. Either making the same or making differently but in the same space. Some examples of crafty activist activities are Craft Action Collective and Leed Craftivists
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Invite someone from your studio or course who you know is lonely around to your house or studio space for tea and biscuits every week. Ask some of your friends to join so that they can meet more people.
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Organise a potluck meal or pudding party to enable everyone to be both host and guest. You could even make this into a freezer fiesta or cupboard carnival where people have to bring a dish that is made only from what they already have in their freezer or cupboards. This both fosters creativity and helps those who don’t have enough money to buy more food.
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Make a care package (either using things from your cupboard, homemade crafts or a few nice treats from the supermarket) for fellow students in their final year, especially around exam/degree show time.
We have developed Interactive Discussion Guides on the theme of Hospitality that can be found here.
1 Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998), p.44
2 www.lloyd-wilson.co.uk/html/broadcast_bartender.html (accessed 24/6/20)
3 Tim Chester, A Meal with Jesus (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2011), p.87
4 Deuteronomy 12:7
5 Stephanie Smith, Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), p.278.
6 Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998), p.45
7 https://potluckchicago.wordpress.com/about-2 (accessed 15/6/20)
8 Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998), pp.74–75
