A young couple invited their pompous parish priest for Sunday dinner. While the two of them were in the kitchen making the final preparations, the monsignor asked their young son what they were having for dinner.  “Goat,” said the little boy.

“Goat?” gasped the monsignor.  “Are you sure about that?”

“Oh, yes, monsignor,” said the little fellow.  “Just this morning I heard mommy say to daddy, ‘Don’t forget, we’re having the old goat for dinner.’”

So much for hospitality!  But that is what the gospel challenges us to think about today.  Hospitality.  There is a lot more to it than “Let’s do lunch,” or “Drinks are on me.”  It is a basic attitude towards life – the very opposite of self-absorption which leaves us locked in ourselves, very small, and very alone. Hospitality is a way of living that looks beyond self, opens the inner doors wide, and says with a glad heart, “Welcome, come on in.”

That is a very big way of and it can only come from hearts that have grown large and confident and gracious in the warm sunlight of knowing for sure that they are loved beyond measure.  To put it in another way, if we have not paid attention to God’s hospitality to us, we will never know how to extend it to one another.

Communion, family, is what we are made for and what we long for. Hospitality, the habit of sharing life with a glad heart, is the only road to communion and family, the only road to our heart’s desire.  But there are rocks on that road, some very large ones, and on each of them is inscribed the same four-letter word, “fear.”  Fear that I’m nothing and that I have nothing worth sharing.  Fear that, if I do share I’ll not have enough for myself.  Fear of what I may be asked for tomorrow if I put out the welcome mat today.  Fear of rejection.  Fear of the unknown.  Paralyzing, stultifying, isolating fears of every sort.

Which of those fears has your name on it?  Probably more than one. How do we dissolve those fears?  How do we get those rocks off our road so we can get where we really want to be, in communion and family?  Where do we find the energy to give the cup of water when it’s needed, and to make sure it’s cold, as the Gospel says, and to do that with glad hearts and without counting?  The answer is always the same.  We push aside those boulders, we find the courage to share life without fear, and we grow in our hearts by confronting our faith and letting it be enough for us.

That is the challenge that today’s Gospel places before us.  So let us pray for one another this week.

Good and gracious Lord, we thirst for communion and family, yet our fears stand in the way.  Help us to know inside that you are enough for us.  Let all who come our way find in us a ready welcome and a lasting embrace.  Amen.