“Radical Hospitality”
Sunday,
September 19, 2004
Rev.
Gretchen Woods
“Strange
and Foolish Walls” by A. Powell Davies
The years
of all of us are short, our lives precarious.
Our days
and nights go hurrying on and there is scarcely time to do the little that we
might.
Yet we
find time for bitterness, for petty treason and evasion.
What can
we do to stretch our hearts enough to lose their littleness?
Here we
are – all of us – all upon this planet, bound together in a common destiny,
Living our
lives between the briefness of the daylight and the dark.
Kindred in
this, each lighted by the same precarious, flickering flame of life, how does
it happen that we are not kindred in all things else?
How
strange and foolish are these walls of separation that divide us!
“Radical
Hospitality”
“Would you harbor me? Would I
harbor you?” Let’s see . . .
This past Sunday, the Rev. Richard
R. Davis (better known as “Rick”) rode up to the Unitarian Universalist church
he serves in Salem, Oregon in a huge Humvee with a George W. Bush bumper
sticker on it. He told me himself that afternoon. What would you do if I showed
up in like manner? More importantly, what would you do if a stranger showed up
like that for her or his first service here? What kind of hospitality would we
manage for such a person? I wonder . . .
Today we consider “Radical
Hospitality:” whom do we welcome and with whom do we share. We need to
understand why we pride ourselves on inclusion, what might the limits of that
inclusion may be – if any, and how we can begin to avoid categorical thinking.
“Whom would we harbor?” Where does our hospitality begin and end?
As Unitarian Universalists, we
pride ourselves in our inclusive heritage. Our first principle asserts that we
affirm and promote the “inherent worth and dignity of every person.” Since 225
ACE when Origen asserted that God is a loving being and that such a god would
not exclude any one from heaven, universal salvation has been one of our basic
tenets. This “great heart of Universalism” has beaten long and hard with
inclusion.
In like manner, Unitarians have
consistently expressed the belief that people are basically good and should be
accepted as such, often blaming social conditions for the evils we encounter in
our daily living. Across the continent from each other both Samuel Longfellow
and Thomas Starr King once opined about us: “Universalists believe God is too
good to damn mankind, and Unitarians believe mankind is too good to be damned
by God.” Our Unitarian sense of inclusion derives from this perspective. It is
for this reason that we welcome new folks without suspicion, hoping we have
found new friends and that we may be good friends to those who come to us. Or
do we?
Inclusion means offering
opportunities for all to engage in “the free and responsible search for truth
and meaning,” be they Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, educated or
uneducated. Worship is a key place to search for truth, but that is not all.
Some of our search for truth takes place in our Covenant/Conversation Groups.
In these safe settings, people are encouraged to share the struggles and
successes of their lives, to explore difficult questions, and to move forward
in their personal growth with a strong supportive group. Do check in with
Louise Ferrell or Marcia Shaw about these groups of eight to ten people who
meet regularly for such inclusive conversation.
But each of us needs healthy
boundaries around our inclusion. Inclusion does not include abuse. We need to
establish expectations of respectful listening as well as willingness to share
with one another. Healthy boundaries are essential to Radical Hospitality,
because they assume that we will not let our selves be abused in community, and
that we will protect others from such experiences. As Parker Palmer asserts, in
healthy communities, “. . . people are empowered and protected from power.”
Every UU congregation I have attended has had to ask someone
to separate from the community until her or his behavior changed. In each case,
the person asked to leave was found to be a danger to vulnerable women and
children. In one case, the president of the Board told a man, who had taken to
living in his car in the parking lot and intercepting women and children on
their way to church, to leave. I prefer to ask the person to meet with me
regularly to work on the issues that create lack of safety for our vulnerable
folks. I am interested in acceptance of the person but not of destructive
behavior. Sadly, such persons generally do not accept my offer of help. I
despise confrontation, and I feel we need to make certain that our inclusion
does not make the congregation prey to perpetrators of fear or pain. We need,
gently and with love, to challenge these folks to remain apart from the
congregation until they can be a safe part of it. We will be talking a lot more
about “Safe Congregations” through this year, and I hope your thinking has been
stimulated by this brief introduction.
Essentially, as proponents of
radical hospitality, we should not judge a person by category, not our selves
and not others. Yes, it is human to want to know who a person is by
categorizing her or him, putting them into convenient boxes. This is a woman,
not a man. This is a poor person, not a middle class person. This person is not
well educated, so I couldn’t possibly learn from her or him. Oops, notice we
have already dropped into assumptions about the person simply by categorizing
her or him! This person served in the military, so she or he must be a
war-monger. This person is a fundamentalist Christian, so they automatically
must be willing to vote for a theocratic approach to government. Categories
become prejudices in short order, and, when coupled with power, become
oppression – within our selves and in our larger world.
As I understand our radical
hospitality, we are asked to be open, but aware; to make space for possibility,
while holding to our values of respect and responsibility. And we need to trust
the inner knowing of our hearts and minds, the connection of our knowing to a larger
knowing. Ralph Waldo Emerson noted this well:
We have a great deal more
kindness than is ever spoken.
The whole human family is
bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in
houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor and who honor us!
How many we see in the
street, or sit with in church, whom though silently, we warmly rejoice to be
with?
Read the language of these
wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth. (#661 Singing the Living Tradition)
None of us is able to offer
radical hospitality to every person who comes here. That is a fool’s errand.
That is why we have religious communities: so that the building of
healthy religious community falls on many shoulders. Each of us will find
persons here with whom we resonate with positive energy. Each of us will find
persons here with whom we can make no useful contact. The beauty of a religious
community of some size is that there is more room for more types of people to
gather and connect.
Some of us need to be challenged
and supported to connect with those of whom we are rightly afraid and of whom
we are wrongly afraid. This is not easy. It is risky. To be homes of truly
powerful personal transformation, we must also risk our safety some times by
meeting those who are different and by listening well and intentionally to who
they truly are. We may be surprised to find new friends and learn more about
our selves.
One of the most interesting men in
the last congregation I served was the resident Republican: a prosperous atheist
business man who is fascinated with the Bible, particularly the Christian
Scriptures. He is an associate member of the Jesus Seminar. Glenn and I would
go somewhere where we would be unlikely to meet other congregants because our
intense disagreements scared most of them. We had lovely long lunch battles. I
love the man, even if I know I cannot agree with him on many issues. We share a
mutual respect that comes from knowing our differences do not need to separate
us, as we are mutually committed to the betterment of our world, if from very
opposing views.
What we cannot afford is to
allow despair and fear to interfere with our radical hospitality: our
willingness to reach out to one another and struggle together for a better
world. Working with our differences will make it better. Thandeka captures the
dance from inner world to meeting others’ inner worlds in her poem “The Legacy
of Caring.”
Despair is my private pain
born from what I have failed to
say
failed to do, failed to overcome.
Be still my inner self
let me rise to you, let me reach
down into your pain
and soothe you.
I turn to you to renew my
life
I turn to the world, the
streets of
the city, the worn
tapestries of
brokerage firms,
drug dealers, private
estates
personal
things in the bag
lady’s cart
rage and
pain in the faces that
turn from me
afraid of
their own inner worlds.
This
common world I love anew,
as the
life blood of generations
who
refused to surrender their
humanity
in an
inhumane world,
courses through
my veins.
From
within this world
my despair
is transformed to hope
and I
begin anew
the legacy
of caring.
(#666 Singing the Living
Tradition)
It is up to the radical hospitality of religious community
to help us hear both our inner selves and the sounds of the world, to find the
resources that refill our wounded and empty souls, and to show us that we are
not alone, so that we may truly begin anew the legacy of caring, the work of
peace, the blessings of each and every one of us with respect, responsibility,
and relish for the process.
So Be it! Blessed Be!