Hospitality was particularly important in ancient times, as hotels were not available in country towns. If a traveller needed to stop in a town overnight, they relied on the hospitality of the inhabitants of those towns.
However, when God made a covenant with the people of Israel, he extended the scope of hospitality beyond the social norms of the day. In Deut 10:18 God says he takes a particular interest in those in society who could not take care of themselves; the widow, the orphan and the alien (the asylum seeker). God then commands the Israelites to take a special interest in those people as well in the following verse; again with a special interest on foreigners (asylum seekers). The Israelites were not just to show hospitality to travellers; they were to seek out strangers who needed help, and love them.
In Deut 10:19 God gives the reason behind why the Israelites were to show hospitality to people of foreign descent; for the Israelites were aliens in Egypt themselves. God is saying that his salvation (the Exodus) was God showing hospitality to the nation of Israel; giving them rest from their weary slavery. If the Israelites were recipients of God’s grace, they were then to pass that grace on to others.
Christians are recipients of an even greater salvation than the Israelites. The author of Hebrews promises that Christians will one day enter our true Sabbath rest (Heb 4), because the blockage between God and humanity has been taken away by Christ. As such, Christians are under even greater obligation to pass God’s grace onto others. So may we show hospitality to the kinds of people our society rejects; in particular asylum seekers.
Brendan McLaughlin
