Making room for God

Rev. Matt Rawle

Early in ministry I thought hospitality was a mastery of entertaining: making sure invitations were beautiful and informative, table settings were thematically appropriate, background music subconsciously audible, and gathering area open and spacious and full of greeters. I also prided myself on hospitality of the mind: entertaining an opposing idea. Superficially this seems to translate well in a local church, at least a hospitality team equips themselves to be ready for visitors to a worship experience or funeral service or open house of the new renovations, but hospitality as “entertaining,” seems hopelessly shallow when I meditate on what God has accomplished and is accomplishing through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. I certainly don’t think that God is entertaining humanity, at least, that sounds so incredibly shallow.

Hospitality is more than entertaining. It is making room. In John 14 Jesus tells the disciples that he goes to prepare a place for us. It is not a guest house, but a permanent dwelling place within the heart of God. Through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, God is making room for us within the Godhead. We see it each Sunday when we gather for worship. Saint Augustine said that the Trinity is the Lover (God), the Beloved (Christ), and the love that they share (Holy Spirit). When we gather for worship we see a manifestation of the Trinity: God and the body of Christ lost in mutual adoration (not sure if this is theologically orthodox, but it’s a good picture anyway: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”—Google it). When we make room for the stranger in a real and abiding way we find that God’s heart is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside (I know what you’re thinking, and yes, God’s heart is like the TARDIS).

Hospitality is part of the discipline of losing your life in order to find it. Our lives are filled with holy
(and not so holy) spaces: your home, your workplace, your church, your car. When we hopefully and intentionally make room for the stranger, these places are permanently transformed. They no longer fill our personal wants and desires, but are begging for the presence of “the other.” If we cannot make room for “the other,” how can we ask God, who is wholly (holy) other, to abide with us? So, we don’t make room in case those around us happen to be angels. That would be self-centered entertaining. In a way we make room in order to detach our soul from the stuff which so readily defines us. Making room is a sign of the kingdom. Making room points to the heart of God. We make room because God makes room for us.