If we look at the familiar burning-bush scene from the life of Moses through the lens of hospitality, we see that God’s hospitality challenges our typical expectations. God doesn’t “invite Moses in” but rather commands him, “Come no closer!” (Exod. 3:5). Even more, he demands that Moses remove his sandals since he is standing on holy ground. On hearing God say, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” Moses hides his face, for he is “afraid to look at God” (Exod. 3:6). In this instance, hospitality involves not our usual pleasantries but rather command, terror, and, not least of all, a puzzling calling from God, a political calling through which God works to create and sustain the nation of Israel. The Puritan John Bunyan described this same kind of hospitality when he wrote of the “advantages” gained from his own temptations and struggles. Whereas before he was “tormented by atheism,” now, says Bunyan, “the case was otherwise, now was God and Christ continually before my face, though not in a way of comfort, but in a way of exceeding dread and terror. The glory of the holiness of God did at this time break me to pieces.” While we might find such language unduly harsh, Bunyan goes on to describe this encounter as “a strange apprehension of the grace of God.” This strange apprehension not only enables Bunyan to trust God when he was tempted to “sell him, sell him, sell him,” but also draws him more fully into the life of the church—the congregation of the “poor people of Bedford.” Only when we envision and receive hospitality before the strange face of God, as did Moses and Bunyan, will we more fully become God’s hospitable people. But we need not look far and wide in order to do this. If we locate hospitality fully in the Christian story as embodied in the church and its worship, rather than in other stories and ideologies, we will begin to recover a sense of how extraordinary Christian hospitality really is… The central conviction that has sustained me in the writing of this book is that “hospitality” names our graced participation in the triune life of God, an extraordinary adventure where together we discover how to live out of an abundance heretofore unimagined. The giving and receiving of God’s gracious abundance is not merely “spiritual” but is in fact a material reality embodied in Israel and the church. True, like the ancient Israelites receiving the manna in the wilderness, we are tempted to resist living out of the conviction that our Host will provide. How can we trust God’s provision when our lives and our world seem deeply marked by scarcity, when we—like the Israelites—seem to be wandering in a dry and desolate wilderness? Such questions can haunt our lives, leading us to question the very possibility of hospitality. We are tempted rather to hunker down, hoarding for our children, fearing the stranger, and relinquishing the possibility of a good larger than ourselves. And yet to do so is to allow ourselves to be determined by a story that is not our own. Just as God provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness, Christians acknowledge that God continues to provide living bread in the body and blood of Christ and living water in the pools of baptism. God provides for us and always will. The question is, are we prepared to receive? Elizabeth Newman, Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 10:58:57 +0000
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