It is an odd hour of the day or night…The phone rings…or a knock at the door…and the invitation is given…a gathering, right now, come as you are, or don’t come at all.
It was one of the things that teen agers did in the 50’s and 60’s. People would show up in pajamas or whatever. Come as you are parties have kept making brief reappearances in our pop culture since then with various twists.
In the late 80’s there was even a rocking top 40 hit by Peter Wolf about these gatherings. The music video had him hopping and bouncing down an idyllic busy downtown main street and everyone shows up at the city park for a dance.
I can see it happening with a group twitter or text invitation these days.
The invitation comes at an unexpected time, whether we are prepared or not, will we respond?
Abraham was sitting in the hot sun, his life stuck, at a dead end, when three strangers show up. It is a mysteries encounter, it switches back and forth from angels in disguise to the hidden presence of the Almighty come to pay a visit. And Abraham entertains angels unawares. Abraham responds to the first come as you are party, and the unexpected event happens at his home, and Abraham’s dead end future bursts wide open.
Probably one of the most famous icons depicts this encounter. Three winged beings seated at table. The icon is sometimes called the Hospitality of Abraham. Sometimes it is called the Trinity. Interesting how this image of the triune God has prominent hospitality connotations.
The divine image as hospitality in motion, as surprising visitor, as unexpected invitation, as entertaining sudden guests who are dangerous and powerful.
Abraham’s encounter provides a strong contrast to the next visit that the three mysterious strangers make in their walk across the land, where they are threatened and abused.
The stranger as threat and victim or the stranger as a holy encounter.
God has that effect on people.
Hospitality is an appropriate theme for Lent, because it is ultimately about meeting God, encountering the holy.
The thing about the doctrine of the Trinity is that it is a dynamic relationship of mutual loving and giving to the other. And that dynamo of relations is based not on similarity but rather on difference and distinctiveness. In order for there to be a relationship there has to be the other, there has to be difference.
The heart of the Trinity is otherness and communion all at once. This says something about God and the image of God stamped into creation. It is about communion amidst diversity, not despite diversity but because of it. Otherness and holiness are intertwined.
Our culture is based largely on a sort of basic level of tolerance of diversity that is narrowly defined and controlled by washing over difference, while at the same time our culture is also organized around associations based on similarity. The founding assumption of our society is that difference is destructive, so we have to either pretend it isn’t there or circle the wagons into societies of sameness.
But triune communion and divine hospitality call us into something much deeper than tolerance and sameness. They call us to the holy encounter of the unknown, of being open to unexpected visitors, and even more than that, to seek them out.
The parable of the great banquet has this image of God as the one seeking out anyone who will respond, who will show up as they are, God seeking out the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, going down roads and lanes compelling whoever is met to come fill the House that has so much room. Some respond to the invitation some do not.
The troubling hospitality of divine communion seeks us out and in turn compels us to do likewise, to seek out, to invite.
Remember that it is God that we are hoping to encounter.
What does this troubling hospitality of divine communion look like? Ultimately it is the person of Christ that fully embodies this invasive holiness.
What would it look like for us to practice this divine hospitality of disruptive invitation?
How do we practice a hospitality that is active not passive, that doesn’t just wait around?
How do we practice this hospitality that not only gives but also receives? Sometimes we are the one who is invited, sometimes we are the guest, sometimes we are the holy visitor in need, who is receptive and open.
How do we practice this hospitality that makes room for those who have run out of room, which frees those who are stuck in sameness and that troubles those whose lives are walled off by the convenience and safety of mere tolerance?
What would it look like to live this hospitality of encountering the holy and the holy one and being willing to be unsettled by the addition of new constellations to our limited universe?
We are entertaining angels unaware.
When the call comes, when the knock is heard on the door, when the invitation goes out that there is a gathering, right now, to go as we are… what will we do?
The banquet of the triune God who is one yet three, who is other, who is communion, who is hospitality itself-the encounter beckons, right now, with each breath, with each person, in bread and wine, in the holy strangers that surround us as a great cloud of witnesses.