Whom Do We Receive into Our Lives?

Dear Friends,

Today’s readings – for the 13^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – answer the question, “Whom do we receive into our lives?” The Shunamite woman in the Second Book of Kings welcomed the prophet Elisha. There would always be a room for him in this Shunamite household. And Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew bids us to receive Him, the prophets, the righteous (that is, the just and merciful) and anyone who gives a cup of water to the little ones.

To whom are we hospitable? In this most remarkable year, when we come face to face with our neighbor in new ways, when and how and why are we hospitable? Who do we welcome to the table of our minds and hearts? On whose behalf do we put forth hospitable actions?

Are we hospitable in our hearts to everyone in our family? Possibly not. Some we can’t stand. Some rub us the wrong way. Some are our role models and we take their spirits to abide in us.

Thinking of the generosity of the Shunamite woman toward Elisha, for whom or what idea, cause, new realization do we keep a room ready in our hearts or minds or homes? What literature do we read and study?

With whom do we spend time?

Who is it that makes us cross the street – literally or figuratively – in order to avoid?

Are we hospitable to people as they are or only if they are as we want them to be?

Are we hospitable to the prophets? I suspect that many of us would not think of George Floyd as a prophet. He probably didn’t think of himself in those terms either. But he stood as placeholder for all those who died by police violence, worldwide, and millions of people worldwide recognized him as such. By his dying and his dying words, George Floyd helped us rip off the scabs from our eyes that accepted the abuse of black and brown people by the police and by extension, by all of us who knowingly or not are invested with white privilege.

Speaking about prophets, the late theologian Carroll Stuhlmueller told his listeners, “prophets have the strength to be at the heart of the community and be rejected by that community.” And Parker Palmer, the Quaker spiritual writer asks us to be hospitable to the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned without demanding that they become our friends or grateful allies.

Through the summer, each of us masked as we pass another person on the street, would find it easy to ignore him/her. Who would know? Who cares? In our hearts, we would know. At this moment, the hospitable wave, the thumbs up would makes a big difference. Small positive gestures bring God’s grace to others.

~Sister Joan Sobala