The Odyssey Can Empower the Church to Recapture the Lost Virtue of Hospitality – Christ and Pop Culture

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has officially met the high expectations that many carried with them into theaters, while also sparking lots of controversy. Some people love Nolan’s adaptation and modern interpretation of Homer’s epic, while others critique it as missing the adaptive mark. But what I’m most interested in is how Nolan’s film illustrates the virtue of hospitality as an everyday ethic that drives people’s choices at the individual, communal, and societal levels. The movie as a visual piece of art gives the viewer the opportunity to envision ethical hospitality and reimagine it in a contemporary context.

The Ancient World of Hospitality

The ancient Greek term for hospitality (xenia) never appears in Nolan’s film but is, instead, represented through Nolan’s fictional term “Zeus’s Law,” adapted from the roots of ancient Greek culture. This term operates as a kind of blend between xenia and Jesus’s Golden Rule. In the ancient world, xenia—which appears in Plato’s writings as well as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey—was an institutionally-established ethic of generosity, reciprocity, and material kindness. Whenever and wherever one traveled, survival and welfare was contingent on the provision and hosting of strangers through society’s ethical understanding of the guest-host relationship. Furthermore, ancient Greeks believed that the gods walked among humans in various forms as strangers and travelers. Zeus was often invoked as the protector of strangers¹ and thus, to mistreat a stranger was viewed as sacrilegious and insulting to the gods themselves.

Hospitality was also strongly emphasized in ancient Israel. Genesis contains many stories with the virtue of hospitality being fulfilled or violated, including Melchizedek’s welcome (Genesis 14), Abraham’s dealings with the pharaoh of Egypt and Abimelech (Genesis 12, Genesis 20), Abraham encountering three messengers of the Lord (Genesis 18), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), and Joseph and his brothers in Egypt (Genesis 42-45). And the stories of breached hospitality are continually echoed as warnings and condemnations of sin throughout the Old Testament scriptures (Judges 19:22-30, Ezekiel 16:49-50, Jeremiah 22:3, Isaiah 58:6-7).

The Torah contains several sections of instruction on how to treat the traveler, the foreigner, and the refugee with hospitality (e.g., Deuteronomy 31:10-13, Leviticus 19:33-34). The general principle of “Israel’s Law” is that the one who is entering their midst ought to be treated as one of their own (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).² The reasoning for this is that God’s people were once foreigners relying on the hospitality of Egypt and then became victims of a horrific breach of that hospitality when Egypt enslaved and oppressed them. Therefore, as people who experienced both the goodness of hospitality and the evils of its perversion, Israel was to care for the foreigner and refugee. The Torah is full of institutional provisions that sought to ensure everyone was provided for in the nation. Thus, ancient Jewish hospitality sought to welcome newcomers into a system that provided and cared for all.

The Xenia and Kononia of Jesus

While hospitality may, at first glance, seem to be an absent or insignificant virtue in the New Testament, closer inspection reveals it to be a vital piece of Christian discipleship. Jesus was often accused as a scandalous teacher who “dined with sinners” (Luke 5:29-32 and 15:2, Matthew 9:10-13, Mark 2:15-17). Table fellowship in the first century was regarded as a central part of hospitality as well as a welcoming and friendship between guests and hosts. Jesus’s regular participation in table fellowship with people viewed as lesser and unclean (sinners) was scandalous because it appeared to “imply acceptance and/or approval of the sinners (though, of course, not necessarily of their behavior).”³

The parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) is perhaps Jesus’s most famous teaching on hospitality. Again, Jesus’s teaching is scandalous: Samaritans were culturally, ethnically, and religiously despised by his Jewish audience. Nevertheless, Jesus presents the Samaritan as the model of virtue, specifically in his hospitality towards a nearly-dead traveler. Here, hospitality is presented as an extension beyond the home; a person’s hospitality is not limited to their residence and personal invitation of guests within it but instead, becomes a moral obligation to offer their decisions, time, and resources to any they encounter who are in need.

In Matthew 25, Jesus presents an eschatological warning that people will be judged based on how they treated the “least of these,” i.e., those who had material needs or physical disadvantages such as hunger, sickness, imprisonment, or residence in a foreign land. And the reasoning given for this is so significant: Jesus claims solidarity with the lowly and least in society, declaring that when we care for the needs of others, we are actually ministering to Christ himself! In this way, Jesus’s teaching goes beyond xenia or “Zeus’s Law,” which merely suggest that anyone could possibly be a deity in disguise. Rather, Christ’s teachings declare that the God-man is somehow sacramentally present among all of the needy, the poor, the impoverished, and the marginalized. Jesus’ teachings thus transform the xenia-ethic in a radical way for all people. All people are named “neighbor” and worthy of respect and care, and all travelers, migrants, and impoverished individuals—every member of “the least of these”—are mystically represented in solidarity with the Son of God who took on human flesh. This metaparadigmatic ethic of hospitality to neighbors and guests meant that the early Church’s social ethic was radically countercultural.

Furthermore, Jesus seems to demand that his disciples be willing to follow him in a materially costly way (Matthew 5:42, Luke 9:23, Luke 14:33). In addition, the New Testament continually warns against the woes of wealth, both in the opportunities of the flesh and temptations that come with it as well as the demonic activity attached to it (Luke 6:24-25, 16:25, Matthew 6:19-24, James 5:1-6). There is a continued emphasis on this ethical practice throughout the rest of the New Testament (Hebrews 13:2, Romans 12:13, 1 Timothy 3:2, 1 Peter 4:9). Acts 2:42-50 presents an idyllic view of the early Church practicing a radical form of community that was abounding in hospitality and generosity. Empowered by the Spirit of Jesus, this community transcended the political and institutional systems of provision and material distribution to form a transformative kind of colony within the Roman Empire that was countercultural in its care for those within its midst. Central to this picturesque model of the early Church is table fellowship and a mutual sharing of ALL things (κοινωνία, what we commonly refer to as fellowship and narrowly misunderstand as immaterial greeting and socializing).⁴ Fellowship, a recurring emphasis in the New Testament, was a radical form of inclusion and generosity among the people of God.⁵

The Voices of the Early and Medieval Church

While the virtue of hospitality as a point of discipleship was, at some point, lost in the Western church, major voices in Church history continued to emphasize the New Testament’s radically transformed ethic of hospitality rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Didache, the early Church’s instructions on discipleship, instructs believers to share all things based on the spiritual reality of the Gospel in which they share in all things.⁶ Clement of Alexandria (2nd-3rd century) taught that, in light of the Gospel, all people should be treated as deserving of being provided for. Basil of Caesarea (4th century) radically advocated for a hospitality ethic among Christians that viewed the money and food they owned as actually belonging to the destitute and needy; he also suggested that those who do not clothe the naked are no better than a thief stealing their clothes. Cyril of Alexandria (4th-5th century) echoed the importance of Jesus’s teachings that believers ought not hoard their material resources in light of others’ needs or suffering. And finally, Gregory the Great (6th century) argued that resources among the people of God were to be held in common and shared with all based on the reality that (1) all the things of the earth truly belong to God and (2) the needs of others were a moral obligation to the Christian.⁷

What should be very clear from both the New Testament and the above voices in Church history is that followers of Jesus are to embody the generosity, kindness, and compassion of Christ in their hospitality and provision for those around them. While foreign to many of us moderns, the twin ethics of fellowship within a community and hospitality for those outside the community were central to Christian discipleship throughout history. Christian hospitality is an opening of our doors and an extending of our resources. It is a welcoming that goes beyond words to meet the physical needs of anyone nearby who’s in need. It is an embodied, moral obligation to care for those around you.

Imagining and Reclaiming Hospitality in the Contemporary Moment 

Nolan’s portrayal of ancient hospitality is a modern interpretation; it is not a one-for-one, perfect representation of how the ethical value of hospitality was embodied in the ancient world. Even so, this piece of cinematic art can empower us to understand hospitality and orient us to imagine and reclaim the Biblical virtue for our communities and discipleship. 

Social imagination—one’s ability to connect concepts and ideas to their personal experiences and relationships as well as the broader society and world around them—is a large part of what helps construct and shape a person’s worldview. When a person subconsciously assigns meaning to the events of their life through religious, ethical, philosophical, or spiritual ideas, they are building or operating from their worldview via their social imagination.

In Imagining the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith presents a theological-philosophical survey of what it means to be human and how that impacts our worship. According to Smith, the sense of ourselves and the world around us that comprises the social imagination is not something we choose on a whim or is assigned to us at birth. Instead, it is formed and shaped by the stories we tell ourselves, the communities and cultures we inhabit, and the rituals we participate in. In this way, humans are liturgical who “live off the stuff of imagination: stories, pictures, images, and metaphors [which] are the poetry of our embodied existence.”⁸

Smith argues that, while, in some ways, our actions are produced from our worldview and vision of “the good life,” that worldview and vision are, at the same time, something that is forged around us. Not only are our desires shaped by what we do and who we do it with, but the object of our desires—the thing we envision when we long for something—is shaped as well.⁹ It is through community and activity that we envision, desire, and create future possibilities, taking ideas and worldviews and making them a reality. Therefore, imagination is something one does with their whole self, body and mind, both alone and in community.

Viewers of The Odyssey have the opportunity to not just experience an incredible piece of visual art, but to let Nolan’s cinematic art help guide them to envision a world of hospitality. However, to contemplate the world of Zeus’s Law without endeavoring to implement a Christian expression, which transcends it, in our religious gatherings and communities would be an imaginative failure. If the contemporary Western church is to recapture hospitality, it will require more of us than mere contemplation or movie attendance; it will involve a communal renewal and participation in a virtue that has long been lost in the West. Hospitality must become more than an idea; it must become a realized ethic running through our communities’ endeavors, stories, practices, and gatherings.

In the same way that Nolan’s movie is a modern interpretation and adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, so too Christians have the opportunity to recapture and establish hospitality in their contemporary moment in a new, creative way. This is not without its challenges. The world we live in is very different from the ancient world where the xenia-ethic thrived. It will take costly, dedicated, unified discipleship that relies on the courage and creativity of the Spirit to discover what it looks like to locally embody hospitality in the modern, capitalist, individualist society of the West.

1. Gregory Wakeman. “How Zeus’ Law Defined Ancient Greek Codes of Conduct.” ↩︎
2. Knauth, R. J. D. 2003. “Alien, Foreign Resident.” In Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, edited by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. ↩︎
3. M. A. Powell, “Table Fellowship,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition, ed. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 927. ↩︎
4. Arndt, William, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. 2000. In A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ↩︎
5. Myers, Jason A. 2023. “Fellowship, Communion, Sharing.” In Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, edited by Scot McKnight, Second Edition, 309–10. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press. ↩︎
6. Rick Brannan, trans., The Apostolic Fathers in English (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012). ↩︎
7. Gregory the Great, “The Book of Pastoral Rule of Saint Gregory the Great, Roman Pontiff, to John, Bishop of the City of Ravenna,” in Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. James Barmby, vol. 12b, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1895), 47. ↩︎
8. Reimaging the Kingdom, 126. ↩︎
9. Ibid, 125. ↩︎