I want us to begin thinking about hospitality by musing on the "hospitality industry." Wikipedia defines it as "a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, restaurants, event planning, theme parks, transportation, cruise lines and additional fields with the tourism industry." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitality_industry) What makes this reference germane to our discussion is that the hospitality industry understands that it has an obligation to serve the needs of its guests. The Ritz-Carlton chain puts it this way; their staff members are "Ladies and Gentlemen, serving Ladies and Gentlemen." In other words the people who stay in their hotels are to be treated as honored guests and not merely paying customers. While not all portions of the industry act in this manner, it is becoming more and more common. Virtually every time I buy a fast-food meal or stay in a motel, I am offered a way go on line and tell the company about the service I have received. All of this is a realization that there is an obligation to serve the customer in a way that they feel like they matter.
This sense of hospitality, that one has an obligation to treat strangers as honored guests, is in fact an ancient concept. Most nomadic cultures (both ancient and modern) practiced and practice hospitality. There seemed to be something about the shared experience of wandering and having no idea where your next meal might be coming from that engendered a culture of welcoming the stranger into one's home. There is extensive literature concerning hospitality within Bedouin, Mongolian, Tibetan and Kazakh nomadic societies. Each of these groups developed a particular set of customs and rituals centered on the welcoming of the stranger. The welcome that was offered was not for gaining money or prestige, but was a culturally condition obligation. Hospitality within these cultures included offering food, shelter and safety to the stranger. This hospitality also included a welcome to an enemy, in so far as the enemy was willing to follow the rules of being a guest (no violence or betrayal).
Hospitality was also part of the ancient Greek culture. The concept was called "Xenia" which can be translated as "guest friendship." Its roots were based in religion where the Greek god Zeus was also known as Zeus Xenios because he was the protector of travelers; thus protecting travelers mattered. Religion also played a role in that one was supposed to offer hospitality to strangers because they could be gods in disguise. There were two parts to Xenia. The first had to do with the host respecting the guest. This could include offers of food, drink, lodging and safety. The second had to do with the guest respecting the host. The guest was to be courteous and was never to take advantage of the host. In The Iliad we witness the breakdown of this relationship when Paris, as a guest of King Menelaus, abducts the king's wife, Helen. This infraction of guest friendship demanded vengeance and thus became the basis for the Trojan War. The entire book, The Odyssey, functions around this concept as well with some characters showing Xenia and others not.
The most significant story of hospitality in the Old Testament is that of Abraham and the three strangers in Genesis 18:1-8. In this story Abraham sees three strangers at the door of his tent. Abraham immediately rises and begs the men to stay with him. He follows the custom of offering them a place to rest, water to wash their feet and a "morsel of bread." The morsel of bread however turns out to be freshly baked cakes and a calf cooked up for dinner. Guests received the best the host had to offer. The most prominent story of a lack of hospitality is that of the city of Sodom. (Genesis 19) When Lot, who had been a nomad and understood hospitality, received his guests into his house, the men of the town want to rape them, which is a violation of hospitality. Lot was even willing to allow his virgin daughters to be ravaged rather than violate hospitality. Notice in both of these stories the strangers are not human strangers but in the Abraham story it is the Lord who visits and in the Lot story it is angels who come to his home.
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