The graces of giving, receiving, and refusing
The text treats of a hospitality which does not deserve the name, and of our duty when we are invited to accept a glint that is grudged. It thus opens the whole subject of giving and receiving. There are three graces here.
I. THE GRACE OF GIVING. This is one which is readily recognized as heaven born.
1. God commends it to us. He says, "Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38); "Give to him that asketh thee" (Matthew 5:42); "He that giveth let him do it with liberality" (Revised Version); "given to hospitality" (Romans 12:8, Romans 12:13).
2. It is the best reward of labour (Ephesians 4:28).
3. It is the most God-like of all graces. For God lives to give; he is ever giving forth to all his creation; he is feeding the multitudes and millions of his creatures beneath every sky.
4. It is the source of the purest and most elevating joy. "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
II. THE GRACE OF RECEIVING. If it is right and good for some men to give cf their abundance, then the correlative act of receiving must also be right and good. There is, indeed, a virtue, a grace, in receiving cheerfully and cordially as well as gratefully, which may be almost, if not quite, as acceptable to God as that of generosity itself. There is truth in Miss Proctor's lines—
"I hold him great who for love's sake
Can give with generous, earnest will;
Yet he who takes for love's sweet sake,
I think I hold more generous still."
III. THE GRACE OF REFUSING.
1. We may rightly refuse a gift, whether it he in the way of hospitality or not, which we are sure the giver cannot honestly afford; we do not wish to be enriched or entertained at the expense of his creditors.
2. We may properly decline a gift if we feel that it is offered us under a misconception; when we are imagined to be, or to believe, or to be working toward, that which is contrary to our spirit, our creed, our aim
3. We do well to decline the hospitality which does not come from the heart. The host is "as he thinketh in his heart." His fair or "sweet words" are no real part of himself; they only come from his lips; and if he is grudging us what he gives us, we may well wish ourselves far away from his table. No man who has any self-respect whatever will wish to take a crust from the man who counts what he gives his friends. Such food as that, however dainty, would choke us as we ate it. Nor is it begrudged hospitality alone that we should have the independence to refuse, but all else that is in the shape of gift; all money, all position, all friendship. Better to go entirely without than to have abundance at the cost of our own self-respect. Better to toil hard and wait long than to accept such offers as those. Better to turn to him "who giveth liberally and upbraideth not," and ask of him.—C.