Isaiah
50:4-9a
Psalm
116:1-8
James
3:1-12
Mark
8:27-38
We
are never far from the cross. Even as
Jesus enters into a very intimate conversation about his identity, as he
invites his closest followers to contemplate who he really might be, the
conversation leads to his speaking about his rejection and suffering, it leads to
the cross. At the Last Supper in the
Gospel of John, Jesus makes a striking statement of welcome and intimicay to
his disciples: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what
the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known
to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15). But again, he speaks these words within the
context of suffering and sacrifice. The
verse before this is certainly well-known to many: “No one has greater love
than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) Even as Jesus welcomes those around him into
a new depth of relationship, he reminds them that relationship is costly,
sacrificial even. The prophet Isaiah
recognizes also that while God has given to him “the tongue of a teacher, that
[he] may know how to sustain the weary with a word” (in effect, offer words of
hospitable refreshment to those ground down by life); that even this has
brought with it overt sacrifice, even persecution, which he describes
graphically – both the abuse received and the patience with which it is borne:
“I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled
out the beard;
I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6)
So,
we are thinking this month about welcoming and hospitality, and this week we
come to what is assuredly an association we do not immediately make – the
connection between hospitality and sacrifice, and in come cases suffering, and
in others even persecution. We can sometimes forget the risky nature of
hospitality. After all, is this not the
reason – in the end – that Jesus came to the cross, his radical hospitality? He
took the risk to welcome not only the stranger, but the despised, the marginalized,
those whom contemporary society and religion had branded as unacceptable or
dangerous both to public health and public morals – lepers, women with
hemorrhages, prostitutes, gentiles. “Why
does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”, the Pharisees asked his
disciples. (cf. Mark 2:15) Jesus’ brand of hospitality was more than tea
and sympathy, going well beyond what we normally think of as hospitality, and
as such it had social and political implications. It struck at the heart of the established
order, and so it was dangerous, and it brought him ultimately to the
cross.
Still,
Christians down the centuries have modeled this sort of radical and risky
welcoming spirit. I am thinking here of
those in our own country who welcomed into their homes – at great personal risk
– African-Americans fleeing from slavery and making their way beyond our
borders in to freedom. People like
Thomas Garrett who worked on the Underground Railroad for nearly 40 years. He was once arrested, tried and fined $5,400
– a great sum of money for the time – but upon paying the fine, he continued
his activities. I am also thinking of the
many Righteous Gentiles who offered hospitality to Jews during the Third Reich,
hiding them and providing for them, the whole time knowing the horrific
consequences awaiting them should this hospitality be discovered. Indeed, many who were caught shared the fate
of those they tried to rescue. Take for
example, the Drs Kurt and Ella Lingens, physicians who lived in Vienna at the
end of the 1930s, and who made their home a refuge for their Jewish friends,
helping many of them to escape out of Nazi-controlled areas. They were caught and arrested. Kurt was sent to fight at the Russian front
and was there critically wounded, and Ella was sent to Auschwitz where was put
to work as a doctor of the camp inmates.
There she continued her radical and dangerous hospitality, managing to
save a number of Jews from death in the gas chambers. She miraculously survived Auschwitz as well
as the death march to Dachau, and was liberated at the war’s end. Stories like these abound, and in many cases
the reason given for people’s decisions to welcome was something like this,
“I was only
doing my duty and putting into practice the Gospel”.
When
it comes to hospitality, we need to move beyond the idea of mere nice-ness, and
perhaps rediscover and engage with a truly radical form of hospitality which is
at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus didn’t
welcome people on the social and religious margins to be nice, but rather as a
sign of God’s reign, of God’s compassionate care. This kind of hospitality is one that in its welcoming
spirit stands up to injustice, gives a voice to the cry of the poor, and is not
ashamed to stand alongside Christ by standing alongside and embracing the
despised, the rejected, the persecuted and victimized, whatever the personal cost
to us may. And there will be a
cost. This kind of hospitality will
demand of us sacrifice and in extreme situations may carry with it some pretty serious
consequences. It will mean denying
ourselves and – what may appear to be – our best interests. It can mean denying ourselves safety and a
quiet life. It will mean sometimes
giving up our reputation among “respectable” people. But it is the sort of hospitality Jesus lived
in calling to him all who were the most vulnerable in society: “Come to me,
all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you
rest.” (Matthew 11:28) And it is the
kind of hospitality he calls us to live out when he warns, “those who want to
save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and
for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their
life?” (Mark 8:35-36) Practicing this
radical kind of hospitality means doing so with our whole being, holding back
nothing.
No, whenever
we live out the Gospel’s call to radical hospitality, we are never far from the
cross, the costly living out of sacrificial justice-making and inclusion. And if none of our hospitable acts or endeavors
cost us anything, anything of ourselves, anything of our hearts, anything
perhaps even of our well-being, then we are missing something at the heart of
Christian hospitality. Because at the
heart of the Christian life is the Christ who as Paul’s writes “though he was
in the form of God…emptied himself,
[and] taking the
form of a slave, he humbled himself” in order that he could be for all people
the great host, welcoming everyone into his Father’s kingdom.
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