The Welcoming Core of Christianity

 

Dear Friends,

                Like many of you, I have been in and out of many hotels, inns and conference centers over the years. In every place I’ve stayed, the staff made a point of seeing to my comfort. I know this because they have told me so. Hospitality is a commodity that can be bought. We simply don’t go back to a city, hotel or restaurant that has not been hospitable. When we talk about our trips or experiences away, we often tell stories of hospitality offered to us.

                But hospitality is more than an industry or an impulsive kindness to strangers – although it is certainly that.

                Abraham and his wife Sara in today’s first reading, practiced hospitality toward whatever  strangers passed by their tent. In this instance, the strangers were messengers from God who left them with the remarkable news that Sara would bear a son, Sara was well beyond childbearing years, but it was true – and a blessing for all generations to come.

Today’s Gospel is also a story of hospitality. Martha offered Jesus traditional hospitality at the table. Mary offered hospitality to Christ’s message. Most of the interpretations you and I grew up with pitted Martha against Mary. Who did the more important thing? This divisive reading of the story tells the reader there are winners and losers with Jesus.

But Jesus does not chide Martha for her activity but for her anxiety. Anxious people cannot be open and Jesus knows this. In naming Martha’s anxiety, Jesus releases her from it. In the only other story where Martha figures strongly, it is she not Mary who goes out to meet Jesus on the road near Lazarus’ tomb. It is she – Martha – who names Jesus for who he is – the Messiah, the Son of God. Martha has embraced a new discipleship: a new way of thinking and being. We learn from Martha in this incident that hospitality means that not only is the door open. But the heart is open and the mind is open.

The late Dutch psychologist/theologian Henri Nouwen says:” Hospitality is the core of the Christian life.”

Think about the ways  neighboring countries to the north and west welcome Ukrainian refugees from the war with Russia. Hospices welcome the dying so that they may live out their days in a blessed place. Think of children adopted into households where love awaits them.

It’s true that prudence holds up a caution sign when the stranger or even a family member at the door masks the demonic. But prudence does not destroy the need to extend hospitality widely.

Once we become clear that hospitality – openness to the other – in the name of God – is core to our lives, then we can also recognize that we are guests in God’s world, bound to one another by the mystery of God’s own hospitality to us.

May the sharing of hospitality make a profound mark in our lives this summer.

~ Sister Joan Sobala