XII

HOSPITALITY: A CHRISTMAS SERMON

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers [Forget not to shew love unto strangers.—R. V.]; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.-HEBREWS xiii. 2.

THE issue of the great argument of this Epistle about the Priesthood of Christ is in the practical precepts of this chapter. He who was both priest and victim made His sweet oblation of love on behalf of men. The heart and source of our Lord's sacrifice is love, and the outcome of it to His people must be love. That is why the high argument flows so naturally and simply into these practical duties and moral injunctions. The true fruition of God's love is love displayed on earth among men. Even our response to the divine love, when we love Him who first loved us, is tested by our love and service of one another. Distinctions between our love to God and our love to the brethren are mostly futile. It is the one love with different sides. You cannot decompose and dissect and analyse the fair flower

without robbing it of its bloom if not of its life. So, the first practical issue of the doctrine of the Eternal Priesthood is "Let brotherly love continue." The love of the cross must move human hearts to love. The second is like unto it, "Forget not to shew lave unto strangers"-a recommendation of hospitality. As Paul expressed the same natural order and outcome, "Add to brotherly kindness charity."

This was a particular necessity in the early Church. It was a bond of union and strength to Christians that hearts and homes were open to them everywhere. So constant and noble was this Christian hospitality that heathen neighbours were impressed by it and could not but exclaim, "Behold how these Christians love one another." Persecution in one place would sometimes scatter a church, and the world-wide bond of brotherhood mitigated many of the evils and distresses. Even in normal times there was constant communication between different churches. A Christian's outlook became suddenly wider than other men's: his fatherland became a bigger thing. He was a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, and no doubt some of the local and provincial ties were a little loosened by the great imperial faith with its note of universality, breaking down all barriers of race and caste and class. It was one of the ways

in which the evangel was spread. Christians moved about more readily, sure as they were of a welcome among all who loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity. Men lost the deep-rooted distrust of unknown strangers, and the Church became an organisation which was independent of mere place. Thus we find all the Apostles inculcating the sacred duty of hospitality. Paul writes to the Romans, "Distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality "; and Peter writes, "Use hospitality one to another without grudging."

There is something beautiful about the sweet and simple hospitality of the early Church, when men felt themselves in the clasp of a common affection as well as in the presence of common dangers. The writer here informs his readers that it is not only a duty, but is often a high privilege. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Often such Christian strangers from other towns and countries carried the best of blessings with them, and gave more than they received. They could tell their hosts of the life of other churches, and sometimes could instruct them in Christian thought and life. If not, the virtue brought its own reward; for it was part of the debt of love they owed to God; and what they

did to one of the least of these brethren they were doing for their Lord.

Customs and manners have changed, and different needs have emerged, so that the outward expression of this duty may not be the same as when the Apostles wrote, but Christians have still a duty on this matter, and perhaps even the commonplace virtue of hospitality needs to be inculcated. No time could be more appropriate for its mention than this season of Christmas-tide when men are more genial and friendly, when reserve thaws a little, and we wish each other well. It is absurd to suppose that the difference of manners and customs among us can leave us with the same primitive and free methods of hospitality, any more than we can expect to revive the still freer customs of the East. To an Arab the duty is one of the most sacred, partly because a lonely wandering life makes a man glad to hear another voice and learn some news of men and events, and partly because life in tents makes men more open and franker, and partly because to refuse hospitality in the desert would in some places mean dreadful privation and death. A tent is open and accessible as no city house could be, and the grace of hospitality comes natural in simple pastoral peoples. To

look for primitive oriental hospitality in our city life would be folly.

But though manners and ways of living change, the heart of this virtue does not change, and the essence of it is kindness, thoughtfulness. The methods of expressing the feeling will differ from the oriental courtesy of the Arab and from the indiscriminate hospitality of the early Christian, but it will have methods of its own suitable to our time and place. We might well be a little more open and more genial, a little less grudging and less suspicious, and give a little freer play to kindly impulse. "To do good and communicate, forget not," writes this Apostle in this same chapter. It is easy to forget, more easy for us than for the Christians of the first days. It is easy to live a self-centred life which is uncommonly like full-blown selfishness. We encase ourselves in our own personal concerns, and give ourselves up to our own private business and pleasures. We get engrossed in our own affairs, and are quite satisfied if only we are let alone. This mood creeps on us in the city, where there are such crowds whom we do not know and in whom we can have no interest. It is easier in a city than anywhere else, strange as it may seem, to live your own little life by yourself, circumscribed by your own affairs, ramparted against