The Lord’s Table is the center of the church’s hospitality. We become a hospitable people by receiving the hospitality of God. He brought us in when we were strangers and, worse, rebels. We welcome others because He first welcomed us.

The entire Bible tells a story of hospitality. God finishes creating the world with an invitation to eat (Gen 1:29-30). He places Adam and Eve in a garden and offers them the tree of life.

Israel’s worship always takes place at a table – the altar. When Israel is in the wilderness, Yahweh opens a fountain in a rock and rains down the bread of heaven. 

He leads Israel to a land of milk and honey. Canaan is a table spread with wheat fields, vineyards, and orchards.

At Sinai, Israel builds Yahweh’s feast hall, the tabernacle, where they assemble to eat, drink, and rejoice. Yahweh prescribes a calendar seasoned with feast days, including two week-long festivals. 

After they enter the land, Yahweh opens a permanent house of hospitality, first at Shiloh and then at Jerusalem.

Jesus continues where the Old Testament left off. As Fr. Mark Brians says, “Hospitality marks His entire ministry. He eats and drinks with sinners, multiplies food in the wilderness, plays both host and guest in drawing all the world to Himself as the Lord of the Table.”

Here is the sum of the matter: To be saved is to be a recipient of the Father’s hospitality, embodied in Jesus, and, through this, to become agents of His hospitality. 

We become a hospitable people because Jesus invites us to His table every week and sends us out with the command: “Go and do likewise. Freely you receive, freely give.”

Blessings,
Pastor Leithart