Social hospitality and spiritual hospitality: Welcoming and listening to God’s word.
July 21 2019: Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
A Jewish proverb says, “Hospitality is one form of worship.”
And another proverb adds, “It is a sin against hospitality to open the doors
and shut up the countenance.”
Heb 13:2 says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to
strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing
it.” By definition, from the Cambridge Dictionary, we
call hospitality the act of being friendly and welcoming to guests and visitors.
It is an act of kindness and friendly behavior. Hospitality is the quality or
disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm friendly
and generous way. Some peoples, some cultures, or ethnical groups and countries
are known for their great sense of hospitality, while others are treated as not
hospitable or lacking of that virtue.
Hospitality, therefore is a virtue which opens us to others.
That virtue, not only profits to guests and strangers, but it always produces consequences
of blessings and great rewards to those who practice it. Because, an act of
generous welcoming is never at lost. We are all, in one way or another stranger
or will be stranger in some places. The quality we show to others will always be
returned to us.
Today's liturgy is a hymn to social hospitality and
spiritual hospitality, that is, welcoming the stranger and listening generously
to the word of God. In the first reading we are given to see the hospitality of
Abraham and Sarah to the three men who were passing by the terebinth of Mamre.
Abraham shows them a gratuitous hospitality inviting them to stop over and
refresh before carrying on their journey. That, somewhat, simple gesture of
Abraham will be rewarded with a promise, “I will surely return to you about
this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.”
We read that, every act of generosity we put, every sign of
kindness and hospitality we give to the neighbor does not go unseen by God. It will
always be rewarded. Because hospitality is the passport to eternity.
The Gospel will emphasize the more this teaching on
hospitality and bring it to another dimension associating it to the need of
listening to God: Spiritual Hospitality. We hear about welcoming and listening
incarnated by two characters, Martha and Mary. Through this extract of Luke, we
read that the virtue hospitality and the virtue of listening as two sisters.
The context of the Gospel message: Jesus visits some of his great
friends, Mary and Martha. While one acts as a dutiful servant, busy in the
kitchen to give the best to their guest, the other plays the diligent student,
sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to everything he says. When Martha came to
complain to the Lord, requesting him to instruct her sister to come and give
her a helping hand, the Lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and
worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will
not be taken from her.”
From first approach, one would think Jesus disregards the tiredness
of Martha. But actually, what Jesus means here is that, Martha should first let
herself be ministered by the Lord before she can efficiently minister for
him. The Lord does not reject neither
accuse Martha of doing what was not necessary. He rather calls upon her to set
priorities. As proof, after all, he and his followers will sit at the table
prepared by Martha and savor the fruit of her labor. Hospitality is well
practiced when we nurture it with faithful listening to the word of God.
This remark of Jesus to Martha leads us to put some other
relevant questions touching our living today. It is about setting priorities
and doing all things or everything at the proper time. We said ahead that
hospitality and faithful listening to the word of the Lord are two sisters
which go together, hand in hand. It is sad that many do not understand that
rightly. A great number of people do not go to church today or attend Sundays’ masses
because busy at work. They have no time to listen to the word of God neither to
read it by themselves. Their work has become so much important that it seems
substituting God. To them we can reformulate these remarks of Jesus to Martha, “you
are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Choose
the better part, find a room for the Lord in your life and it will not be taken
from you.”
Oppositely, in the other hand, as science says, every excess
is harmful. Other people, for the sake of being so much busy in the church have
no time to work. They are members of all the prayer groups and associations of
the Church. From Monday to Sunday they are in the church, 7/24. You do well to
be in the church and be a very pious and faithful server. But know that God
will not come to work on your behalf in order to pay your bills. The Lord is providence,
sure, but he will not always feed your family or provide for the education of
your children, neither love your wife or your husband on your behalf. You will
do well to give yourself time to work. It is all about finding a balance and
setting priorities; give the proper time to all things we do.
Martha does not oppose Mary, neither Mary does oppose
Martha. Give time to listen to the Lord and give also time to work. “Ora et Labora,”
that was the rule of monastic life. It has never been “Ora et ora et ora…” nor “Labora
et labora et labora.” Balance is the password to success and perfection.
Paul preaching to the Colossians in the second
reading talk about wisdom. That wisdom is that no one has ever reached
perfection only by praying, neither only through working. It is by praying and
working that we will build up the perfect statue of Christ.
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