offering hospitality to god

i've been struck lately by the icon i have hanging on the wall. i hung it where i can only see it from the 'other' chair in my office, the one guests sit in and the one i switch to for prayer.

it is the famous icon of abraham and sarah serving the three strangers (angels) who have become, over the history of the church have become a symbol of the trinity.

the thing that has been haunting me is the seeming conflict between the sense of god as giver, never receiver, and yet the fact of our offering to god of our lives. while one imagines god as the giver who needs nothing--who is pure gift--then it seems that we could never offer hospitality to god. and it frankly makes god seem distant even if gracious in giving life and all things. yet here is this image of god, the three-in-one, the community of perfect reciprocity, being offered hospitality by abraham and sarah.

then this morning, as i prayed the morning office, this:

"jesus said: 'in all truth, i tell you, whoever welcomes the one i send, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me'."

jesus says this in the context of the profound chapter where jesus washes his disciples feet and commissions them to do this in the world: 'you also should do as i have done.'

so do we offer hospitality to god through offering to conform our lives to the kneeling, foot-washing model of jesus? does gratitude for the gift transfigure the receiver in such a way as to be caught up into the work of giving so that one's giving becomes both gift and offering, thus offering hospitality to the stranger and the needy at the same time as one gives hospitality to god?

and if this is so, why do i lend so little weight to day to day encounters when they are the very means to offer hospitality to god?

anon, and +peace