Hospitality
Lange, Dorothea, 1895-1965. Children in a Democracy -- On Arizona Highway 87, Maricopa County, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55632 [retrieved August 30, 2019]. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to use and to share the file for non-commercial purposes under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license compatible with this one. For uses other than the above, contact the Divinity Library at divref@vanderbilt.edu.Perhaps you heard the news of out Marysville, Michigan, a week ago Thursday, about the forum that took place for city-council candidates. When the forum’s moderator raised a question about community diversity, candidate Jean C. contended that the community should be kept white as possible, no foreign-born, no foreign people. [1] I realize how difficult it can be to express oneself well in a public-speaking role or in a quickly formed response to an interviewer’s question. But the more Ms. C. spoke, the less sympathy I felt. Particularly disturbing to Christians should be her biblical justification: “Husband and wife need to be the same race. That’s how it’s been from the beginning … when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time.”[2]I know a little bit about the Bible and the history of biblical interpretation, and believe it’s worth pointing out that Ms. C. is misinterpreting scripture. While an exhaustive study is impossible in a single sermon, let me affirm that the Genesis 2 account of the creation of Adam and Eve does not support racial discrimination. Think about it for a moment: even if you take this account literally, you’re talking about a couple before any division according to race, from whom all races of people are formed, all equally sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. There is nothing in this story to support the notion that one part of humanity is racially superior to another part of humanity.Ms. C.’s thoughts are in some ways quite natural. When we feel fear about the potential dangers of our larger world, it is natural to draw lines and erect fences to keep out people who are unknown and therefore may feel threatening. It is natural to think of being hospitable to people we imagine are like us. Perhaps they are family or friends who have a special place in our network of relationships. Perhaps they are business contacts who hold a special position in the larger community. They are people who may reciprocate the hospitality, or offer us a favor in the future. The Bible doesn’t unequivocally support this vision of hospitality, but challenges it, and turns it on its head. From the perspective of the authors of our New Testament, hospitality is something offered to people who we do not know, and who have nothing to offer us in return.This is the point of one of Jesus’ lessons recorded by Luke in the 14thchapter of his gospel. In Jesus’ time, as in ours, there were plenty of people who limited their contact to those of similar social status. One ancient author, whose work was preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls, envisioned God’s heavenly banquet as a place only for wise, learned, and intelligent men, with no place for a man who was paralyzed, lame, blind, deaf, blemished, or old, with no place whatsoever for women.[3] But Jesus, in his customarily prophetic way, enlarges the circle of those who are worthy of an invitation. He says that hospitality is not something that you offer friends, siblings, relatives, and rich neighbors, but rather something that you offer to the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.A similar lesson is offered in the Letter to the Hebrews, written to Christians at Jerusalem in the years shortly after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. They are sojourners in a strange land, subjected to ridicule and persecution. Understanding the injustice and pain of such treatment, they are advised to offer the type of hospitality that they themselves did not receive. They are encouraged in this practice by the example of Abraham and Sarah, who, in so doing, “entertained angels without knowing it.”We live in a time when significant energy is devoted to debates about foreigners in our country. Did they enter through a well ordered legal process? If not, were they morally justified in crossing the border to escape danger and preserve life? Does the presence of a large immigrant population have a net-negative or net-positive effect on our nation? How will we treat immigrants, especially the children? Do we have the resources to promote compassionate treatment, or do we barely have enough resources to preserve law and order? In such circumstances, what does hospitality look like?As I struggle to answer such questions, I’m influenced by something that happened this summer. As most of you know, Therese and I traveled to Germany and Poland to find sites associated with my father’s family. It was eighty years ago today, September 1, 1939, that Hitler ordered the German Army to invade Poland, leading to World War II. By September 8, German troops reached Warsaw. By September 17, Russian troops invaded eastern Poland. All the ethnic Germans of my father’s birth village were relocated further north in Prussia, never to return again.And so it was with some care that I planned our travel into this little rural village that was so upended by the war that began 80 years ago. Poles still don’t speak German, read German, or care to learn more than necessary about culture of the old enemy state that massacred millions of their people. How would they respond to a letter and then a visit by a child of a former German villager? Our experience was better than I could have hoped. My letter and e-mail notes brought quick and friendly replies. As our tour guide drove toward the village, we were met by a local, whose car led us along the country roads. We were guided to sites, and introduced to locals. At mid-afternoon, we were invited into a home, and a table spread with the local sausages and cheeses, and fresh baked goods, tea and dessert. The family waited upon us like a restaurant staff. When we presented our small gifts of St.-Louis-Arch refrigerator magnets and books, we were presented with a beautifully-colored blanket, handmade by the matron of the house.I will never forget the gracious welcome we received. This family of seemingly average means showed extraordinary patience and care with people they had never seen before, and likely never would see again. That afternoon, the Polish people of Lonschka embodied Jesus’ teaching better than any spoken sermon ever could.In some ways, it’s easier for us to focus upon the way hospitality is practiced in a faraway place, and neglect the way we practice it on our doorstep. In our attempts to be safe and secure, we have to make decisions that impact the practice of hospitality. Are the strangers with whom we interact dangerous people, or are they merely different? This isn’t an easy question to answer, and I’m sure that we get it wrong – that Iget it wrong – sometimes. We all have days when we’d like to turn off the TV, unplug the phone, lock the door, and forget that there are people who are different, and who make us uncomfortable.Then, I turn to the New Testament, and find in its pages a Jesus who does not let his disciples forget. There I learn that serving strangers is a sacred duty, that offering hospitality to those with low levels of status and security is one of the most Christlike things that we can do. Within its pages I discover that hatred and division will not last forever, that the future toward which we are moving includes the reconciliation of all people to God. And I’ve come to believe that wherever strangers become friends, in some small measure, the kingdom of God is there.NOTES[1]Associated Press, “Candidate: Michigan city should be white ‘as possible,” The Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/candidate-marysville-should-be-as-white-as-possible/2019/08/23/3ecdf338-c599-11e9-8bf7-cde2d9e09055_story.htmlaccessed 27 Aug. 2019.[2]Ibid.[3]“The Messianic Rule,” The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, as quoted in a reflection by Patrick J. Willson, “Living by The Word,” The Christian Century, 24 Aug. 2010, p. 20.