"Welcome strangers" -- what's that Greek verb there in Matthew?

Sunago means, approximately, collect or gather or invite or welcome. Jesus says we should do this thing (sunago) to the stranger (xenos). From the Greek work we get the English word synagogue, the place where you sunago.

I think the best way to get a firm grasp on the word is to see it in context. It shows up 59 times in the New Testament, including 24 occurrences in Matthew’s Gospel. Here are the 24, with a sentence for each to identify the context.

I.                    Gather people together for an assembly of some kind

1.       Matthew 2:4 : Herod assembled the chief priests and scribes and asked where the Messiah was to be born.

2.       Matthew 13:2 : Large crowds were gathered together around him.

3.       Matthew 22:34 : When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

4.       Matthew 22:41 : When the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus questioned them.

5.       Matthew 24:28 : Wherever the corpse is, the vultures will gather.

6.       Matthew 25:32 : The Last Judgment passage begins saying that the Son of Man will sit on his throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him.

7.       Matthew 26:3 : The chief priests and elders assembled in the palace.

8.       Matthew 26:57 : They led Jesus to Caiaphas, where the priests and elders were assembled.

9.       Matthew 27:17 : When the people were assembled, Pilate spoke to them.

10.   Matthew 27:27 : The soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him.

11.   Matthew 27:62 : The next day, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate.

12.   Matthew 28:12 : When the chief priests hear what the guards had to say, they assembled the elders and took counsel.

II.                  Harvest a crop

1.       Matthew 3:12 : He will gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn.

2.       Matthew 6:26  Look at the birds … they don’t gather anything into the barns.

3.       Matthew 13:30 : Collect (sullego) the weeds and bundle them for burning, but gather (sunago) the wheat into my barn.

4.       Matthew 13:47 : The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects every kind of fish. They haul it all ashore, sort it, and throw out the bad.

5.       Matthew 25:24 : Master, I knew that you harvested where you hadn’t planted, and gathered where you hadn’t scattered, and I was scared.

6.       Matthew 25:26 : You knew that I harvest where I didn’t plant and gather where I didn’t scatter, and yet you didn’t even put the money in a bank?

III.                Worth individual careful attention

1.       Matthew 12:30 : Whoever is not with me is against me. And whoever does not gather with me, scatters. (The word for scatter is scorpiz-. There’s gathering like a synagogue, and there’s scattering like a scorpion.)

2.       Matthew 18:20 : Wherever two or three gather together in my name, there I am in their midst. (Unless they tell me to get lost.)

3.       Matthew 22:10 : For the wedding feast, servants went out and gathered all the people they could find, good and bad alike, and filled the hall. (What’s the garment that you have to wear to this wedding? Put on Christ, and welcome the strays from the highways and byways who were invited at the last minute. If you sneer at the new guests, the bouncers will not toss them out; the bouncers will toss you.)

The lines that raised the question in the first place

1.       Matthew 25:35 : I was a stranger, and you [sunago] me.

2.       Matthew 25:38 : When did we see you as a stranger and [sunago] you?

3.       Matthew 25:43 : I was a stranger, and you did not [sunago] me.

[In the fourth reference to strangers in this passage from Matthew 25:31-46, there’s only one general verb. It says that when you saw me hungry or thirsty or as a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, you did not minister – in Greek, diakoneo – to me.]

NOTES

1.       The word sunago appears 59 times in the New Testament, including 24 times in Matthew’s Gospel. Of those 24, half (12) refer to assemblies of people, and a quarter (6) collecting crops. Three are in the passage about the Lord’s precepts (serve the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, & imprisoned). And three require individual attention.

2.       This [sunago] is one way to serve. It’s a service. People want it.

3.       The opposite of [sunago] is scattering, like a scorpion.

4.       This service is more psychological than “corporal.” Welcome, invite, include, gather with.

5.       It’s proactive. None of the uses of the word sound like someone sitting at home with tea and cakes ready in case someone stops by. This action (perhaps hospitality) is not passive; it’s active, up and out, collect, gather, assemble, invite, serve.

6.       The word often refers to an assembly of some kind. You got your friends together and didn’t invite me. You called a meeting and didn’t notify me. The gathering might be good (a feast, a presentation), or might be bad (vultures at a corpse, plotters plotting violence), but there’s a gathering of like-minded people. It’s fundamentally social, not individual.

7.       It is plausible that the word often refers to preaching the Gospel. The text surrounding these uses of sunago does not say “preaching the Gospel”; but it does refer to whatever you’re supposed to do about the Kingdom of God in our midst: gather in crops (sunago), pull in nets of fish (sunago), put things in barns (sunago). It’s a little odd: this harvest activity includes keeping the good and discarding or burning the bad – while the passage in Matthew about six precepts doesn’t refer to burning up the weeds, and says instead that the workers who fail to xx (?? – sunago) the stranger are consigned to the fire.

8.       Two of the references to gathering a harvest are just a few lines before the passage with six precepts. That is, in Matthew 25:24-26, we read about the man with one “talent” that he didn’t use wisely; he was afraid of the Master who harvested what he hadn’t planted and gathered (sunago) where he hadn’t scattered. Then in Matthew 25:31-46, we read four times about welcoming (?? – the verb is sunago) strangers.

9.       The three lines that need careful scrutiny are:

(a)    Matthew 12:30 : Whoever is not with me is against me. And whoever does not gather with me, scatters. (The word for scatter is scorpiz-. There’s gathering like a synagogue, and there’s scattering like a scorpion.)

(b)    Matthew 18:20 : Wherever two or three gather together in my name, there I am in their midst. (Unless they tell me to get lost.)

(c)     Matthew 22:10 : For the wedding feast, servants went out and gathered all the people they could find, good and bad alike, and filled the hall. (What’s the garment that you have to wear to this wedding? Put on Christ, and welcome the strays from the highways and byways who were invited at the last minute. If you sneer at the new guests, the bouncers will not toss them out; the bouncers will toss you.)

Editing the Gospel

The extraordinarily powerful teaching about hospitality in Scripture and Tradition was lost for centuries. I do not understand clearly how that happened, but I think that  large part of the problem was that the teaching was obscured by the well-meaning but confused teaching tool called the "corporal works of mercy." I explained what I think happened in Knocking at Haven's Door. 

The claim sounds extreme, so I've been looking at the whole teaching, including the "spiritual works of mercy." And I think that the list of "spiritual works" is even worse.

The seven spiritual works of mercy are:

1.       To instruct the ignorant

2.       To counsel the doubtful

3.       To admonish the sinner

4.       To bear wrongs patiently

5.       To forgive offenses willingly

6.       To comfort the afflicted

7.       To pray for the living and the dead

Some of these can be good things to do, generally, maybe. However …

The list of corporal works includes the words of Jesus, edited and improved, with an addition. I find it hard to imagine what went through the head of the person who devised that list. Jesus said this and that, but I can make it better? He said it carefully, four times, but I can do better? I find it even harder to imagine what went through the head of the person who decided that we needed a completely new and improved list for the spiritual athletes. There are the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, then the edited and improved list of corporal works, and then the macho list of spiritual works. This is very strange.

It seems to me that when you unpack the words of the Lord, it turns out that he had some ideas about spirituality. So how do his ideas compare with the macho list?

#1: “to instruct the ignorant.” I think Jesus addressed this, and I prefer his approach. He said, “Feed the hungry,” including the people who came out into the desert to listen to him. That’s a more respectful approach: give people what they want and need when they want and need it (if you have it), and not before. If you think of people as ignorant, and try to stuff your ideas down their throats, that’s disrespectful, and ineffective. Jesus named the people he addressed better: hungry, not stupid. He had a better tone: respect, not condescension. And he has a larger and clearer verb: feed, not instruct. I’m not sure we need this spiritual work #1.

#2: “counsel the doubtful.” Why would you do that? What’s wrong with doubts? Jesus didn’t denounce Thomas for his doubts; he provided convincing data. He said firmly and clearly that it’s good if you have an approach – a habit of trust, perhaps – that gets to the truth without a lot of doubts: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” But Jesus didn’t curse or even criticize Thomas. And millions of people since that time have been grateful for Thomas’s question and Jesus’s response, both. Doubts have their place! The habit of doubt is fundamental in science. Skepticism is healthy, like pruning shears.

To be sure, there are times when people wrestles with doubts and want help figuring things out. But it’s the “… and want help” part that requires a pastoral response, that elicits the thoughts of an experienced and knowledgeable teacher. But I emphasize: this is not a response to doubt; it’s a response to a request.

To be sure, there are critics who want to argue and attack, deliberately stirring doubts. But if someone wants a debate, then debate! Counseling a debater is condescending and counter-productive.

#3: “admonish the sinner.” This one seems so wrong to me, in so many ways! First, in my life, “the” sinner is me. I’m pretty sure there are other sinners in my life, but the one who matters most to me, the only one who can be “the” sinner in my life, the one whose sins impinge on my life, is unquestionably me. I gotta repent; I gotta listen more carefully to the Lord who heals; I gotta learn to love others more completely. I learned from my childhood, from my brilliant and patient father, that a daily examination of conscience is a good idea. His way was patient and humble and honest, in tranquil prayer. There wasn’t anything like finger-wagging in it.

Parents are responsible for raising their children, and sometimes that includes direct confrontation over things a child has done wrong. But it’s odd to think of correcting a child as “admonishing a sinner.”

It matters to confront injustice, to speak truth to power, to denounce evil. But even when you address someone involved in evil directly, it seems to me that it’s better to try to separate the evil from the person, as well as possible, and to criticize the wrong-doing, not the wrong-doer. I’m not good at that, but I try; and when I realize that I have once again attacked someone personally because I was focused on the “sinner,” I judge that to be a failure on my part.

It seems to me that the Lord’s response to sinners is intelligent and complex and multi-faceted and creative. And it seems to me that he addressed this in three of his six precepts. He said we should clothe the naked, which includes asserting and protecting the dignity of people who are subject to criticism. Dealing with the woman at the well, he did get around to talking to her about sexual promiscuity. We don’t have a record of that part of the conversation, but we do see her reaction. She danced off, proclaiming loudly that everyone should come listen to this guy. I don’t know what he said, but I do know he didn’t shame her; he clothed her in his dignity. He said we should visit the sick and the weak; I take that to include people who can’t find the moral strength within themselves to stay out of trouble. And I take the word “visit” to be a word of immense power: be with them, with joy, like the dawning breaking upon us. Be a friend; be a joy; be a strength. And he said to visit the imprisoned. I take that to include visiting people who are not just in trouble, but who are trapped in evil. That includes, for example, people who have been raised in privilege and are almost incapable of imagining a just world. This attitude toward sin includes an approach to social evils. John Paul II taught that the route to freedom from massive social evils is solidarity with the victims of that evil: that is, in my view, a modern formulation of what Jesus said about visiting the imprisoned.

So what about this “admonish” thing? I think it’s a horrible habit, deliberately inculcated. It’s condescending, embodying the worst of clericalism. Some people believe that they are supposed to poke their noses in other people’s lives – deliberately, uninvited – in order to be “faithful to the truth.” I don’t think this is a work of mercy; I think it’s arrogance.

#4: “bear wrongs patiently” and #5: “forgive offenses willingly.” Good ideas! I have no argument with them. But I note that they can be found in the Lord’s third precept, as Thomas Aquinas described it. The Lord’s third precept is to welcome strangers – an attitude that Abraham displayed at the First Feast at Mamre, and that Jesus displayed at the Last Supper. Aquinas was eloquent about a detail from the Last Supper, Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. In Aquinas’s understanding, this detail of hospitality is also a gesture of forgiveness – and it is mandatory. Jesus, says Thomas, commanded his followers to wash each other’s feet – not necessarily literally, although he thought that would be a good idea when possible. But to forgive from the heart: that, he said, was the point of the gesture.

But wait, you think. Did Jesus welcome “strangers” at the Last Supper? Emphatically yes, and far more. He welcomed Judas, who was about as alienated as a person can be. He was planning treachery that night; that’s deep alienation. Knowing that, Jesus welcomed him, and even advised him. Jesus knew what Judas and Peter were going to do, and made clear to them both that he understood them better than thy understood themselves, and he offered them faithful love. Jesus did not welcome someone he didn’t know, who might be a threat; he embraced someone he knew to be alienated, and knew to be a grave danger.

I have no argument with #4 and #5, but I think the Lord’s command to be hospitable, especially to strangers, includes them.

#6: “comfort the afflicted.” No argument. I think it’s a catch-all that refers to everything that the Lord said in his six precepts. I prefer the Lord’s clarity, but won’t argue with a quick encapsulation.

#7: “pray for the living and the dead.” This isn’t a bad idea; intercessory prayer is always a good idea. Do it. But this formulation is an incomplete thought, an unfinished draft, a work in progress.

This used to be “pray for the dead.” Some Christians insist that the dead are beyond any need of prayer; they are done, and have gone on to their eternal destiny. Catholics disagree with that. We pray from people who have died, and also ask people who have died to pray for us. We consider death a change, not an end.

Then this item was edited: of course we should pray for the living too! Of course; great idea. But while we’re at it, praying for those in the past and the present, shouldn’t we pray for those to come as well? The whole environmental movement has an eye on our descendants, who have a right to live in a well-tended world. If pagans are thinking about those to come, shouldn’t we?

So in my view, this last item is fine as far as it goes, but it’s half-baked.

The worst aspect of the list of seven “spiritual works of mercy” is that it reinforces the idea that the corporal works of mercy – including the Lord’s six precepts – are corporal and not spiritual. The Lord’s teaching is always multi-faceted, moving easily from one level of reality to another, from literal (corporal) to metaphorical to emotional to intellectual to social to anagogical. If we explore what he said, each item in his list of six is extraordinary, explosive – and spiritual. The list of spiritual works can get in the way of exploring the Lord’s own teaching, substituting a confused mishmash. That’s destructive.

Each of the Lord’s six precepts are meaningful on many levels, and calling them “corporal” can cut off any meditation on other levels. It’s a loss, for example, when the command to feed the hungry is heard as a command about bread – and not about reading Scripture, not about building a community, not about the Eucharist, not about a heavenly and eternal feast. Calling them “corporal” truncates thought, for no good reason.

Further, it seems to me that four of the Lord’s six precepts are not literal and corporal when you first bump into them. That is, the literal and corporal service is included, but it’s secondary. The first two, about feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, start with the physical level and then build rapidly on that. But it seems to me that the third, welcoming strangers, begins with an attitude of hospitality – and then specific concrete acts flow from that. And the fourth, clothing the naked, is about protecting dignity first; doing something with clothes is almost irrelevant. The corporal level does matter, but it’s not the first meaning, nor even the second or third meaning. As to the fifth and sixth corporal works, it seems to me that they are primarily about reacting to sin as a weakness and sin as a trap. For sure, the corporal level matters, but it’s not the primary meaning. So when you discourage a multi-faceted approach to the Lord’s six precepts by listing corporal works and spiritual works separately, you don’t just truncate Lord’s words for all six; you also distort four of the six. Yes, clothing the naked includes a corporal service – but it’s secondary, and neglecting the demand to protect dignity distorts the teaching.

I think the list of spiritual works of mercy should be set aside. I think we should return to the original powerful text, the Lord’s own words in Matthew’s Gospel.

The Partial Destruction of Notre Dame

Three French temples

On my way to Notre Dame the first time, I got into Paris late and disoriented. I walked a good long time, then gave up and stopped at a hotel. Oops, no – it was a brothel. I figured it out after the fourth or fifth guy came in, met a girl, and went upstairs laughing. I left there, and went on to see Pere Rene Bel, my host, a canon at Notre Dame. He was a very precise thinker, like Germain Grisez; but underneath his brain and brow lurked a warm and hospitable heart (also like Germain Grisez). I don’t remember much of what he said, except my name – with a strong English “J” – followed by a richly intoned French/German/English vowel or three resembling an “O” that no one outside France will ever recapture – and ending with a firm and finite but still musical “N” song.

We were concerned about the destruction of fetuses – tiny sanctuaries of the Lord. How can we learn to be more gentle and respectful of each other? And about chastity: an orphaned notion, a form of love that builds rapidly past physical attraction toward a dozen more durable facets of a relationship.

O Marie, notre dame, in whose body the transformation of the universe began to unfold, can we build (or continue to build, or rebuild) a society in which the bodies of women are respected, and the lives of the unborn are cherished – and maybe even our glass and stones can be re-imagined?

Maryam

The first time I visited the masjid (mosque) on New Hampshire Avenue alone, a dozen people went out of their way to make me feel welcome. I was deeply moved by the careful questions of one man who wanted to understand what I thought about Mary, or Maryam. Did I think about her? Did I love her? How did she pray? And was this love for her a bond between us? The Quran says more about her than the Bible does. Christians and Muslims disagree about some things we say about her, and perhaps we can fight savagely about it. But why should we? I think she can figure out who is sincere. I think she can take care of herself, and explain herself without my help.

Notre Dame was not a pilgrim site for Muslims, as far as I know. But when it’s re-built, maybe it will be. In our age (nostra aetate), we are learning better how to share the joys and hopes (gaudium et spes) of all mankind.

Relics

Catholics are an odd bunch. We treasure bits and pieces of our heroes – not just their crowns or books or homes, but bits of their bones and such. (It’s not just us. I treasure a gift from a Muslim friend, a relic: a small scrap of black cloth that was once part of a cover for the Kaaba in Mecca.) Notre Dame had a collection of relics, and many people were immensely relieved to hear that the relics weren’t in the basilica when it burned.

Cool. But God constructs his own temple, in the hearts of his people. The bodies of his beloved children matter. I think of the children and the mothers and the families of fugitives at our border and in “temporary” refugee camps all over the Middle East. I want the stones and glass in Paris to be rebuilt. But far more, I pray that widows and orphans and strangers will find a welcome and a home among God’s people. And I am certain that this is the Lord’s priority too. Quite certain.

I pray also that a new scourge of a new age will be addressed in the rebuilding – even if it takes a change in canon law to make it happen. When the relics of ages past go back into the rebuilt Notre Dame, I pray that the bodies of some unborn children – rejected neglected dismembered and discarded – will join them in places of grief and honor.

I admire Pope Benedict's letter

Pope Benedict weighed in on the issue of priests attacking children while bishops looked the other way. Much of the response to his remarks has been vitriolic. My thoughts.

First, when children are under attack, clear thought matters, but it is secondary to effective action. Stop the bleepers, and take care of the child. Get it done.

Pope John Paul II put the matter of abusive priests in Cardinal Ratzinger’s hands. It seemed odd at the time. Why should the theologians be put in charge of the enforcement branch of the personnel section? The blunt answer is, I think, that it didn’t really matter what the office was called; what mattered was putting the right person in charge. Find an excuse, and put Ratzinger in charge. Ratzinger wants desperately to converse with the Lord and his people, with intelligence and love. He’s not temperamentally a cop. But put him in charge anyway! So Ratzinger got the job, and he broke the power and influence of the worst offender, Father Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. And he started defrocking the frockers, over 800 of them.

Pope Benedict’s recent letter sketches the excuse for putting personnel enforcement in the doctrine department. I found it unconvincing, but don’t really care. What mattered was, give the problem to Ratzinger. He will make things happen. He will not be stymied by the money and power of his bleeping opponents, and he will take abusers out of circulation.

Second, his letter includes a proposition that sounds stupid. He says the abuse is rooted in an omission – the abusers did not know God, and their time in seminaries did not lead them to a knowledge of God. I don’t care how it sounds; St. Paul said the same thing.

I don’t think it’s possible to make the point briefly and effectively; you have to choose one or the other. He chose brevity. But his point was, morality can’t be separated from love. And love of the people around you can’t be separated from a love of God. Emphatically, that doesn’t mean that atheists can’t love people; I think that Pope Benedict would say that a person who sincerely seeks truth or goodness is stumbling toward God, moved by love. So although the point needs prompt clarification, I don’t think it’s controversial. If you have no idea what makes a human truly human – that is, if you don’t see and admire the love of truth and goodness that animates a human being – then you can’t love that person properly.

Brevity and clarity: how to balance them? Read Pope Benedict’s book “Church Fathers.” I’ve been looking at his chapters on St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory was a theologian – in fact he was a capital letter THE theologian. With a bulging forehead and a droopy beard, leaking Greek. But if you just relax a bit, set aside prejudices, and just read his stuff, it becomes clear that Gregory knew God, and loved God. His ideas and his love can’t be separated. And when you sense the depth and power of the love that moved Gregory, you can understand the real power of Pope Benedict’s apparently stupid remark that loving God and screwing minors don’t fit together. How to avoid evil? Start with love – with Love.

Third, Pope Benedict’s ideas about the devastation of the 1960s left some people completely disgusted. But let me return to Gregory of Nazianzus.

Gregory’s greatest work was helping to understand and articulate the Trinity. He’s not doing stupid shamrock games; he believes that the mind of man is designed to know God, and that God invites us to knowledge. And so he untangles immensities. Sixteen centuries later, I’m trying to persuade Catholics and other Christians to join other people of good will to welcome and protect immigrants and refugees. The key idea that I want to convey, if I have to put it in a sentence or two, is:

+++ Hospitality is a ray of light straight from the heart of the Trinity. The stranger who comes into our lives brings an invitation to know God. +++

I’m not trying to do theology. I’m trying to figure out how to stir people into loving action on behalf of our suffering brothers and sisters. But as I stumble forward, I find myself more and more reliant on the work of great men and women like Gregory. I want to say that the host/guest relationship is a clear image of the life of the Trinity, and invitation into that life. But saying that assumes that we can talk about the Trinity. And indeed we can, because God invites us and teaches us – largely through the work of men and women like Gregory and Benedict (and Macrina and Theresa).

Benedict’s remark about the 1960s was similar, it seemed to me. Marriage, like hospitality, is a revelation of the life of the Trinity, and an invitation into that life. And just as Trumpism is a devastating assault on hospitality, just so Planned Parenthood assaulted marriage. Hospitality and marriage should be understood as simple things, part of daily life – but also as multi-layered realities, touching every part of human life. Reducing marriage to sex and reducing sex to a four-letter word rips the guts out of humanity. The four-letter word has a fairly precise meaning, I think: it means sex without meaning.

What teaches people to explore levels of meaning? Desert solitude can help. Reading can help. But for most people, there are three overlapping ways into depths of understanding: prayer, suffering and death, and love and sex. Closing off one route to meaning is a colossal social loss.

I accept Pope Benedict’s remarks about the vast and devastating changes in social attitudes towards sex in a single generation. Of course there has always been uni-dimensional sexual activity: round peg, round hole, fun. But this willful blindness was not embraced as normal before my generation.

I was shocked over and over when I started to understand the depth and wealth of the teaching about hospitality in the Bible. One shock: the story of Mamre includes a connection that isn’t familiar, that the reward for hospitality is fertility. Abraham welcomed three Strangers, and so he is the father of many nations. AND SO. That’s almost completely incomprehensible in a society that does not practice hospitality and does not value fertility.

I accept the ideas in Benedict’s letter. Wholeheartedly.

Lent, 5th Sunday: hospitality isn't in today's reading

I am convinced that hospitality is fundamental in Scripture and in Christian life. We almost always overlook the rich teaching about it that's all over Scripture!

"All over" doesn't mean every single passage.

I don't see any teaching about hospitality in the Gospel for today.

Next Sunday, Palm Sunday -- that's a different story! That Gospel has hospitality in every tree, in every stone, in every breath.

Lent, 4th Sunday: prodigal son and hospitality

Fourth Sunday of Lent: March 31, 2019

Just a quick note about the Gospel today. It’s the story of the Prodigal Son.

The story is about forgiveness and salvation, most obviously.

Salvation: The Prodigal Son wastes everything, and the Father is joyful about his return. The older son, the “good” son, is disturbed about the Father’s soft heart, but the Father coaxes him to be forgiving also.

Hospitality: The story is also about hospitality. The Father’s love is made visible in a banquet.

Throughout Scripture, salvation and hospitality are tied together. Moses’ sons were named “God saves” and “Be hospitable.” The names of the Lord are “Savior” and “God visits us.” The hospitality of the Last Supper can’t be separated from the saving action of the crucifixion. Hospitality is not a decoration; it is fundamental in a spiritual life.

Christianity without hospitality is a hole in the bucket in the desert.

Lent, Sunday #3 alternative: woman at well and hospitality

Third Sunday of Lent, alternative reading: March 24, 2019 (but use Year A reading)

There are two Gospels for the third Sunday in Lent – the readings from Year C (this year) or alternatively the readings from Year A, used with people who are preparing for baptism at Easter. The latter is extraordinarily packed, worth reading alongside the Lord’s words about the Last Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46.

Matthew 25 has the six precepts: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and visit the imprisoned. It seems to me that this passage must be read on at least four levels: (1) literal, (2) metaphorical, (3) moral and/or social, and (4) anagogical. (Anagogical: that’s about taking the way up, or spiritual life, or heaven.) It seems to me that all six precepts show up in today’s reading, and all four levels are pertinent, although not all six show up on all four levels.

woman at the well and Matthew 25

	literal	metaphor	social	anagogical
hungry	x	x	x	x
thirsty	x	x		x
stranger	x		x
naked		x		x
sick		x		x
imprisoned		x		x

The reading is about Jesus meeting the woman at the well.

The reading includes the second precept, obviously. On a literal level, Jesus wants some water, and she can get him some. But, also obvious, he offers her “living” water; water here is a metaphor for a spiritual life, and indeed for life eternal. (Thirsty: levels 1, 2, and 4.)

The first precept also shows up. When the disciples find Jesus at the well, they ask if he wants something to eat. That’s literal. He says that he has food that they don’t know about: “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” (That’s metaphorical.) Then Jesus talks about harvesting, about gathering crops for eternal life. That is, they have a mission. They are called to feed God’s people. (Moral, social.) The fields are ripe for the harvest. (That’s anagogical.)

The fourth precept is also in the story, although it’s not obvious. In Scripture, clothing the naked is rarely literal; it’s almost always metaphorical. The first nakedness in Scripture is right at the beginning of Genesis: Adam and Eve sin, experience shame, and then discover that they are naked. Their nakedness is about shame, not about skirts and pants. When Jesus is stripped, the soldiers are not trying to make him feel the cold; they intend to make him feel shame. In Scripture, clothes don’t hide nakedness; they reveal the person: people are clothed in white, or in royal garments, or in majesty and splendor. In this story, the woman has apparently been stripped naked by at least five men – literally, but outside the boundary of this story. Jesus helps her to bare her soul, and then he clothes her in his dignity (metaphorical, anagogical).

It seems to me that in Scripture, we find Jesus visiting the sick – literally – quite often, but almost never visiting the imprisoned – literally. But on a metaphorical level, Jesus does both all the time. The woman at the well is ashamed but also weak – sick. He gives her the strength to come alive and start talking about the things in her heart. When she talks about her hope for the coming of the Messiah, she is healed. Clothed in the Lord’s dignity, and healed of her broken-ness, she sets off to town to announce the good news. This joyful proclamation comes from a heart that has been freed.

The Samaritans started to listen to Jesus because of her testimony. But then they make their own decisions, and offer hospitality.

It’s worth noting that the discussion of thirst is personal, between Jesus and the woman; and when Jesus heals her and frees her and clothes her in dignity, that too is between the two of them. But the discussion of food is communal: Jesus talks with his disciples about it. And the offer of hospitality is also communal: the people of the town invite Jesus to stay.

The offer of hospitality is evidence of a healing. The relationship between the Samaritans and the Jews – at least in this town, with these Jewish strangers – is healed.

Was this Gospel (John 4, most of the chapter) written to explain Matthew 25? Or vice versa? No! A thousand times no! The two passages have so much in common because these are the things that matter to the Lord. In this story, the six precepts overlap and intertwine and reinforce each other, because this is the life that the Lord asks us to live.

Lent (Sunday #3): the fig tree and hospitality

Third Sunday of Lent: March 24, 2019

The Gospel at Mass today is wonderful. It’s the story about Jesus cursing a fig tree, coupled with the story of his reaction to news that Pilate had desecrated the bodies of some Galileans after their executions.

I am convinced that hospitality is as significant in the Gospel as truth and salvation and sacrifice. It’s not a decorative side issue; it’s fundamental. And there’s an insight into hospitality in this Gospel. It’s not central, but it’s noteworthy.

Who deserves punishment? When Jesus hears about some executions, he says promptly that what happened to these men does not in any way indicate that they must have done something awful to earn such a fate. He recalls another recent incident of violence and death, and says about each incident that there is no reason to think they were guiltier than anyone else nearby. But he adds that “unless you repent you will all die as they did.” The deaths should not encourage us to be self-righteous and judgmental; rather, we should make sure that we ourselves are ready for sudden death.

The second reading half of the reading is quirky, but it’s plausible that it continues the theme of death and judgment with a bit more insight. It’s a parable about a fig tree that doesn’t produce fruit for three years. The owner is ready to cut it down, but the gardener asks for another year of mercy.

The parable seems to be about sins of omission. We really are supposed to produce fruit. We deserve punishment not only if we do wrong but also if we fail to do right. In fact, the parable suggests that a failure to do right may be even more serious.

And what, specifically, is a fig tree supposed to do? Feed the hungry. Figs are supposed to be a delightful part of hospitality. To be sure, the parable can point to all our obligations: the “fruit” is obviously a metaphor for many different kinds of production. But the simplest and most direct application of the parable is hospitality.

Both parts of this reading are about repentance. The first part says we shouldn’t try to judge someone else’s life; we too are likely guilty. The second part is about a severe punishment for a sin of omission – for inhospitality. It’s possible that these two parts of the reading are unconnected, but it’s also plausible that they belong together. Death is real although mysterious, and judgment is real although we should leave it to God – and while we’re talking about severe judgments, how are you doing about hospitality?

The Gospel today is an excerpt from the Sermon on the Plain, which addresses many topics, hospitality among them. Jesus does not curse and threaten very much; it’s worthwhile trying to understand it when he does.

Lent (Sunday #2): Transfiguration and hospitality

Second Sunday of Lent: March 17, 2019

The Gospel at Mass today is wonderful. It’s the story about the Transfiguration. Jesus goes up a mountain with Peter and James and John; Jesus is transfigured, and the apostles see him as he is in heaven, conversing with Moses and Elijah.

I am convinced that hospitality is as significant in the Gospel as truth and salvation and sacrifice. It’s not a decorative side issue; it’s fundamental. And I think it’s worthwhile looking at this Gospel with an eye on hospitality. This reading is multi-faceted, but one facet is about hospitality.

First, the three people whom the apostles see are all figures associated with hospitality, because they were rejected. Moses was a survivor from a pogrom, a genocidal effort to get rid of Jewish kids, because they were strangers in a strange land that no longer welcomed strangers. Elijah was a sojourner Tishbe, who spent a significant time as a fugitive; he lived for a period of time with a widow and an orphan, the desperate Biblical trio – widow & orphan & stranger. And when Jesus was born, his parents took him and fled to Egypt to escape the slaughter ordered by Herod; John’s description of his birth is that “he come to his own and his own knew him not.” The Law-giver, The Prophet, and the Messiah: three rejected strangers, conversing in heaven.

Second, the setting switches from a mountaintop to heaven and back. Heaven is home. Here on earth, we are all pilgrims, we are all strangers and sojourners, we are all guests. But home is where the Lord is, where he invites us, where he welcomes us – after we have relinquished our complaints about “trespassers.”

Third, Peter’s response to the event is to offer hospitality as well as he knows how. He wants to erect three tents – for Jesus, for Moses, and for Elijah. A tent: this is what his fore-father Abraham – another wanderer, living in a tent – first offered to his celestial visitors at Mamre. It’s shade, and it’s a good first step; if Jesus had accepted the offer, the rest of the customs would have followed: shade, then water for their feet, then food, etc. Further, in Scripture, a tent is always more than a tent. The Ark of the Covenant traveled with the Hebrews for decades across the desert, in a tent. “Tent” can be translated “sanctuary.”

Fourth, the reading overlaps with the insights into hospitality from the story of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary. Martha buzzed around doing hospitable things; Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened. Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to get to work. Jesus declined, and explained that Mary had chosen “the better part.” This was not a criticism of Martha; Martha was doing good, but Mary was doing better. So here too: Peter wants to buzz around, but the Father intervenes to encourage a deeper hospitality: “Peter! Just listen! This is beloved Son! Listen!”

The Gospel today is about many things, hospitality among them. Jesus is revealed as host in heaven, inviting us into unity with him, where the hosts and guests dwell together as one, in open-hearted and open-eared hospitality.

Lent (Sunday 1): temptations in desert and hospitality

First Sunday of Lent: March 10, 2019

The Gospel at Mass today is wonderful. It’s the story about Jesus being tempted in the desert – the devil urging him to change stones to bread, or jump off a cliff and let the angels catch him, or rule the world. He says no to each.

I am convinced that hospitality is as significant in the Gospel as truth and salvation and sacrifice. It’s not a decorative side issue; it’s fundamental. And I think it’s worthwhile looking at this Gospel with an eye on hospitality. This reading is multi-faceted, but one facet is about hospitality.

The prototype of hospitality – the First Feast in Scripture – is Abraham at Mamre. That story includes welcoming strangers, bowing to them, offering shade and rest, washing their feet, providing a meal, serving them, and talking about fascinating things after dinner. At the Last Supper, Jesus follows the pattern set by Abraham: welcoming his disciples regardless of whether they were friends or enemies, bowing, reclining, washing their feet, providing a meal, serving, and talking about fascinating things after dinner.

The temptation in the desert includes three key details from Mamre, distorted: it’s about food, feet, and bowing.

The devil suggests turning stones to bread. Jesus isn’t interested, and in retrospect it’s easy to see why. He’s got his eye on the Eucharist: he is planning to turn bread into himself, and planning to turn stony hearts into hearts of flesh instead. Why turn a plastic ring into brass, when you’re planning to turn a mountain into gold?

The devil suggests that he protect his feet miraculously. Jesus isn’t interested, and in retrospect it’s easy to see why. He’s got his eye on the Eucharist, and he’s planning to embrace and cherish bruised and dirty feet. Dirty feet are natural; bruises are the common fate of humanity. He embraces this, and plunges into the dirt and bruises. How else can we understand what he’s doing (sort of) when he asks us to cherish each other, in all our dirt and sin and bruises and weariness?

The devil suggests that he set up a power structure, with himself near the top. Jesus isn’t interested, and in retrospect it’s easy to see why. He’s got his eye on the Eucharist, and he’s planning to upend the whole power structure. The priest and the victim are one; the host is the servant of all; the One at the top of the power structure chooses to go to the bottom; the Alpha is the Omega. A king who plans to be a slave really isn’t tempted by a guaranteed slot as viceroy.

The Gospel today is about many things, hospitality among them. The devil has no understanding of hospitality, and can only offer a foolish caricature.

What a great man Peter Kreeft is!

Knocking at Haven's Door

I didn't brag properly. Whassamatterwime??

I'm not saying Kreeft is a brilliant man just because he said this about my book. But take a look!

"Rarely has a book suddenly and decisively changed my mind on an important religious or moral issue. This one did. I was uncertain and “on the fence” regarding immigration, with almost equal sympathy for both “sides.” No Catholic faithful to the Church and no Christian faithful to Bible can be “on the fence” any more after reading this book. It is clear, compelling, and decisive. Yet it is reasonable, nuanced, scholarly, factual, informed, and wide-ranging. It appeals to principles and facts, not feelings, ideologies, or political partisanship. It is equally far from the “Right” and the “Left,” from fundamentalistic fanaticism and romantic naivete. For it is Catholic."

Peter Kreeft

Professor of Philosophy

Boston College

That's a generous man!

He's talking about a short book, an hour's read, that's supposed to pop your eyes open. I promise that if you read this attentively -- one hour! -- I'll re-arrange the way you think about some things.

Knocking at Haven's Door

The appropriation of Catholic teaching on abortion

An old friend from the pro-life movement has been tossing Catholic stuff at me, attacking “social justice warriors” – or SJWs, an acronym that reduces six syllables to five and obscures what you’re saying, but it’s an insult.

I’m a pro-life SJW, and so are the Catholic leaders whose words are being abused by the cultural warriors of the right. There are three fundamental documents that the right abuses: Humanae Vitae, Familiaris Consortio, and The Gospel of Life). All three incorporate a social justice approach. The first time the documents are censored and abused it might be just careless. But when anti-abortion chanters with bulldog brains repeat the careless errors, that seems stupid. And when they persevere after hearing the truth, that seems dishonest.

Humanae Vitae

Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical Humanae Vitae. It’s odd listening to people talk about Paul VI; some people describe him as a neglected leftwing prophet of social justice; others describe him as a persecuted rightwing prophet of personal morality. Was he schizophrenic, or a convert from one side to the other? I think he was, more simply, consistent. And I note that Humanae Vitae makes three arguments about contraception, not just one. He asserted that sex and babies are connected, and the connection is noteworthy. He said that women have wombs, and that’s special; John Paul II repeated that at length in his “theology of the body.” But he also decried the looming threat of global population control. He did not limit his perspective to issues of personal morality; he saw a social and political dimension, and challenged us to see that too.

Global population control was and is racist. The funding and propaganda comes from Europe and America; the targets are Africa and Asia and Latin America. And global population control has always included immigration restrictions: if you can’t depopulate the whole world, you can at least protect Europe and America from the rising tide of color.

It is dishonest to use the teaching of Pope Paul VI, quoting pieces out of context, refusing to notice that his arguments include opposition to population control. He puts abortion in a SJW framework.

Familiaris Consortio

St. John Paul II wrote the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, on the Feast of Christ the King in 1981. It includes (see FC, 46) a list of the rights of families. That list includes the right of a family to migrate – in search of a better life.

Evangelium Vitae, The Gospel of Life

The focus of this encyclical, published by St. John Paul II on the Feast of the Annunciation in 1995, is abortion. However, the Pope is unambiguous about the context in which he sees abortion. (See EV 3.)

“Today this proclamation is especially pressing because of the extraordinary increase and gravity of threats to the life of individuals and peoples, especially where life is weak and defenseless. In addition to the ancient scourges of poverty, hunger, endemic diseases, violence and war, new threats are emerging on an alarmingly vast scale.” [Emphasis added.]

He continues: “The Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life. Thirty years later, taking up the words of the Council and with the same forcefulness I repeat that condemnation in the name of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of every upright conscience: ‘Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.’(5)” The footnote refers to Gaudium et Spes, #27. [Emphasis added.]

It is not honest to refer to these documents while deliberately and forcefully rejecting a “seamless garment” approach. You can denounce SJWs, OR you can claim to be following the teaching of the Catholic Church. But you can’t do both.

healing and hospitality

Today (1/17) is the feast of St. Anthony, who fled into the desert – not to escape from the legitimate demands of love, but to escape from the reign of superficial and demented and mis-shapen nonsense and evil.

So, I hear in my heart a question from yesterday and an answer today.

Yesterday’s Gospel reading was from the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, or near the beginning. It was another story – this one a very brief vignette – tying salvation and hospitality together. Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and she got up and served. The clear proof that she was healed was that she offered hospitality.

Is that generalizable? Is it true for everyone that healing leads directly and promptly to hospitality? That penance and reconciliation lead to the Eucharist, that Good Friday leads to Easter, that the parting of the Red Sea is followed by manna in the desert, that the end of evil is the beginning of love? Or is it specific to her? Is it just Peter’s mother-in-law who does this? Is she a neurotic fussy busy gotta-clean guests-must-sit-and-eat-some-more type, who starts to buzz as soon as she has a muscle that works?

Anthony, who fled to the desert to listen to God, was hospitable to those who sought him and caught him. A healthy heart offers hospitality.

American saints -- and migration

Today is the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. She’s among the small handful of men and women who have been canonized by the Catholic Church who are known for their work in what is now the United States. I think it’s worthwhile looking at the list of American saint, with an eye on issues of migration.

First, the whole list: there are 11 canonized saints known for their work in the United States.

1.       St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. From Italy, worked with Italians immigrants

2.       St. Junipero Serra, from Catalonia (Spain), came north from Mexico and worked with native Americans

3.       St. Marianne Cope, immigrant from Germany, worked with leprosy patients in Hawaii

4.       St. Damien de Veuster, “Damien the Leper,” from Belgium, worked with leprosy patients in Hawaii

5.       St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, from France, worked with pioneers west of Mississippi and with Native Americans

6.       St. Mother Theodore Guerin, from France, worked with American pioneers in Indiana

7.       St. Isaac Jogues, from France, worked with Native Americans in New York

8.       St. John Neumann, from Bohemia (Czech Republic), worked with German immigrants

9.       St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, from New York, worked with the people of Maryland

10.   St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk from New York, life of prayer in Montreal

11.   St. Katherine Drexel, from Philadelphia, worked with African Americans and Native Americans

Of those eleven, eight were immigrants themselves:

1.       St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, from Italy

2.       St. Junipero Serra, from Catalonia (Spain)

3.       St. Marianne Cope, from Germany

4.       St. Damien de Veuster, “Damien the Leper,” from Belgium

5.       St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, from France

6.       St. Mother Theodore Guerin, from France

7.       St. Isaac Jogues, from France

8.       St. John Neumann, from Bohemia (Czech Republic)

Of the eleven, seven worked with Native Americans. Obviously, Native Americans are not immigrants, unless their ancestors strayed south of the Rio Grande for too long. But from the perspective of Native Americans, settlers of European descent are immigrants. There are host/guest issues here. Anyway, the seven:

1.       St. Junipero Serra, worked with Native Americans in Mexico and California

2.       St. Marianne Cope, worked with leprosy patients in Hawaii

3.       St. Damien de Veuster, worked with leprosy patients in Hawaii

4.       St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, worked with pioneers west of Mississippi and with Native Americans

5.       St. Isaac Jogues, from France, worked with Native Americans in New York

6.       St. Kateri Tekakwitha was herself Mohawk from New York

7.       St. Katherine Drexel, worked with African Americans and Native Americans

Six of the eleven worked with immigrants or internal migrants – that is, pioneers:

1.       St. Frances Xavier Cabrini worked with Italians immigrants

2.       St. Rose Philippine Duchesne worked with pioneers (migrants) west of Mississippi

3.       St. Mother Theodore Guerin with American pioneers (migrants) in Indiana

4.       St. John Neumann worked with German immigrants

5.       St. Elizabeth Ann Seton ran schools – AND worked with orphans from immigrant families

6.       St. Kateri Tekakwitha lived among Europeans, all immigrants from her perspective

7.       St. Katherine Drexel worked with involuntary immigrants – that is, slaves and their descendants

To me it seems bizarre beyond belief that an American Catholic could be persuaded to adopt an unwelcoming stance – or even hostility – toward immigrants.