Our homes are not just buildings where we sleep and eat, they are gathering places where life happens and where new relationships spark to life. From my travels I have photos of landmarks and wonders of the world, but it was the meals shared in local homes that have embedded most profoundly on my imagination. It was a bottle of Pepsi a family shared with me in a Kenyan slum apartment, the stories told around a bare lightbulb in a Amazonian hut on stilts, and the amazing hospitality I received in a Bedouin tent in the Middle East that taught me that homes can transform relationships, but only if they are opened up to others.
There is something profound about the personal and specific gesture of receiving hospitality in someone’s home. The smell of food, the warm greetings, and an evening full of stories simply cannot be matched by anything we can buy. Even the most basic one room apartment or patio chairs can become a place where memories are made and new relationships are given space to flourish. The act of offering our home to another is more than a kind offering, it is a radical gesture that reveals what we most value.
Author Christine Pohl says that hospitality is different than entertainment. She says that when we view our homes as a service or product, or as a means to entertain a guest, then our home is never ready. When we believe hospitality is about impressing others, then our home will never feel clean enough, nice enough, or good enough for others. But when we see our home as a place for gathering, for community, for friendship and authentic connections, then all that we have is more than enough. Our focus becomes on knowing our visitors and guests, not on how we may or may not be living up to an expectation we have created for ourselves.
Some of the best times of hospitality in my life were experienced when I was a poor student. I had little money and no fancy food or ways of impressing anybody. Yet my memories of friendships and conversations with others over a bowl of Campbell’s Soup are lasting. It was the people in my home, not the old sofa or soup, that was the focus.
Yet there is something more that happens when we open our homes to others. Our children grow up meeting strangers and learning to shape their own appetite for meaningful relationships and kind hospitality. They learn that sharing our lives with others makes our lives rich and beautiful. It is often in homes that care is received and given. In our own living room we have spent many evenings sharing stories of sorrow and hope, listening to others and finding new courage. Homes are more than buildings, they can become places where strength is renewed and new ideas and faith take root. Homes are also places of laughter and joy. Some of the best jokes and belly laughs have happened around a kitchen table.
Today it might seem daunting to invite others into our homes. Somewhere along the way we may have come to believe the message that our food, our living rooms, or our stories are not entertaining enough. There’s good news: your home is great just as it is. Our homes and the hospitality we share may be the doorway to new life for us and anyone who we invite in. We live in a time when lists of Facebook friends are growing but time for face-to-face friendships is becoming rare. It is a deeply counter cultural move to re-awaken the joy of intentional hospitality by opening up our homes. It may be just the right time to begin again.
