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.
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