Pilgrim's Progress column by Julian Pursehouse: Hospitality and feasting

It is often the case that when we sit round a table and enjoy good food together, we relax, some of our polite inhibitions fall away, and we interact with people at a much deeper level.

The simple but profound act of sharing food together in a social context is part of the glue that binds people together in good and lasting relationships – that has been a truth since ancient times to the present day. Invitations for hospitality also afford the opportunity to source new recipes and to try out new dishes and this brings the joy of discovery and creativity!

It struck me the other day, when I was preparing Sunday worship for one of the churches under my pastoral charge, that many of the stories about Jesus in the Gospels are set in the context of meals, hospitality, and feasting. For example, the Wedding at Cana, the feeding of the five thousand, the Last Supper, the road to Emmaus – to name but a few! In each of these settings Jesus finds himself amid social hospitality and it becomes the context for important conversations and interactions with the people of his own time and day.

However, Jesus calls us to go one step further – to engage in radical hospitality and to be expansive in our invitations. He encourages us to widen our horizons and enlarge our hospitality so that there is a place for the lost, the least, the lowly, the forgotten, the overlooked, the marginalised and the stranger. At the table of God’s presence all are welcome and Jesus embodies that principle – I wonder whether we can too?

Julian Pursehouse, Sandal, Crigglestone, Walton, and Newmillerdam Methodist Churches