Words of Wikstrom, Sep 2011
In many, perhaps most Unitarian Universalist congregations, September is the month of Homecoming, In- Gathering. Even for those congregations like TJMC that remain open all year, there is a sense in September of coming back together, of re-gathering our energies, of new beginnings.
It is fitting, then, that the first theme of our new theme-based cycle is Hospitality. This word technically has to do with how someone welcomes, or receives, strangers, but there can be so much more to it. It is really about a way of life – am I generally more open or closed to others?
And so, as a church, we can ask not only how hospitable we are – as individuals and as a community – toward newcomers and visitors, but also how hospitable we really are toward those others who are already here. And how hospitable are we toward those who have been drifting away, or who have left in a huff (or in pain)? How hospitable are we toward those who cause trouble? Or who are different (in any of myriad ways)?
I once took part in a workshop in which at one point we explored this question: how welcoming would you be – you personally and the collective “you” of your congregation – toward a (and you can feel free to insert your own objectionable adjectives) chain smoking, meat eating, real-fur wearing, heavily cologned Tea Party Republican who arrived at church having driven there in their Humvee with an NRA sticker on the window?
In other words, how far can we really “walk our talk?” How far do we want to? How far do we dare? If we really seek to be a diverse community; if we really want to find the way past “tolerance,” through “acceptance,” to the place of “embrace;” we need to move out from our own comfort zone and strive to enter the comfort zone of “the other.”
The Catholic scholar John Dominc Crossan once wrote about a spectrum of responses to the stranger who comes, hungry, to your door. You could tell them to go away. You could give them some money and send them away. You could invite them to go around to the back of your house where you meet them and give them some food. You could invite them to come into your kitchen to eat. You could invite them to come into your dining room where you are currently having a dinner party. Or, and this is what Crossan says Jesus would do, you could recognize that your rather comfortable lifestyle might make this person rather uncomfortable and, so, you could take your food and your guests and go out into the street to make a party on the stranger’s turf.
TJMC seeks to be an open, inclusive, diverse, and welcoming community. How far can we really “walk our talk?” How far do we want to? How far do we dare?
These are our questions for September.
In Gassho,
Rev. Erik