KINGDOM OF GOD: ENVISIONING HOSPITALITY
The Student Editor of the Dharma Abhiyan, an annual publication of the Dharma Jyoti Vidya Peeth, asked me to write an article on ‘Kingdom of God: Envisioning Hospitality’. Being in the diocese of Mumbai, I found the topic quite challenging. I live in Vashi, Navi Mumbai, and cover the geographical space of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa. I come across a number of people on the street who are homeless, poor, marginalized and downtrodden. The diocese is also unique in having various ministries and missions among the villagers, tribals and scheduled castes.
The gospel of Luke is written to show how the gospel of Jesus Christ became relevant and meaningful to the ordinary people, the poor and the outcastes. When Jesus started his public ministry, he spoke on the Kingdom of God and helped the marginalized to understand that they have a space there. The gospel in Chapter 14: 15- 24 says that the privileged people who were informed early to come and dine with the King in the feast did not turn up and the host angrily asked the staff to go and invite all those who are on the street and margins to come for the feast. Accordingly, they filled the house with people who are on the street and lanes of the city. Jesus, as He is teaching on the Kingdom of God, is telling everyone that the invited or chosen people of God will not be there if they are preoccupied with their own concerns and started speaking of various excuses (vs. 18-20). Jesus said, ‘ for I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper ‘ (vs. 24). Jesus was saying this in the midst of a worshipping community where there were teachers and keepers of the Divine Law such as the scribes and the Pharisees. A person who is preoccupied with personal matters and selfish interests cannot remain open to receive the invitation of God and enter in to the blessings of the Kingdom of God. The Church, as a called out community, is expected to be open and welcoming. If the Church remains isolated, insulated and introvert, it becomes selfish and communitarian and looses the status of being in the Kingdom of God.
Jesus said, ‘when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you ‘ (vs. 13-14). This is the characteristics of the Kingdom of God. This is reflected in the passage in verses 21and 23. Go to the streets and lanes of the city….go out into the high ways and hedges. The Kingdom of God has preferential option for the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind. Jesus made this real in his public ministry by moving from place to place and people to people. He did not have vested interests and did not seek places where safety and security are found. He said that son of man has no place to lay his head.
Church, the sign of the Kingdom.
The church is called out from the world to be in the world for its transformation with the values of the Kingdom. Can the church be going out into the street to express her solidarity with the people there? Because they are the poor, the people are open to receive and welcome. The lame want to be free to rejoice with the rest of the community and to live with them sharing the fellowship. Twenty three years ago, when our church decided to move into the ‘red streets’ of Bombay it was a sweating affair. But over the years , the ministry has grown with three RLA ( Red Light Areas ) Centres having 65 children , Navjeevan village with 160 children, Navjyoti School with 378 children , Extension Homes with 65 college going youth and Mothers programme with about 500 mothers. There are mothers who have moved out of the trade; children who are married and settled and a few going for higher studies.
Kingdom of God is a manifestation of God’s love. The Church has to manifest the unique love of God manifested in Christ Jesus. It was on the road to Jerusalem through Jericho that Jesus stood and asked the disciples to call the blind man. The disciples wanted to silence him. But Jesus wanted them to know that the Kingdom of God for which he is giving his life on the Cross is inclusive. The blind was healed and he Joined Jesus in going to Jerusalem. The inclusive nature of the Church was revealed when the Mar Thoma Parish in Kalyan started a ministry to the intellectually challenged, twenty five years ago. Now it caters to 78 children and the School has A- grade certification. Navodaya Movement of the Diocese is commencing a rehabilitation programme for those graduates who come out from that school.
People on the street, high ways and lanes are the homeless people. Jesus sends them to their homes as he instructed the person who lived among the tombs (Mk 5: 1-20). The Church today needs to ask this question whether they should remain there on the street or rather find a place to live. It was quite challenging when the staff of Navodaya Movement of the Mumbai diocese found colonies around the Dump Yards of Mumbai- people living among the waste and living out of it. This is dehumanizing. The ministry among such people revealed that the communities can have transformation; 500 children are now going to school and the women in one Dump Yard decided to start Self Help Groups (SHG) and to find alternative ways of living. Kingdom of God teaches the Human communities to live a life that goes in the life style of Jesus to impart life to the dying and the deprived and to give it abundantly. Adding life to the impoverished is a characteristic of the Kingdom of God, where such are invited to the feast of the Master. The people in the Dump yards are now learning how to better their standard of living.
Navodaya Movement has dared to face the challenges of the Transgender Community as well. India has about 490,000 Transgenders with a literacy rate of about 56 percent. Most of them are on the road found begging or engaged in sex work for their living. Very recently, they are recognized as a ‘Third Gender, by a Supreme Court ruling in India in April 2014. The intention of the ministry of Navodaya is to facilitate new avenues of skill enhancement, education and alternate ways of living to these members. The movement aspires to provide social justice and instill in them a sense of human dignity to live in the world as any other citizen of the Country. A helpline is given to them (1 800 3000 5110). This has helped Navodaya to understand that there are about 45,000 Transgenders in Kerala itself. Navodaya believes that redemption and transformation are possible to the underprivileged and can contribute to create a new social order based on human dignity and divine justice. We read in the Book of Acts 8: 26-43 that a Third Gender from Ethiopia went to Jerusalem for worship, had access to read the Book of Isaiah; the Holy Spirit enabled Philip to teach him the Scripture, lead him to faith and then baptize him. This is an eye opener to all to realize that the Creator God has plans in Jesus Christ for the redemption of Third Genders and to accept them in the Kingdom of God.
Envisioning Hospitality.
Hospitality is a virtue. This is repeatedly mentioned in the Holy Bible. Jesus Christ accepted hospitality and asked the disciples to feed the multitude. He shared the last supper with the disciples and took with him a thief from the cross to the paradise. A church that does not show hospitality cannot be called ‘the body of Christ’. Hospitality is a fundamental attitude of openness towards one’s fellow beings. On the one hand we recognize the image of God in every human being irrespective of status, gender, caste or religion. On the other, we recognize the divine plan of salvation God has opened for us in Jesus Christ. Hospitality is an opening to go along with the life of God. It is a means of self emptying like Jesus Christ to give space for the other. It is not charity. It is receiving a person or group of persons with a smile. Hospitality in the Church may upset the status quo when we receive the people who are on the street, marginalized, lost and who are counted as the least and the last. It is full of pain, risk and inconvenience. Members of the Church are called to be the Disciples of Christ, following the discipline of a servant to wash the feet of the strangers who come from the dusty roads and filthy environment of the lanes. This is a call to sweat with the sweat of the travellers. The interaction of Jesus with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, robbers and outcastes indicates not only the pattern of ministry of the Kingdom of God but also a daring action to break the walls of division as a matter of extending hospitality to strangers and the so called ‘ enemies’. In the Kingdom of God there are only children of God all bearing the ‘ image of God’. This then is the radical message of Hospitality. Here’s is no private ownership and possessions, but only provisions of God for sharing and caring.
Envisioning Hospitality leads to concrete actions of the Gospel. We serve Jesus as is said in the Gospel of Mathew 25: 35 ff. We find joy in self-emptying for the abundant life of the other. In the ministry of Hospitality we take the otherness from the people and help them to ‘feel at Home ‘. Hence our prayer daily and always is, Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven ‘.
Geevarghese Mar Theodosius,
Episcopa, Mar Thoma Church.
