Being Hospitable When You Don't Feel Like It

 "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling."  1 Peter 4:9

Why would Peter say such a thing?  Surely the early Christians who saw or heard Jesus never grumbled!  I think this could be translated, "Show hospitality even when you don't feel like it!"  Grumbling and complaining often happen when we don't feel we are being treated fairly or things don't happen the way we expect or feel they should happen.  
    One viral video that has been going ballistic this week is of two women fighting at a concert in Pittsburgh over who gets to use the porta potty first.  One claims another cut in front of her in line.  Now, this kind of thing is something we should have learned to handle in kindergarten!  Wait your turn.  Take your turn.  Put others before yourself.  As it was, neither got to use the toilet very fast because they were fighting each other.  Learning how to put others ahead of yourself even if you are inconvenienced is important.  It shows respect for others as human beings.  Serving others before yourself is in part what hospitality is all about.  Loving your neighbor is not just for the person who lives next door, but the person you meet in the grocery store line, or the hardware line, or even the porta-potty line.   
      But another point of this is it is possible to do something good and grumble about it the whole time you are doing it.  So Mary and Martha both welcomed Jesus to their home.  But Martha grumbled that Mary had quit helping and was sitting at the feet of Jesus.  Grumbling is not the Christian way.  We don't hear Jesus griping and complaining to the Father that He was about to die for the sins of people who often don't care, are apathetic, take His death for granted, or worse still continue to mess up.  Instead, you see Jesus weeping over the stubborn hearted in Jerusalem.  You even hear Jesus on the cross say of his crucifiers- "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." 
     Sometimes we may have a headache and providentially we have the opportunity to be hospitable.  Sometimes we are busy, or tired, or just want to relax.  This verse doesn't say, "Be hospitable to others as long as it is convenient to you."  In that sense, this is a tough verse!  But it is also a caring verse.  We are called to love others even when they don't deserve it.  
The way of the cross is not the grumbling way.  But it is a giving of oneself without complaint that changes our outlook, our attitude, our world.  

Prayer: Lord, let me give myself freely and willingly for others.  Let me put others above myself without even grumbling.