Radical HospitalitySermon Delivered By Reverend Nancy BouchardNovember 23, 2008My three sisters and I sat flush against the wall less then ten feet from my mother’s casket. Two sisters were overwhelmed with grief and sobbed almost continuously. My third sister cried whenever someone she knew came over to offer their condolences. But I have a hard time with public grieving, so I kept finding ways to be distracted. I watched how many times the funeral director asked people not to touch mom’s wrist or hand. Evelyn (my mother) was killed in car accident and I suspect that despite his best efforts my mother’s injuries were still quite visible. At one point I got up to look at the photos we’d selected to display. One photo was Evelyn’s nine living siblings taken a decade before. All of them were wearing Sunday best except for one brother who had worn his Bermuda shorts. Mom found the informality inconsistent and it bothered her until she came up with a creative solution. She cut out a pair of pants from the Sears Catalog and glued them over his shorts. The fit left much to be desired, but it made her feel better. There was also the picture of my sisters and me taken when one sister was married. The ink on the divorce degree probably wasn’t even dry yet when mom carefully cut his face out of the photo. She blended in the missing head quite well but there remained two large hands resting on my sister’s and my shoulders seem to be coming out of nowhere. Every time I looked at the picture is very eerie, but today it brought a smile to my face despite the pain. I turned my attention to the guests who had come to pay their respects. It suddenly stuck me. What and odd collection of people mingling around waiting for the priest to arrive and say the evening prayer. At one point I retuned to my seat, leaned over to my sisters and asked them “who the hell are these people?” There was a group of six or so retarded adults with some unruly children, a guy with unwashed hair and a motorcycle jacket, one of the local District Court Judges, some blue haired ladies sitting quietly with their rosary beads and a severely disfigured woman.
My curiosity finally got the best of me and I walked over to a woman
standing by herself and asked “how did you know my mother?” “Well” she
said “I didn’t really know her, it was only when I saw the newspaper
article that I recognized her, not by name but by sight. We met one day
when I was walking home after just being laid off from my job. I was
crying. I just didn’t know what I was going to do. Your mother came up
to me and asked what was wrong? When I told her my story she insisted I
join her for dinner. We watched television for a while and then I went
home, well fed and with a $20.00 bill your mother had given me. We never
saw each other again.” The motorcycle guy? He had a flat tire in front of her apartment building. Mom had him come in and call his friend. While he waited, they “ate pie.” The District Court Judge and his wife had been part of a Roman Catholic anti-abortion group where they met my mother and enjoyed her humor. My sisters told me the disfigured woman had been in a very serious apartment fire. She had an extensive hospital stay. My mother didn’t know her but visited often for months as the woman recovered. They had become good friends. Sometimes she’d call me at work and in her very heavy French accent she’d say “Nancy, if you call, I won’t be home, I’m going to La Maison Marcotte.” “Who’s in the nursing home mom” I’d ask. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll meet someone.” Asst. Professor of theology Arthur Sutherland defined hospitality in this way“…hospitality is the intentional, responsible and caring welcoming or visiting, in either public or private places, those who are strangers, enemies, or distressed, without regard for reciprocation.” When I look back on my mother’s life, it is unquestionable that I was a witness to the truest and most radical form of hospitality. Mom knew her neighbors, not the homogeneous group of French catholic women, but the poor, the marginalized, strangers, the neighbors who lived outside her circle of safety and familiarity. This week I had the honor of sitting with Miriam Lavandier as she said a final good bye to her 94 year old mother. It was a privilege beyond words to hear the about the life of Danae Rodriguez. Born in the Dominican Republic, she and Miriam’s father escaped during the violent reign of Rafael Trujillo. Initially, she came to the United States alone. Over her lifetime, the family home became a safe harbor to many other Dominican families escaping the country’s violent government. The Rodriguez’s home also sheltered those who struggled with homelessness during hard economic times. During her long life Mrs. Rodriguez fed many hungry souls and she also said many prayers for those who would not know the hospitality of others. She died the day I visited, but she leaves a memorable life of love and hospitality. From the ancient prophetic voices to the present day, the concept of hospitality has been a distinctive characteristic of justice and moral construct. The actual practice of hospitality has also been at the center of theological texts in many forms and in all of the world’s religions. Each in their way has posed similar questions: “Who is my neighbor?,” how do the faithful work to negate the power of xenophobia (the fear of strangers and foreigners) and how do we cultivate a responsibility for radical hospitality? These question challenges each of us to examine our personal actions and our faith community’s mission. We are being urged to defy the trend towards homogeneity. The practice we are being asked to embrace is radical hospitality. Radical, because it requires us to reach out to the other, the unknown, the stranger, the marginalized, without the expectation of reciprocity. When I think about this definition I cannot help but reflect back on the examples of Mrs. Rodriguez and my mother. Their wisdom can offer us powerful insight into reconciling our propensity to remain in the circle of likeness and avoiding ‘”isms,” xenophobia and the definition of “our neighbor.” These women had open eyes, open hearts and open doors. No one was invisible to them. They were not deterred by fear of the stranger. They felt themselves to be neither superior nor inferior. Human commonality outweighed the categories socially and arbitrarily assigned. At my mother’s funeral and in other circumstances in my life, I have not been a radical host. I asked my sisters, “Who the hell are these people?” and then put people in boxes “the retarded,” “the noisy” “the disfigured,” “the unkempt.” Even the judge was “not our kind.” I’ve been blinded on many occasions by this paradigm of “dominant” and subordinate” categories, the other, the stranger. In the Beyond Categorical Thinking workshop this past Sunday, members of the congregation had an opportunity to do some deep and meaningful work. We honestly and collectively reflected on influence, attitudes and categories that might limit who would be called as a settled minister. I went home after the workshop and took a moral inventory. I can and do sometimes operate from a place of fear of the unknown. I can be reactive, not thoughtful, in my responses. I come from this place of “privilege” and I make judgments about people. Of course often times the judgments become focused on the “other,” It’s somehow their fault their different. Something is wrong with “them” “They” are “retarded” or “noisy,” “disfigured” or “unkempt.” Me? I’m blameless.
But the realty? I’m not blameless when I make such judgments. We have taken an important step at UUCLV. We have embraced the opportunity to learn from teachable moments. We are examining our own house with intentionality and asking, “Are we being radically hospitable”? We are exploring our history and asking, “have we perpetuated a division of a dominant and subordinate group?’ We are learning to communicate in ways that heal and not blame, and we are redefining how we are a free people. Freedom is more than simply speaking the truth bluntly. Freedom is more than an insistent practice of individualism. We are a free church when each of us is doing some reality testing, when each of us is evaluating our own awareness, and when each of us is choosing love and radical hospitality over suspicion, judgment and blame. I’m remind of a very provoking piece of music written by Ysaye Barnwell.
Sweet Honey in the Rock
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