Radical Hospitality...Habit

In a great book called The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about "keystone habits." Keystone habits identify key priorities, then change the fundamental behaviors to accomplish these priorities. "These small changes start a process that, over time, transforms everything."(p. 100)

The question of radical hospitality becomes a question of keystone habits. What small change breaks us open to the Spirit so that we can practice hospitality more completely? Mother Teresa saw the face of Jesus in every person she saw on the streets of Calcutta.

Maybe in these waning days of Lent, we could consider what small change we might institute that would ripple through our lives and enable us to live more fully as the hospitable people of God.

Our habit is to start with the biggest problem, the biggest failure, the biggest failure. Fixing the "biggest" is almost impossible. So what piece of the "biggest" is foundational...what is the small piece that adds up to the biggest?

That's the piece we might bury in the tomb this Holy Week so that life might be resurrected in us.

That small piece.

Keystone.

Radical Hospitality...Effort

Part of my job is mentoring youth. We invited our co-hort youth group from the Lutheran church to my house last night for one of our favorite events, dinner and Catch Phrase. As people were gathering, one boy had his head in his phone. He was the youngest and just couldn't do the work of gathering with the group...yet.

It reminded me of the lesson we all have to learn. Hospitality requires effort. We have to learn to put ourselves out there. High risk for human beings.

Perhaps the "radical" of this God-given hospitality is the willingness to be rejected. Usually we set up our social interactions so that we are sure we will fit in. We ask our friends to attend our parties. We make sure someone we know will be at a party we are invited to. We can't stand the idea of walking into a room filled with people we don't know.

We work to teach kids how to take risks. It is part of our call. Welcome...acceptance...

But the foundation of our teaching is grounding them in the unquestioned acceptance they have in the Triune God. When you know deep in your DNA that you are a child of God, that God loves and claims and accepts you as you are, then you can risk human rejection.

The ultimate acceptance enables the effort of hospitality that can change the world.

Radical Hospitality...God's Gift of Unity

Final Sunday in Lent...

One of the Psalms of Ascents, song sung by pilgrims to Jerusalem as they climbed the roads into the city (Jerusalem is, truly, a city on a hill). Imagine people coming from all over to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. All kind of people from all kinds of places. What they hold in common is their trust in God. This is a hope in which we could all rest.

Psalm 133

1 How very good and pleasant it is
    when kindred live together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
    running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
    running down over the collar of his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
    which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
    life forevermore.

Radical Hospitality...Remember

I'm dog sitting this weekend. I've been surprised how completely forgetful I've been. I suppose when you are sans animals for awhile, the care and keeping is simply not in your head. Until recently, I haven't been without an animal for my entire life...except college, and maybe a roommate counts.

Now, lest you think doggies are suffering, think again. It's just that when I come downstairs for my morning coffee, their little shuffles and yips are what get my attention. I don't come down thinking I need to care for the dogs. Then I have to go back upstairs for shoes (because spring has decided she didn't want to stick around).

The question is this. Has our practice of hospitality gone to the dogs?

One of my favorite things about the deep south is their focus on hospitality. Their first concern for stranger is welcome. Their mode of operation is courtesy. Their way of being in the world is gracious geniality.

Of course, they (we---I'm a child of that culture) sometimes aren't perfect. We start with hospitality and then don't follow through...but we do start there.

In this time of busy, busy lives, has hospitality gone the way of the care-and-keeping-of-the-chiweenie? Do we just forget to welcome, to include, to invite?

And who's squeaking for our attention?

And I promise you, hospitality doesn't have to include the china and silver...paper plates are just fine.

Radical Hospitality...Rain

I want to blast these "religious freedom" laws that allow the legal practice of discrimination. I want to say just the right words that will change people's minds and help them not be afraid. I do not understand the "Christian" support for behaviors that seem utterly opposite to "love God and love your neighbor as yourself." One of Richard Rohr's quotes in this morning's devotional was:

The Christian religion was made-to-order to grease the wheels of human consciousness toward love, non-violence, justice, inclusivity, love of creation, and the universality of such a message.

And we've taken the death of Jesus for those ideals and turned it into permission for discrimination.

Instead, I listen to the rain and am grateful for the radical hospitality God shows to God's earth. Remember, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. God doesn't limit services to those he thinks are sinful.

It's a good thing. I've kinda taken to the oxygen laying around.

Lord have mercy on us. Forgive us our sin.

Radical Hospitality...Blind Spot

I'm reading through a book on unintentional bias, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. Did you know we have an actual blind spot in each eye? I didn't. And that is the premise of the book in a nutshell.

These scientists explore our hidden biases, the ones we swear we don't have. These are the prejudices that give a better evaluation to a John than a Juan, that hire a Robert over a Roberta. Even as we work hard to be unbiased, this science shows it to be almost impossible.

I haven't gotten to the end of the book, so I don't know if they propose a solution to overcome what is too deep to see. Perhaps it is like the blind spot in our eye...we will never be able to stop it from happening. And the irony is that while every human has it, it is different for each culture, for each place in the world.

Much conversation today is the justification of our behavior and the absolute insistence that we are not prejudiced in any way. Perhaps the better phrase is not "intentionally prejudiced" in any way. Because the blind spot is there. We just can't see it...to be cliche...

Living into radical hospitality demands the acknowledgment of the blind spot. That, in turn, requires listening to those who challenge our behaviors.

They probably see what we cannot.

Radical Hospitality...Gifts

Interesting article on Death and Resurrection of an Urban Church yesterday in the Duke Leadership Newsletter. The revitalization of the congregation (downtown, urban issues...you know the type) came about when they stopped "helping" their neighbors.

Instead of seeing problems, they learned to see gifts. And when they viewed people as gifts, they began to build community.

One of the interesting challenges about blogging every day for a season...and one of the reasons I do it, is it pushes me to think about the theme every day. I had no idea what to write today and have been staring at this computer for about 45 minutes. I scanned the newspaper, read the daily scripture, and then just had to sit and look at the keys and let my brain flit around.

I went to a fundraising dinner last night for an organization that works to eliminate homelessness and hunger in our town...and then I remembered this article that I had scanned, but not read closely.

I wonder how many folks in the room of 400 saw the clients (even the successful ones) as gifts of our community instead of problems to be fixed. I can't say that I was actively thinking in those terms.

Gosh, it's hard to be knocked around by God before you've finished your first cup of coffee.

(And read the article...it's worth the time.)

Radical Hospitality...Receive

I got a note yesterday from a friend I haven't seen in awhile. It came at just the right time and was a gift of hospitality. We had a lovely, relaxed lunch on Sunday--a gift from a couple for my birthday. The food was delicious, the venue lovely, and most of all, it enabled quiet and calm for a few minutes. That's a rarity on Sundays.

A bottle of wine made me deeply grateful for a friendship. An opportunity to lead worship in another congregation made me deeply grateful for the body of Christ. Being back home makes me deeply grateful for a community in which I feel loved.

Radical hospitality includes receiving as well as giving. Believe me, if you only give, you wear out. We've been talking about this for almost 40 days, and we still haven't changed the world.

Openness to receiving from others, from God, from circumstance--that, too, is part of hospitality. The refusal to receive even stumbling efforts of acceptance slows miracle.

Being truly open to receiving, even from your enemies is today's Lenten challenge.

Radical Hospitality...Risk

My husband gives me great pleasure by turning up his nose at certain foods...namely things he has never tried or new recipes that are out-of-the-ordinary-Kraft-box. The most recent example is his dismissal of a  "fried lemon and chili flakes pasta" which was the top pasta recipe on the NYT website for 2014. Sounded interesting to me.

So one night we had our kids over, and I decided to be adventurous and make that. He was appropriately dismissive. He didn't think it would be good. It sounded weird.

I was grateful for the pending opportunity...I knew what was coming.

So the pasta was made, and the first bite was taken and it was...spectacular. Not a drop was left. He...loved it. (He really does have excellent taste when you can pry the teeth open.) And then I get the pleasure of kidding him unmercifully.

Same thing happened with spinach...

Guacamole...

Roasted brussel sprouts...and the list goes on, but I won't.

My musing is this. Why do we limit our opportunities by limiting what we think will be good? We assume we know best, even when we haven't done things before. People we meet, jobs, food, religious practice, cars...the list is literally endless.

Radical hospitality calls us out of our comfort zone. Our first response is to say, "OK...but this is how I will do it, because this is the best way."

What might we discover if we just stepped into trust instead of dragging our heavy baggage of control and assumption along for the ride?

What spectacular experiences do we miss because, in our limited experience, we think we know the only way to go?

Radical Hospitality...God's Gift of Care

Good reason this is a perennial favorite...

Note that "goodness and mercy" doesn't "follow"..."goodness and mercy" pursues us... (not how it is translated in the NRSV, or KJV, but the accurate translation, nevertheless)

All the better...don't you think?

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
     He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;[a]
     he restores my soul.[b]
He leads me in right paths[c]
    for his name’s sake.

 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,[d]
    I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff—
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
 Surely[e] goodness and mercy[f] shall [pursue] me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long.[g]     Psalm 23

Radical Hospitality...Uncomfortable

My daughter is living in a house in which the bathrooms are getting a make-over. All the upstairs baths are under construction, leaving only the basement bath working.

She keeps saying...it's just uncomfortable.

The theme of the week seems to be renovation...every conversation at church has revolved around the re-making or ministry or understanding...or something.

And, like the bath reno...it's uncomfortable.

Maybe that's why change is so hard for humans. We do love our comfort...even if it is terrible, we know the routine.

We also do love those completed bathrooms.

The question to ponder today is why we avoid the work when we know the end will be better?

Radical Hospitality...Trajectory

For hundreds of years we have used the language that "Jesus came to die for our sins." Doesn't do a thing for me. (And this will surely get me in trouble.) I have always struggled with a picture of God demanding the sacrifice of an innocent to save another. You can read those interpretations in the text; people interpret their experienced based on what they knew before which was the Jewish practice of sacrifice.

Richard Rohr puts it well as he summarizes the work of John Duns Scotus (1266-1308):

Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.

That makes so much more sense...and follows the "other half" of scripture. Read the first chapter of John, Ephesians 1. Why is it we prefer the violent, the bloody, over the sheer love and grace?

It seems to me that the focus on this "unfortunately successful theology" has resulted in an "if/then" practice. If you believe in God, then you come to church. If you confess your sins, then God will forgive your. If you are "good," then you are a Christian. If you are committed enough to your faith, then nothing bad will happen to you. 

Imagine our starting points if we started with love and grace. Don't come to church because you believe, come to hear an incredible story of sheer love and grace. People just might be less concerned about the "judgment" of right and wrong and more focused on the grace and forgiveness. (The congregation I serve functions this way...but you wouldn't just walk in off the street because of starting assumptions of this culture.)

As it becomes more acceptable to "not believe" in this country, we hear more of the challenges to this bad theology. The challenge comes, however, by simply dismissing the church. "Nones." The irony is the criticism of church and the dismissal of a faith practice is founded on a wrong assumption. The church people hate may not actually exist.

No congregation is perfect. Many in our congregations have lived generous, caring lives with atonement theories as their foundation. But many, many of us ground our faith in the sheer grace and love of God. A man willing to die for the love of all is a different story than a man killed by God as sacrifice.

As Rohr says...change the starting point, change the trajectory...

And you know if it is written in a blog, it has to be true... (but this one is...truly...true)

Radical Hospitality...History

Last night, Palisades Presbytery became the deciding vote on changes to the part of the constitution of the PC(USA) that describes marriage. The new language reads:

Marriage is a gift God has given to all humankind for the wellbeing of the entire human family. Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives. The sacrificial love that unites the couple sustains them as faithful and responsible members of the church and the wider community. 

In civil law, marriage is a contract that recognizes the rights and obligations of the married couple in society. In the Reformed tradition, marriage is also a covenant in which God has an active part, and which the community of faith publicly witnesses and acknowledges.

Ministers still choose if and who they marry; sessions still decide who may marry inside the church.

This has been a long journey. For many, it is not finished. God's call to radical hospitality often makes us nervous, uncomfortable, and sometimes just flat angry that things we thought were right...weren't. We see it again and again in the gospels and Acts. Jesus was always in trouble for breaking the hospitality rules, eating with sinners, talking to Samaritan women, including children and women in the kingdom. Peter is challenged to struggle with Cornelius, accepting Gentiles fully into the kingdom as they were...without becoming Jews first.

A foundational principle of the reformed tradition is the sovereignty of God. We trust that throughout human history, God is accomplishing God's purposes, bringing reconciliation and redemption and transformation to the creation. We also believe that God's purposes are worked out in community--and that the broader the community, the closer we can come to understanding God's purposes.

Some of us will celebrate this decision. Some will struggle. But this puts the "idea" of radical hospitality into action. If we trust that God is at work in this decision (like many did when the votes went the other way), then we are called to live into the decision. If it is wrong, God will correct us.

Radical hospitality demands much of us. God demands much of us. Many moments in history don't demand much of us...we live our lives and nothing much changes. This is a time when God demands more. Right or wrong, we are asked to trust that for now, this is God's purpose. We are asked to live fully into the decision of the majority. We are asked to see what the fruit of the Spirit will be.

We just moved from talking about radical hospitality to being asked to enact it.

What will be our faithful response?

Radical Hospitality...Walking

Two funerals in two days reminds me of the importance of walking with each other in life and in death. That final "walk" is often lost in the death business in this country. We don't often have a body and we seldom bury our dead on the church grounds or on the family estate.

I think we miss something by not thinking of death as the final sacrament of life. We baptize our babies and promise to walk with them through the journey of their life of faith. The walk through our last moments on earth, accompanying each other to the grave are gifts of faith as well.

It's a harder journey, no doubt. We would rather see possibilities than endings. But I think if we take the journey seriously, we walk all the way to the end...or to the next beginning, which is the reality which we are approaching.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

            The LORD is the everlasting God,

                        the Creator of the ends of the earth.

            He does not faint or grow weary;

                        his understanding is unsearchable.

            He gives power to the faint,

                        and strengthens the powerless.

            Even youths will faint and be weary,

                        and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

                        they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

            they shall run and not be weary,

                        they shall walk and not faint.

            I, the LORD, am first,

                        and [I, the Lord] will be with the last. (Is. 40, 41)

Radical Hospitality...Gratitude

Preached from Jonah yesterday and the story challenges our presumptions of radical hospitality at many different levels. The one thing Jonah was not, was grateful.

Oh, he prays a prayer of thanksgiving deep in the belly of that big fish, but while he gets the words right, he doesn't follow through. I question whether he is really grateful for his salvation because it doesn't transfer.

I learn much from my friends in the 12 step community. One clear characteristic is their gratitude. They are grateful for a second chance at life, grateful for community, grateful for life itself. Their struggle is real and ongoing...but gratitude seems (at least from this outsider looking in) to be the power behind the transformation.

Jonah was good at being grateful when he received privilege. He loved his status as "insider." He was glad to be saved from the watery depths. But he didn't recognize his salvation as gift...I think he saw it as deserved...which made him unable to share it in gratitude.

I think Lenten practice today will be exploring the depth of my gratitude...

Just to be clear with God...I think I can do it without being in the belly of a fish...

Radical Hospitality...God's Gift of "All"

Short...sweet...and what I stake my life and my hope on.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace  that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight  he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,  as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Eph. 1:7-10

Radical Hospitality...Connection

In perhaps my favorite documentary ever, I Am, created by Tom Shadyac, director of Evan Almighty and Ace Ventura, there is a scene about connection.

The yogurt scene.

Tom wears a shower cap of wires so a computer can read the electrical impulses of his brain. There is also an electrode in a bowl of yogurt...which is technically alive, if you don't know. Yogurt has live bacterial cultures in it...that's what makes it "good for you."

However...Tom is not connected in any way to the yogurt.

They talk about different things that stimulate a strong emotional response in Tom...the word "lawyer" got a reading off the charts. When Tom's brain reacted, so did the yogurt.

You got that right. So did the yogurt.

The premise of the film is that we are in no way a group of unconnected humans running around this little planet...we are connected and we influence each other in all kinds of ways, seen and unseen.

I've said before that you "fake it till you make it," treating others with respect even if you don't feel it. But this scene challenges my thought that that's enough. That is certainly better than the alternative, but feelings matter.

We are human and sometimes can't change our emotional response...at least not right away. But we can take ourselves our of a constant negative environment, stop speaking and listening to criticism, assume that speaking and hearing positive energy creates positive energy. (since we know negative creates negative)

Wonder if that was what Jesus was getting at when he suggested we not worry about our lives...look at the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.

Or as Bob Marley sings, "Don't worry, be happy."

Maybe radical hospitality has some component of recognition that our smallest thought can make a positive or negative difference.

I think this means we have to love our yogurt when we eat it...

Radical Hospitality...Persistance

Confession.

As I debated getting up at 5:40, I began thinking about this discipline of Lenten blog.

How many more days of Lent? I'm not sure I have anything more to say on radical hospitality. Am I sure I can't just fall back asleep and ignore this?

And that is the insight for today. Radical hospitality is a matter of persistence. I debated "slog" as a title. Because radical hospitality demands much of us. It's not the easy attraction of Martha Stewart entertaining or Hilton get-aways. It's the hard work of the gospel of love your enemies.

Think about that today. What would our lives be like if we really answered the call to love our enemies. Start by turning or putting down (as in newspaper/magazine) any media that calls for condemnation of our enemies. Wonder instead, what it would be like to love that person/group. And I'm talking biblical "love," the respect, inclusion, care-for-their-health-and-wholeness love.

Hope you have a good book, cause you're not going to consume much media today.

Radical Hospitality...Redemption

Heard a story on NPR yesterday about the drug shortage for executions. Drug manufacturers are no longer making some of the drugs in the cocktail, and nothing has yet been found that gives a swift, painless death.

Utah is considering bringing back firing squads.

Will we dress prisoners in orange prison jumpsuits and put guns to the back of their heads?

Or will we put them next to a wooden fence a la western movies?

Will other countries show video of our executions as examples of human rights violations?

Truth is, I hate the death penalty in any form. I simply cannot reconcile it with the gospel. But somehow hearing a conversation about turning to firing squads strips the veneer off the "painless death" and gets right in my face with the disconnect of love your neighbor as yourself...love your enemies...

Do we only practice radical hospitality until it gets a little hard, really hard, or are we called to practice even when it demand our all? The argument seems to go that some humans are not redeemable, they are psychopathic and cannot be fixed. True. But do we get to kill them? Does that put them out of their misery or does it put us out of ours?

This is a hard call, this radical hospitality. I don't see any other way than to treat every human as precious in the sight of God. Our call is to keep them safe, keep others safe. No question we still live before the kingdom is fully realized here on earth.

It seems to me we can't dismiss anyone as irredeemable. God is God and who are we to limit God's work with a bullet to the brain or a drug in a vein...or a gated community, or assumptions that some just aren't able to succeed, or zoning that limits our exposure to struggles people face, or the refusal to think of ourselves or our "group" as less than perfect.

Many days I can ignore the truly difficult demands of radical hospitality and talk about coffee. Today God is in my face, asking if I am serious about living the gospel.

I want to be.

Grateful that in my failures, redemption is mine as well.

Radical Hospitality...Trouble

John Lewis interviewed with Jon Stewart Monday night. He talked about his mother's injunction, "Don't get in trouble." But he did. Worthwhile trouble. Trouble with meaning and purpose.

Every time I ever did anything wrong, I got in trouble. I got away with NOTHING. We were playing "war" in our front yard one morning, and one of the neighborhood kids suggested instead of fighting each other, we should attack the giant, threatening cars that drove by on the street. I suppose it was an advance that we were working together against an outside "enemy." We got tiny rocks off the edge of the asphalt...I mean really tiny. Smaller than a BB.

When a car would drive by, we would yell like banshees and run to the street and throw our rock. Or they would. I knew I would get in trouble. I hung back several cars, got made fun of and encouraged by my compatriots. And after nothing bad happened time after time, I began to think perhaps it was OK and perhaps I could play and perhaps I wouldn't get into trouble.

I picked the tiniest of the tiny pieces of asphalt. Stood angled to the street. My friends watched. The car approached. White. Large. Boat on wheels, really. I gave the asphalt an underhanded toss. No banshee scream. No running. No mighty warrior vanquishing the foe.

The car stopped. The man got out of the car, rang the doorbell and told my mother we were throwing rocks at cars.

Trouble.

Not worthwhile.

I probably would not have been on that bridge fifty years ago. But I am grateful for those who were. Today I'm thinking that radical hospitality often requires worthwhile trouble. I've been in it. I've caused it. But I'm the one that stands sideways and pitches underhand tosses.

Maybe I should really consider the banshee scream...

Radical Hospitality...Change

I watched For the Bible Tells Me So, a documentary about several conservative Christian families of the 50's and 60's who learn they have a gay child. (One of the families is Gene Robinson's family. Gene is the first openly gay bishop elected in the Episcopal church.)

In my own family, we were gifted with this challenge. We, too, were raised with a religious practice that condemned, though I don't remember the same vitriol witnessed on the film.

To practice the radical hospitality that Jesus practiced, that he calls us to practice, means we come into contact, heart and soul, with  people who have been broken or outcast by others. But they are people. Accepting the person instead of the label changes you, not them.

When we served the homeless population in D.C., we didn't not change their circumstances. Listening to them share their stories changed us.

We are pretty good at pointing out all the ways others should change. It is interesting how God-at-work in the call to radical hospitality effects change in the one place we can control...us.

Radical Hospitality...Time

Today's radical hospitality is the struggle not to hate the person or government committee that created Daylight Savings Time...

I seldom want to hurt people.

Today is not seldom.

I need coffee...

(And if you need more time on the internet, I suggest you check out John Oliver's clip on this very subject, DST, How is This Still a Thing. )

Radical Hospitality...God's Gift of Faithfulness

Steadfast love, hessed, is a term used in the Old Testament only connected with God. No human is able to be steadfastly loyal in the same way God is. Celebrate this Sunday in Lent with the promise of God's steadfast loyalty and love to us. Steadfast love...hessed. 

God’s Work in Creation and in History

1 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 O give thanks to the God of gods,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 O give thanks to the Lord of lords,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;

4 who alone does great wonders,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
5 who by understanding made the heavens,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
6 who spread out the earth on the waters,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
7 who made the great lights,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;

10 who struck Egypt through their firstborn,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
11 and brought Israel out from among them,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
12 with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
13 who divided the Red Sea[a] in two,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
15 but overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea,[b]
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
16 who led his people through the wilderness,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
17 who struck down great kings,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
18 and killed famous kings,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
19 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
20 and Og, king of Bashan,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
21 and gave their land as a heritage,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
22 a heritage to his servant Israel,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

23 It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
24 and rescued us from our foes,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;
25 who gives food to all flesh,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

26 O give thanks to the God of heaven,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

Radical Hospitality...Awareness

We saw Kingsman last night...romp of a movie in the James Bond genre. Can't tell you my favorite parts without giving away too much of the plot. Looked like a fun movie to make. Spoiler alert, though. If you haven't seen the movie and hate to know outcomes, don't read this one till later...

And, yes, there's  but...

I've become more and more aware of cultural bias against women, partly due to my oldest daughter's awareness and discussion of how she gets sidelined in deft, subtle ways. Even the people who do the sidelining don't know they are doing it.

So in the movie, a girl "wins" the spy competition. However, the male main character returns in a crisis and steps into the master spy role. The girl is still around, but he becomes the primary player and she, the supporting role. As the movie progresses, the challenge of crisis pushes him to grow into this role, realizing his training has prepared him. She also accomplishes great things, but always on the edge of catastrophe...she seems to "luck out" and never quite be in control while he seems to "pull through" and gain more and more control as time goes on.

And, of course, the bad guy was black. Funny. Brilliant. Black. And his female sidekick...strong, brilliant, running the show, is Algerian. The good guys are clearly white European. The inclusion factor in this movie was socio-economic status. If you are poor, you can still be a spy. Good to know.

Discrimination, bias, assumptions about ability based on everything but ability...reminds me of that old PSA series on CBS..."the more you know...."

If it is recognized, it can be stopped. The gift of that awareness may be part of the radical hospitality to which we are called.

But it sure does spoil a good movie.

Radical Hospitality...Table

I have a bit of a communion phobia. It started when I was a kid and told I couldn't take communion unless I understood it. If I didn't understand, God would disapprove--and the insinuation was destruction in some highly public, painful fashion. So on communion days, which fortunately weren't often in the church of my childhood, I carefully thought about the story and hoped beyond hope that God's finger wouldn't hit the smite button.

Weird...I know.

My daughter told me a great story of one of her special needs congregants, a kid, who really wanted to participate in communion. His mother prepared him. He thought he was ready. But as he approached the table, his anxiety trumped his desire and he ran back to his seat.

I get that. Yesterday, in worship with a wonderful congregation around the corner from mine, I planned at least three retreats.

I think God laughs at us...and pulls up our booster chairs, waiting for us to crawl up. Only humans could take grace enacted and make it scary.

Today I have this image of God's table and the welcome I feel as I am drawn to the banquet. Wish I'd been able to hold that image yesterday...but I have the image today because of the struggle of yesterday. When the bread and wine were eaten, the anxiety went away.

I know now that I don't have to understand anything. I just have to pull up to the table and share in the hospitality of a meal to which all are invited, a meal that points to the time when no one will be hungry and no one will be excluded.

Sometimes I need a hand getting to the meal. Sometimes I can be the hand for others. When I stop listening to the bad theology of my childhood, that finger over the smite button becomes the finger in a child's chubby fingers that guides them to where they need to be.

I think that's what it has always been. I'm sorry that for so long I was distracted by the rules of the practice that I missed the remarkable hospitality of the invitation.

Radical Hospitality...Again

Yesterday I watched a 2008 documentary titled For the Bible Tells Me So.  The description of the film says:

Through the experience of five very normal, very Christian , very American families - including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson - we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child. 

Humans can be rather horrible people. The venomous, abusive language made me cringe. Worse, the use of subtle gender weapons...you don't want to run "like a girl" or "play football like sissies." Apparently, the worse possible insult for a man is to be compared to a woman.

Having lived through the women's rights movement, having recently revisited the civil rights conflicts, we should at least be more creative in our opposition to those we perceive as different or unworthy. Our language is the same, our behavior is the same, our arguments, our rationalization...we just find a different group on which to focus.

People of God can be the worst because we assume God is on our side in any conflict. We won't listen to people who are hurting, struggling, outcast. We don't have to if we label them sinners. That simple seven letter word gives us free reign to behave badly.

We don't seem to limit ourselves to the issue of homosexuality...it is just easy pickings now. We can find someone to attack at every turn, whether it is the child with glasses and a dirty shirt on the school playground, or the Muslim praying in his office at our workplace.

God's radical hospitality is practiced again and again. The entire biblical text is God's attempt to offer us shalom, health and wholeness for ourselves and our communities...and our response of trying to explain to God why we are not broken, our taking for ourselves power over others, our refusal to live loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

We are called again...and again...and again to God's radical hospitality. It is given to us. We are encouraged to give it to others.

The practice is not once and done. We are too good at creating outsiders.

So all I can say today is I'll try again.

and again.

and again.

Radical Hospitality...Beds

Sometimes we think we want a slot machine God. Put your prayer in and get your prize. Show up at church and be "fed." Ever fed animals in a petting zoo? They have those "gum machine" things that you put your money in, twist the knob, and food pours into your hand. It would be great if our spiritual lives could be fed like that. Either you could stop by the church whenever and get your fix, or you could be guaranteed food when you did come for worship.

Would that not be a better definition of hospitality? We get it when we need it or want it. We get it how we want it? We hear the definition of hospitality focused around the receiver's needs. A warm welcome to a stranger or guest would involve making that guest happy or comfortable--no doubt the influence of the "hospitality industry." The British definition is "kindness in welcoming guests" or "receptivity." The origin of the word is "hospital," a place that treats the broken.

As much as we would like to have a slot-machine God, the radical part of God's hospitality is that we get what we need, not what we want. My understanding of God's work is that God is constantly at work to bring health and wholeness, to transform us into our best selves, not our happy selves. The people I respect the most with the kind of faith that is deep and transformative will give thanks for the struggles in their lives. That, they say, is where the growth happened. That is where the understanding matured.

It's a whole different can of theological worms to decide why we are a sinful, broken people. But we are. Our very best efforts cannot extract us from the brokenness of our selves or our world. Today I have a picture of two buildings, a fancy hotel with all the "hospitality" trappings I could want and a hospital.

I can walk into the hotel, be called by name, be catered to, enjoy my favorite food and beverage, have my every want satisfied. Or I can walk into the hospital and collapse my broken self onto the bed and let myself be healed.

The hotel might be fun if life is good. But I need the God who provides unconditional receptivity to my brokenness, who heals with mercy and compassion.

There's a bed for you...

Radical Hospitality...Which Footsteps

The Charlotte city council had a discussion last night. The Charlotte observer reports the motion...

Would have added marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression to list of protected characteristics in the commercial nondiscrimination and passenger vehicle for hire ordinance.

To be honest, I am not sure exactly the circumstances that began this most recent conversation, but I do understand that these were characteristics to be added to the existing non-discrimination ordinance.

Before you think about what "side" I am on and whether that makes me liberal or conservative, be reminded that this season we are invited into the spiritual discipline of radical hospitality. Again and again we see Jesus reach out to the untouchable, accept the unacceptable, spend time with the outcast. In the first century it was lepers and sinners. If Jesus had stepped into time today instead of the first century, he might well be speaking at the city council to support the LGTBQ community.

Humans are expert at discrimination. We are expert at causing each other pain. We are so very good at this that we often don't even know we do it. Recently a young academic, pregnant with her first child, was told by her professor that she should have her tubes tied as soon as she gave birth if she wanted a serious career in academia. Would he have told a young male academic whose wife was pregnant to have a vasectomy so he could concentrate on his career?

Instead of immediately leaping to our typical pre-disposed conclusions. I truly believe that radical hospitality calls us to listen to other's pain as well as to our own fear. I believe it calls us to look carefully at the reality behind our fear and other's pain. I believe the call to hospitality calls us to pray intensely that God's will be done, and not the will that we think should be done or the will our "our side." I believe it calls us to a radical, persistent openness to the pain of others.

The religious and social communities of Jesus's time were certain they understood the rules and practices of faith. Jesus didn't follow them. We know they were crazy. We know they were wrong. We can't believe they could see what was right in front of them. We know they should have followed Jesus. Too often, we do the same. In the footsteps that surround us, we very often choose the wrong pair.

And we choose the wrong footsteps because the footsteps we should follow hurt our feet.

Radical hospitality is our foundational position whether we are on the political left or right. It requires more of us than we ever thought possible.

Radically hospitable footsteps will take us deep into unknown territory. About the one thing we know for sure is that God will walk the journey with us.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article11945495.html#storylink=cpy

Radical Hospitality...The Gift of Generations

By now, if you are following the blog, you know we had a lunch for the congregation. It is our annual fundraiser, and the youth cook the meal and do some zany entertainment. The congregation gives money to support their mission trips and retreats.

This is radical hospitality.

Young to not-as-young came to worship on a nasty winter day, then stayed for lunch and entertainment. I expected half of what we would have had if the weather had cooperated. But every table was full and people were gracious and generous.

Life-changing, world-changing hospitality. Yes. How? No idea.

I asked one of the youth to talk about how these trips had changed her life. She did a great job of telling about the trips she remembered. Then I pushed her to articulate how her faith would be different if she hadn't participated in those trips. Her quick answer was "I'm not sure I would have a a faith."

Perhaps on these trips, we shared God's grace with another person. We know grace was shared with us. We come home more connected to the intractable problems of poverty and hunger, of tragedy and hope. We come home understanding that all people are children of God, even the ones we would never have seen without our trip experience.

That, too, is radical hospitality. It seeps through our bloodstream and changes how we interact in the world.

Adults of all ages who take time from their busy lives to sit, eat, listen, and give change the world. Youth and children feel they are known and loved and cared about and able to know and love and care about others. Little kids watch big kids and want to do what they do. That is radical hospitality enacted.


Most had a meal of chicken and rice yesterday. I had a meal of grace.