outWORD by Matte Downey

I recently attended a lecture on Narrative Hospitality by Richard Kearney. It was inspiring and thought-provoking in many ways. He told about his work which seeks to foster reconciliation through the exchange of stories. [1] His ideas on the nature of hospitality reminded me of some study I had done on the topic a few years ago which helped to broaden my thinking about the whole concept of hospitality. We often think of hospitality as opening our home to people, but it is much more than that. There are basically two expressions of hospitality. In the first, we invite people to share in our experience. This usually takes the form of having people over for a meal, giving them a place to sleep in our home, or involving them in something we are doing. The second type of hospitality is that which requires us to enter someone else's experience. This happens every time we visit someone else's home or experience a context or culture which is different from our own. This second...

I sometimes think: if I had been living in the first century, I would have been an eager follower of Jesus of Nazareth. But I am not so sure. The gospel accounts reveal how hard it was for people to reconcile what they imagined the Messiah would be like with the rather unremarkable son of Joseph. Even the disciples were often unsure about the identity of their teacher, especially when things went horribly wrong during the Passover celebration. Before they could really grasp the severity of the situation, Jesus was arrested and executed. Not surprisingly, most of them scattered. Jesus was gone. His death - a public, ignoble affair - dealt the final blow. Their loyalty was now a cause for mockery. Their constant companion for the past three years was no longer with them. Or so they thought. In the thick of all their disappointment and grief, they failed to see what Jesus had been trying to show them all along: that the Messiah came to serve and to love, even when it cost him his life...