Theological Truth: Hospitality spreads the hope, joy, and promise of the Resurrection out into the world.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In July of 2009, early in President Obama’s first term, Harvard professor and African American scholar, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Gates, who walks with a cane, had just arrived from the airport in a taxi to find his front door damaged and jammed. He went around back, turned off the alarm, and then, with the help of the cabdriver, tried to open his front door. A neighbor noticed two people (of color) pushing on the door and called the police to report a suspected burglary.
By the time Sgt. Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department arrived, the cabdriver was gone and Mr. Gates was in his house. Sgt. Crowley asked Mr. Gates to step outside. He refused. Words were exchanged. And Mr. Gates was taken away in handcuffs.
When asked about the incident, President Obama replied,
“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”
As you may remember, the comment got a lot of attention.
Who knows what happened that day in Cambridge and how issues of race contributed to the events?
My point in bringing this up is what happened after the event. In an attempt to use the situation as a teaching moment and to calm the racial waters, President Obama brought Mr. Gates, Sgt. Crowley, and then-Vice President Biden, to the White House for what has become known as the “beer summit.” Just four guys, sitting around the table, having a beer and some peanuts. You know, a chance to talk things out under calmer conditions — in front of the two most powerful men in the world and a gaggle of reporters clamoring and clicking photos in the distance.
That was thirteen years ago.
You may have noticed that the “beer summit” didn’t solve America’s race problems. In fact, the incident was harshly criticized by folks on all sides of the issue. But I agree with President Obama’s approach. Sitting down at table together can turn suspicion and fear into trust and friendship. Basic hospitality can create understanding and build relationships. Opening our homes to the stranger can even stop hatred.
For the second Sunday in a row, we hear about disciples going into people’s homes. Last week it was Peter explaining why he stayed in the home of Gentiles, and what happened when he did.
Today we hear of Paul, heeding God’s call to go to Macedonia and then accepting Lydia’s invitation to break bread in her home. Lydia’s hospitality, and Paul’s acceptance of it, results in the first Christian community in Europe, leading eventually to the linking of people across the globe and bringing to reality the promise from the seventh chapter of Revelation,
“… I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.” Rev. 7:9.
But this radical hospitality didn’t start with Peter or Paul. It started with Jesus.
Jesus, you may remember, got a bit of a reputation for his habit of eating and drinking with all sorts of people, especially the “wrong” people. Remember the Pharisees asking, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Mk. 2:16) This is exactly how the kin-dom of God is built. No wonder Jesus promises “[My Father and I] will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14: 24) – home, where sharing our meals leads to sharing our lives.
Revelation envisions an ever-widening family home, with everyone enjoying the twelve kinds of fruit from the tree of life, feeding them every month with a different gift. The tree of life, bridging the divide of the river, its leaves a source of healing as well as sustenance for all the nations. Eating together; being healed together.
The same holds true for us today.
Spending time together, sharing the ordinary things of life, food and drink, dining room meals and living room coffee, front porch iced tea and patio lemonade, even beer and peanuts, are all opportunities to build friendships, further the kin-dom of God, and even end hatred.
The programmed hospitality of the Ulster Project has helped dismantle generations of hatred between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. The idea is simple: take teenagers from both sides of the conflict and drop them in a different country. Give them a chance to live together with a welcoming host family. Share meals and new experiences. Talk and listen.
The participants quickly discover the similarities of those they had thought were so different from them. They debunk the demonizing and dehumanizing myths that Catholics eat their young and that Protestants have a tail.
Seriously.
By living together, they discover their shared humanity, and there’s no turning back. They go home as brothers and sisters. Their return acts as a leaven transforming hatred and cultivating understanding.
But there’s a caveat.
In order for our table fellowship and Christian hospitality to be effective in bringing about God’s kin-dom and stopping hatred, we’ll need to be open to hearing other peoples’ stories.
Howard Thurman, writing about how hatred grows, says it begins when there is “contact without fellowship.” Writing in the America of 1940’s, he points out that this is more than just “sentimentality masquerading under the cloak of fellowship.” That’s the temptation faced by the strong when fellowshipping with the weak. Thurman writes,
“It is the kind of fellowship that one finds often in the South…As long as the Negro is called John or Mary and accepts the profoundly humiliating position of an inferior status, fellowship is quite possible” (Jesus and the Disinherited, p. 65-66). Possible, but not productive.
Jesuit priest Gerald Fagin points out that, “Hospitality is much more than a simple welcome or an offer of food or drink. Hospitality is an attitude of heart that opens us to others and receives them on their own terms” (Excerpted from Putting on the Heart of Christ, accessed at https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/the-virtue-of-hospitality-an-attitude-of-heart/). For our hospitality to be productive for God’s purposes, we have to be open to uncomfortable conversations and inconvenient truths. We have to pay attention to the needs of others. We have to be vulnerable and willing to learn new things. We have to accept people as they are, rather than as we expect them to be. We have to expect to be changed by the encounter. In short, we have to love like Jesus.
So, whether it’s Mass on the Grass, the parish picnic, lemonade on the labyrinth, a shared meal at Noon Lunch, or chance encounters as we go about our lives, may we welcome the stranger, learn from those who differ from us, look for opportunities to offer hospitality, and be open to contact with authentic fellowship so that our divisions will disappear, and our hatreds will cease. Let us pray,
“Holy God,
We are not sure what restoration for this world will look like,
But we’re pretty sure it’ll feel like this –
A meal where all are fed,
A place where all are welcomed,
And a table with a seat saved for each and every one of us.
Remind us of this truth in the coming day,
and continue to restore all of us to you. Amen.”
(Source unknown.)
—Fr. AJ Heine, Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C, May 22, 2022 Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29
