Being in a new community, I’m already making mental lists of people I’d like to invite over, people I'd like get to know better, those who have already had me to dinner – and maybe some who I’d like to invite me back. I've been known to invite people I think are important, with whom I’d like to become friendly so I feel important. Wrong! says Jesus.
"When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”
This teaching hits us where we live, literally. In this day and age, living as we do in fragmented and stratified communities, most people see their homes as places of safety and refuge. We might be willing to be challenged outside, and invite the marginalized into our church halls and community centers. But our homes?
Or is that exactly where we are to live out the Good News? Jesus was always crossing boundaries of difference to bring the Good News - as he did in coming to us in our time and space in the first place… As his followers we also are called to go beyond our zones of familiarity and comfort to reach out to the Other.
What kind of “Other” most scares or bothers you? (think age/ethnicity/profession/style…)
In prayer, can you imagine inviting one of those people into your home, to sit at your table? This is a way we can pray for and about people – in our imaginations.
What would you serve? Try to sit with this in your imagination, really feel what you would be feeling.
What might you say? What might your guest say? Who else might around that table?
Inviting strangers or people we find strange into our homes might be a stretch for most of us; it is for me. Perhaps we could start by inviting someone we consider “other” to breakfast or lunch in a restaurant – start with the encounter itself, deal with the discomfort of possibly disconnected conversation. If we remember that Jesus is also at that table with us, we might find it an adventure that opens up possibilities in us.
After all, the One who tells us to cross that boundary in the first place isn’t going to skip the party himself…
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