Making Room

In which I finally give you something to do.

When I was a child, my parents trained me to tithe. I would receive my $1 allowance in dimes, and understood that I was expected to place at least one of those coins in the offering plate each Sunday. I never resented this; in fact, I was cheerful, even proud to tithe, because my parents were so good at helping me understand how our faith community used that money. I could imagine my dime flying away to support disaster relief efforts, or missionaries in refugee camps, or Bible clubs for kids just like me. And I wasn’t much older before I realized that my parents’ own salary as ministers to college students was paid by the tithes and offerings of churches around the country.

As I grew older, I was fascinated by biblical accounts of offering things to God, because so often they include material goods as well as money. Jesus talks about tithing “mint, and dill, and cumin” (Matthew 23:23) - can you imagine how lovely our offering plates would smell if we all brought in the first fruits from our herb gardens?

What I’m trying to say is that my religious upbringing, as well as my own study of the Bible, created this expectation that giving somehow creates the infrastructure of our lives, that the Spirit both stretches and sustains us through our material acts of giving and receiving.

That’s probably why, when I bought my first house, I felt that I was supposed to tithe it. Let me be very clear here: this was not a grim legalistic impulse, but an instinct of gratitude. While it was much easier to buy a home ten years ago than it is today, I was very aware of the ways grace and privilege had allowed me to purchase I home I loved while still in my twenties. I was also aware that I loved my home so much that it could easily have become an idol. I had an instinct that in giving part of it to God, I would keep it safe from my own greed.

But how do you tithe a home? My house had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a small office. I decided to set aside the second bedroom as my tithe. I wouldn’t use it for storage, or as a library. I told God I wanted Him to fill it. And I meant it. I really had no clear picture of who would call that house “home” with me, but I did know that it might well be someone with needs, someone from a different background, someone who was a “stranger” to me.

In His mercy, the first person God sent was a recent graduate from the university where I taught, only a few years younger than myself. She very quickly moved from being a stranger to a dear friend, but I knew that her time in “Spare Oom” (the name I gave my room, after C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), would be temporary, and that sooner rather than later she would head into her next season. Spare Oom would, once again, be ready to welcome someone else. I imagined those next guests might be international students far from home, a single mother, foster children.

What happened next surprised everyone. I met a man whose heart for homemaking and hospitality won my admiration and my love, and after a whirlwind courtship I left the job and house I loved to marry him and live in a community for the chronically homeless. I’ll tell more about this community in another newsletter, but as I look back, ten years after I bought that house, I know that without Spare Oom I never would have left, never would have discovered the treasures of hospitality my friends from the streets taught me. Shortly after my engagement, I wrote a letter to my new fiancé, trying to explain what had happened:

When I gave that room to God, I thought I was consecrating a physical space for hospitality, but in fact I was opening a space in my life. I was saying, "Don't let me fill my life only with what I can plan or understand. Don't let me spend my time and money only on what pleases or amuses me. Fill my world with others and with friends. Invade my tidy home for the sake of your kingdom."

After all, who is stranger than God? When we make room for the stranger in physical ways, something happens that is akin to prayer, or maybe it is a form of prayer. We offer an unmistakable welcome first to the Holy Spirit, who comes in with power that we can’t imagine. After that, we may be surprised at how much easier it is to welcome human guests to our tables and homes.

I’ve been saying for weeks that I would be offering some practical suggestions for habits and rhythms related to hospitality, so consider this the first: if hospitality is hard because your life feels too full, then find a way to make room for a stranger physically in your home - even if at first it only feels symbolic. Set an extra place setting at your table each night this week, and ask God to bring someone to eat there. Launder all the bedding for your guest bed or couch and put it somewhere easy to find, along with a card and a nice-smelling candle, and pray that God would give you an opportunity to use it in the next month. Make a double portion of whatever you’re cooking tonight, and freeze it, asking God to prompt you to invite someone over to share it. Clear those boxes from that corner of your basement and set up a cot. Add a lamp, and make a cozy space — however tiny — for a guest.

It may be a long time before God fill those chairs or beds with other people. And the people God sends may not look at all like those you imagined. But in the very act of making room, you are exercising the muscles you’ll need to practice hospitality. And when you make room for God first, you invite His Spirit—full of power, glory, wisdom, and joy—to do this work in and through you.

Do you have any practices or rituals for making room for strangers in your home? Do you have any special habits to help you feel ready for guests? Please share in the comments - I’m excited to learn from you.