| Parish of St. Edward the Confessor Daily Lenten/Easter Reflections |
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March
3, 2008
By Matt Brubaker |
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| Reading 1 |
| Psalm |
| Gospel |
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Text
of Reflection: “The biblical value of
hospitality has been domesticated and is now seen more as one of the
social graces than as a spiritual act and a holy event.” Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily
I like the commercial on TV about a series of kind acts that take place as one person sees another go out of his or her way to be of assistance to a stranger and decides to do the same for someone else. I like the news story about a random act of kindness at a Starbucks in Florida that caught on, and turned into a day of “paying it forward.” It started on a Friday morning when one man paid for the coffee of the person in line behind him, and it went on all day. Ironically, this chain of ‘nice’ started with anger. The customer behind the man who started the whole thing was honking and yelling at him. So the man, a tai chi master responded with a bit of Zen. “It wasn’t an idea to pay anything forward. Of course I didn’t know that all this would happen and nor was it even a random act of kindness. It was something else. It was a change of consciousness. It was my desire to take this negative and change it into something positive,” said the man. Whatever the motivations of these people, each shows a remarkable amount of hospitality, an often overlooked characteristic of the spiritual life. Scripture reminds us time and again that hospitality has its reward (remember Abraham and Sarah who offer hospitality to God in the form of three visitors and are promised an offspring). Hospitality demands that we be aware of how the words and actions of our lives have an impact on our environment, both internally and externally. To find healing and peace in our lives we need be at peace with ourselves and one another. Hospitality calls us to reflect on how life might be better for those who are in need and then put that reflection into action. The reward of hospitality is found as deeply in the one who offers it as in the recipient of the grace. I like that Jesus is able to go beyond the “religious conventions” of his day and reach out the foreigner, the enemy, the social outcast and allow them, each in their own turn, to experience the healing presence of the divine in their midst. He never rejects the foreigner, the outcast, the sinner – NEVER! This is not just a “nice thing” to do. This is the very revelation of the One who has loved us into being. Our childhood images of God need to grow. God is not waiting to give any negative judgment on us (though God knows our hearts and deeds better than we know ourselves). God knows what needs to be healed. The judgment is meant to offer that to us, we who are all outsiders when it comes to God, but invited into God’s inner circle. |