On this Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, the lectionary reading returns to the theme of hospitality.
In Sunday Musings two weeks ago, I shared these words: “It is this circle of mutual welcome, setting tables of water and bread, providing safety and shelter, that is the nidus of divine promise — the birthing place of the commonwealth of God.”
Today’s text underscores both the reciprocity of hospitality and the necessity of welcoming strangers in a just society.
Matthew 10:40-42
Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
A custom existed among the first generations of Christians, when faith was a bright fire that warmed more than those who kept it burning.
In every house then a room was kept ready for any stranger who might ask for shelter; it was even called “the stranger’s room.”
Not because these people thought they could trace something of someone they loved in the stranger who used it, not because the man or woman to whom they gave shelter reminded them of Christ, but because — plain and simple and stupendous fact — he or she was Christ.
― Dorothy Day
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that “separate educational facilities [we]re inherently unequal.” Brown remains one of the most important SCOTUS cases in history regarding race. But it didn’t resolve the questions of racial equality in education — the decision started the process of school desegregation, including resistance, conflict, and violence across the nation.
In September 1954, Baltimore City schools were among the first to voluntarily desegregate. My mother was then a sophomore at Eastern, Baltimore’s all-girls public high school. That autumn, nearly 1,600 Black students enrolled in 49 formerly all-white public schools. The change resulted in considerable tension, including at Eastern.
One of the strategies deployed by white parents — primarily mothers — was pressuring students to strike. Parents hoped to shut the schools down until city officials reversed their desegregation plan. My mother vividly remembered how her friends were excited to skip school on the day the first African-American girls were scheduled to arrive. They urged her to join them. It wouldn’t be violent, they assured her, because it was a protest by absence. Nobody would get hurt.
When my mother demurred, her friends continued to pressure her. But she wouldn’t budge. School was school, and she wouldn’t skip or otherwise protest the arrival of the new students. Thus, on the day Eastern High was integrated, when many of her peers stayed home, she went to school. And she decided to stand outside the main door waiting for the bus and to welcome her new classmates. (I’ve discovered the names of two of those students — Patricia Welch and Emily Price.) She didn’t greet them with a cruel sign, but with her presence. And, knowing my mother, that welcome included a smile and open hand.
“Mom,” I asked her, “how in the world were you so brave? To say ‘no’ to your own friends? To go against that tide of hatred?”
“It wasn’t that hard,” she told me, without hesitation. “If I was a new girl at a school, I hope someone would show up and welcome me. I’d want someone to meet the bus.”
That was my mother’s creed: Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Meet the bus because someday you might be in the bus.
When Christians think of Jesus and welcoming, we usually think of “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” We position ourselves as the host in the exchange, the one who opens the door. But today’s text “whoever welcomes you welcomes me” places us in the story differently — we are the stranger, a potential guest, not the host. That makes this gospel reading a bit harder to take. We might enjoy welcoming, but perhaps feel awkward being welcomed.
But hospitality is a reciprocal practice, as my mother understood even at 16. Welcoming the stranger arises from our mutual humanity and shared vulnerability. While we may be blessed enough to extend hospitality, sooner or later, every one of us shows up at a door unexpectedly and unsure who might be on the other side. We need to be welcomed as we are, without qualification, accepted and cared for.
Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side,
but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.
― Henri J.M. Nouwen
In 1954, a SCOTUS ruling made Americans choose: Would white people open racially segregated public spaces to those they deemed strangers? Would outsiders be greeted with genuine welcome? The court insisted white Americans open these institutions to Black citizens. “Separate but equal” was a moral fiction in a democracy. To create a truly equal society, such institutional hospitality between races must be legally enshrined and practiced. Walls would always protect some and exclude others. The court weighed in on the side of welcome — opening doors — because there were some strangers who white Americans would struggle to accept without the force of law.
In a world where many of her peers chose poorly, my mother opted for hospitality. I’m proud of her choice — and grateful to have been her daughter and learned from her. She took up the challenge of the court to do the right thing.
This week, SCOTUS rulings reversed direction. Instead of pushing Americans toward a society of larger hospitality, the court pulled up the drawbridges of welcome in education and business. Their decisions against affirmative action and LGBTQ rights circumscribe the spheres in which some people can participate in and benefit from the rights of citizenship. The justices turned back the buses of democratic progress. In effect, they gave a few permission to exclude others, allowing those with power to deny certain people dignity and welcome. They took their weight off the legal scales of inclusion.
Hospitality invites to prayer before it checks credentials, welcomes to the table before administering the entrance exam.
— Patrick Henry
Like the 1954 case, these rulings also make us choose. How do we resist the inhospitality now deemed legal? How do we welcome strangers who are unwelcome in other settings? How do we treat those who now find themselves the legal targets of rejection and exclusion? Right now, the question isn’t about meeting the bus; rather, how can we turn the bus back around?
When the law fails to welcome and include, the practice of hospitality falls back to those who envision a truly accepting society — a community where all are welcomed and all are fed, a place of reciprocal generosity, humbled by the tender knowledge that (at any moment) we might be either host or guest. The New Testament is clear. When Caesar’s law rules against hospitality to strangers, God’s people inveigh against such laws. We welcome everybody. We respect the dignity of every person. If you turn people away, you are turning Jesus Christ himself away.
This is about more than kindness or pastoral care. SCOTUS has turned hospitality into prophetic practice.
More than ever, our theology and ethics need to be guided by Jesus’ own words:
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me.
Choose well and wisely. You children are watching. Many people are angry and afraid. Every heart and table must be open. As our laws restrict and rescind, our greatest witness and activism is nothing less than the extravagant welcome of God.
BEYOND CHRISTIANITY AFTER RELIGION starts this week!
Our July Summer Journey revisiting the book Christianity After Religion is about to begin. For more details and a preview, check out this post — “Surviving the Heat.”
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If you are planning read or re-read Christianity After Religion, here’s the reading schedule:
Week of July 3: Introduction, Chapters 1-3
Week of July 10: Chapters 4-7 (This is the longest section. If you want to, you can skim 4 and 5, and emphasize 6 and 7).
Week of July 17: Chapter 8
Week of July 24: Chapter 9
INSPIRATION
Welcoming God, giving space for creation to return your love: make us apostles of the open table, a place of hospitality to challenge the world with the gift of eternal life.
— Steven Shakespeare
Welcome Home
by Parker J. Palmer
Alone in the alien, snow-blown woods,
moving hard to stay warm in zero weather,
I stop on a rise to catch my breath as the
setting sun — streaming through bare-boned
trees — falls upon my face, fierce and full of life.
Breathing easier now, in and out with the earth,
I suddenly feel accepted — feel myself stand
easy, strong, deep-rooted as the trees,
while time and all these troubles disappear.
And when (who knows how long?) I trudge
on down the trail and find my ancient burdens
returning, I stop once more to say No to them—
not here, not now, not ever again — reclaiming
the welcome home the woods have given me.
Coming Home
by Mary Oliver
When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place —
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.
➡️ SOUTHERN LIGHTS IS BACK! ⬅️
January 12 -14, 2024
Last January, almost 700 people gathered at St. Simon’s Island in Georgia for a packed weekend of poetry, theology, and music.
WE’RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN!
YOU ARE INVITED to join me and Brian McLaren as we reimagine our faith together beyond patriarchy and hierarchy in our interior lives, in our communities of faith, and in the Scriptures. We’ve asked three remarkable speakers to take us through this journey: Cole Arthur Riley, Simran Jeet Singh, and Elizabeth “Libbie” Schrader Polczer. (Yes, that Libbie — the Mary Magdalene scholar!)
Please come and be with us in Georgia. Or, if you’d rather be with us online, you can choose that option as well.
MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION CAN BE FOUND HERE.
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God extends to human beings a divine and inexhaustible welcome:
the door is always open, the table always set, the arms flung wide, outstretched.
— Jane Redmont
Sounds like your Mother was a tender soul, Diana. You emulate her well!
Wow! What an inspiration your mother was and continues to be simply by you telling her story. Such a blessing.