How God Throws a Party: 7 Lessons in Hospitality from the Prodigal Son

“I gave you the candlesticks too … Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?”

So goes the line that transforms prisoner 24601 into a man of compassion: Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

An ex-convict unable to find work and re-enter society, Valjean is trespassing at an abbey one night when Bishop Monseigneur Bienvenu (literally “welcome” in French) invites him in. He feeds him and gives him a warm bed for rest. 

But in the middle of the night, Valjean steals expensive silverware and runs off into the darkness, only to be returned by policemen the next morning and thrown before the bishop. “He was walking like a man running away,” they said. “He had this silver—”

Seeing that Valjean’s fate hangs on his response, the bishop interrupts them. “And he told you that it had been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the night?”

Valjean is a hard-hearted man on the run. The bishop’s hospitality—love and grace to a stranger, or even an enemy—changes him in an instant. The story fast forwards, and Valjean is a benevolent mayor and business owner whose whole life oozes with compassion and self-sacrifice. 

What happened? The bishop offered the hospitality of God. He is much like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, from which we can gather at least seven truths about God’s life-changing hospitality. 

1. God’s hospitality is (almost) always toward sinners

Only two people in the history of the world have ever been sinless recipients of God’s hospitality: Adam and Eve. He placed them in a lavish garden for their enjoyment and gave them untold fruits to eat. 

And when they had rejected his hospitality, he still performed one final act of hospitality before banishing them from the garden: clothing their nakedness.

Since then, all hospitality has been toward sinners. No one has ever come to a table worthy. So it is in the parable of the prodigal son.

The parable begins by establishing the foolishness of the son who forsakes his father and spoils his inheritance on reckless living. It ends by celebrating his return. 

The table is set for the wandering one.

Ironically, it is the obedient one who refuses to come to the feast. He does not understand that the fattened calf is a gift freely given, regardless of our obedience. Hospitality is always toward sinners. 

2. God’s hospitality runs from a long way off 

The parable says that while the son “was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” This compassion is a deep yearning, a deep desire, similar to what Jesus felt when he saw the crowds desperately in need of a shepherd. It is from God’s gut. 

This is why God doesn’t wait for us to come to his table; he goes out and gets us. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We were dead in our trespasses and sins when God made us alive together in Christ; it took a rescue mission. We weren’t wandering to God, but away from God, when he saved us. 

Similarly, hospitality is often proactive. Occasionally one may knock at your door and ask to come in, but typically hospitality begins with your invitation. 

3. God’s hospitality smothers self-isolating lies 

Listen to the son’s words upon his father’s warm welcome: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

In other words: I am an outsider. I ran from you and spoiled my inheritance on worthless things. I’m out. 

But the father says, “You’re in.” In fact, he doesn’t even dignify the son’s objection with a response. He smothers the lie with lavish generosity: “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.” And best of all, he calls the wanderer exactly what he felt unworthy to be called: a son. “This my son was dead, and is alive again.” 

4. God’s hospitality is a family affair 

The servants were an extension of the master’s hospitality. It is they who brought the robe and ring and shoes and put them on the son, they who brought the fattened calf and ate it, they who celebrated. It wasn’t just the father and the son; the celebration had company. 

You see a hint of the servants’ actual joy in the response of one to the sour brother: “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound” (v. 27). The servants understood the joy of the occasion: the father’s heart had been returned to him, safe and sound. 

From this joy, the servants were willing participants in the feast. Their hospitality was genuine, and the father was able to do more to welcome the son than he possibly could have done alone. 

And so in the church: God saves us into a family, and families throw parties. They feast together and add to their number. This is hospitality. 

5. God’s hospitality is lavish 

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” This is one of the Bible’s boldest statements about the nature of God: he gives and gives and gives and gives. 

This is what the father does to the prodigal son. The robe, the ring, the shoes, the fattened calf—he dresses his son head to toe and fills his belly with the best of his field. In other words, he treats his son like a king. 

This is the shocking generosity of the gospel: that when we believe in Christ, we go from rags to riches. We are more than friends, but sons. And more than sons, but princes, because we are sons of the king of heaven. 

6. God’s hospitality offends our self-righteousness 

Have you ever been spontaneously given a gift, and felt guilty you didn’t have a gift to give back? Perhaps a few days later you returned the favor?

I’ve done that, and I’ll tell you why: because then we’re even. Then I’ve retroactively earned their kindness. Tit for tat, so now I don’t owe you. 

One reason we seldom see God-like hospitality, and even more seldom receive it, is that it offends our self-righteousness. We love to earn our honor, but God won’t have it. 

This is why the cynical brother was upset. He believed he had earned this kind of treatment, and yet where was it? 

But the father responds, “Son—son—you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” In other words, it was never about your obedience. Your inheritance is a gift of love, not a payment. 

Just the other day, I witnessed someone offer their friend a service for free, only for that friend to offer to pay for it. The person offering was almost offended, because it had the unintended effect of refusing a gift of love, transforming into a transaction. 

Hospitality is, at its core, a gift of love. This is why it offends our self-righteousness. Self-righteousness loves to earn its keep, but hospitality won’t have it. 

7. God’s hospitality blesses others because it honors and reflects him

Ultimately, biblical hospitality is powerful because it reflects God. It blesses others and honors God because it is God’s heart in action. 

How can a Christian show the world what God is like? One of the best ways is to throw a party. 

But not just any party. A party like God throws.

First, invite the least worthy person you know. 

Second, meet them from far off with joy. 

Third, smother their objections with kindness.

Fourth, treat them like a king or queen. Clothe them, feed them, celebrate them. 

Fifth, be kind to the haters, too.

Let every objection to Christ-like hospitality be met with more hospitality, so that the world may know that we really mean it, because God really means it.