Who, how and why we welcome

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SHAKESPEARE, in Henry VI, Part 1 writes: “Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone.” Or is it Tolkien’s words from The Lord of the Rings: “…oft the unbidden guest proves the best company”?

For Jesus, after a season of healing and teaching, He crosses the boundary into Gentile country, the area around Tyre, in modern-day Lebanon. He seeks a time of anonymous rest, but without success.

Jesus also crosses another boundary: the boundary of the company He keeps.

In this tough little story in Mark’s Gospel, (7:24-30), Jesus and the woman appear to be alone, whereas in Matthew, (15:21-28) the disciples intervene and try to have the Greek woman sent away. It is an uncomfortable encounter. It is worth noting that this story is probably a fragment of a larger conversation.

As you read you wonder if Jesus is tired, and not focussing on what the woman who came for help to heal her sick daughter was saying. Jesus had been teaching that restrictive food laws and table practices were not essential in God’s Kingdom that Jesus had come to expand. Yet here He callously says God’s blessing was first for the chosen people of Israel first. “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Or is it said ironically; is there the glimmer of a twinkle in His eyes as He speaks? The cold print doesn’t easily give clues how He speaks. We all know people who excel in good-natured banter, who get away with it because of the tone of their voice or facial expression. Jesus had already left the safety of the land of the children of Israel to visit this land of ‘Greek dogs’.

Could it possibly be He relished the woman’s quick riposte to His comment, and was challenged and refreshed by her tenacious, outspoken faith? “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

When it comes to hospitality and welcome, in the Kingdom world Jesus is redefining, we should not look only at who sits at the table, but who is beneath it, and who hasn’t even made it into the room.

God’s hospitality, which the Church is privileged to offer on God’s behalf, is not only for those on the inside of the faith. It is for everyone.

Who is really welcome? If they’re not like us, if they don’t look like us, sound like us, dress like us, act like us, do we readily make room for them, is it for them? When we say, “all are welcome”, do we really mean it, or are there dog whistles sounding, so high that only the unwelcome dogs under our table hear them, and all they hear is:

“this isn’t really for you; you’ll need to wait and see what’s left; you might be happier somewhere else.”

In our churches do we give barely the crumbs of what is left?

In our treatment of women, sexual minorities, ethnic minorities, children, refugees, the homeless, are they only to get the crumbs? When thinking of radical faith and the hospitality it commands, who is looking for crumbs, before we push them away?

Hospitality in the name of Jesus is more than a slogan about inclusiveness, and more than a warm welcome. It makes us think about who we welcome, and how we welcome and why we welcome. It points to the fact that maybe, from the dogs under the table eating the crumbs, we too might learn something more about faith, and how it touches the lives of everyone.

The Very Rev Dr Derek Browning is minister at Edinburgh: Morningside