Quotes about Hospitality

And in a very special way, as Jesus says in Matthew 25:40, in the least of these, we find Jesus in disguise. Perhaps we are just as likely to encounter God over the dinner table or in the slums or in the streets as in a giant auditorium. Of course, suggesting that God doesn't need these million-dollar megacathedrals is the sort of thing that gets you in big trouble.

There is a place for good food and beautiful art; what matters is who you share it with. What's just as important as what you eat is who you are eating with. One of my favorite sayings these days is "Simple living does not mean ugly living." We can live in ways that are simple and responsible—and beautiful.

Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.

The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.

Hospitality should have no other nature than love.

The word hospitality in the New Testament comes from two Greek words. The first word means love and the second word means strangers. Its a word that means love of strangers.

Congregation is composed of people, who, upon entering a church, leave behind what people on the street name or call them. A church can never be reduced to a place where goods and services are exchanged. It must never be a place where a person is labeled. It can never be a place where gossip is perpetuated. Before anything else, it is a place where a person is named and greeted, whether implicitly or explicitly, in Jesus's name. A place where dignity is conferred.

I'll shower blessings on the pilgrims who come here, and give supper to those who arrive hungry." The devout mind goes back to those years in the wilderness when God gave water from the rock, manna from the ground and quail from the skies, and fashions a hope for abundant, eternal providence.

When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don't take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners

Story is the most natural way of enlarging and deepening our sense of reality, and then enlisting us as participants in it. Stories open doors to areas or aspects of life that we didn't know were there, or had quit noticing out of over-familiarity, or supposed were out-of-bounds to us. They then welcome us in. Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.

I'm not looking to exclude people, I'm looking to include them.

May my life be like a great hospitable tree, and may weary wanderers find in me a rest.