Who gets to eat lunch? Who doesn’t? God expects us to show hospitality. So why do we insist on not feeding people?
Episode 29 of the Make Saints podcast: “Lunch”
the episode script
What would Jesus charge for lunch? I suppose it might depend on what it is. If he’s charging 32 bucks a pop and serving us McDonald’s, then I’d flip out.
Of course, Jesus didn’t charge the multitudes. He just took some kid’s lunch and used it to feed thousands.
So the question we might be thinking about is not what we should charge for lunch. It is if we should charge for anything.
On the one hand it is simple
Jesus didn’t charge people anything. In fact, he encouraged hospitality and the reliance on the generosity of others.
So this might mean that he does it for free. Or, as is closer, he served to the glory of God and accepted what people offered.
The fact that we find this method (of relying on what others offer us) an unreliable one says far more about us than it does the practice Jesus actually used in his own life.
What this highlights is our own refusal to operate within the paradigm that is commanded throughout Scripture and was natural for the Hebrew people of the time: hospitality.
If someone is at your door, you invite them in. If they are hungry, you feed them. These aren’t actions of the virtuous trying to be good people. This is the norm, the expectation of the culture.
Our norm is distrust and general unhospitality.
What then is hospitality for us?
I don’t think it only and precisely means that we must behave like first century Hebrew people. But it does suggest that, while we are living in step with our culture, we are out of step with God’s command. And that’s our starting place.
So how do we become more hospitable?
Well, hospitality, at its root, is defiantly not transactional. It is showing grace and generosity without regard to who the other person is or what we expect from them.
It is a generous gift.
This leads to an obvious conclusion, then: lunch should always be free.
Except…
Is hospitality within families different?
Our concerns for how we all should be paying for this food are legion. And nearly always top of mind. So it can be super easy to say: OK, got it. We give free food to our guests, but our people should pay their way.
This, of course, is reasonable and totally in line with our usual thinking. Especially if we consider the alternative: that “free” gets paid for by the organization and the organization gets funding from our offerings, so we pay for it both ways.
The problem with this reasoning in which we trace the dollars and determine costs is that we often see this as the whole of the conversation. In a very real way, we treat the idea of hospitality as mere “optics”. And not a function of the organization and its commitment to generosity.
Essentially, we render hospitality inconvenient and illogical and not, say, a command we are to do.
The Exclusivity of Charging
I have so far framed the idea of charging for lunch as a matter of hospitality. And one that I think is, at best, a slippery slope away from the gospel. But I definitely appreciate its utilitarian usefulness.
The other concern, and to me, the greater concern, is exclusion. Precisely the kind of preservation of an exclusive community.
The Church has often been a site of exclusion. From who is allowed to participate in its sacramental life to the protection of cultural norms that are most appreciated by WASPy upper middle class whites. We love to use fundraisers that utilize our class and cultural superiority: inviting the public to Tea where they might be served by uniformed volunteers or purchase the very common lunch staple: lobster.
For many, these are a bit of fun cosplay. In which we might pretend to be fancy for a little while. But others on the outside think that is exactly who we are.
Once, my Episcopal diocese cosponsored an event with the Lutheran synod and Roman Catholic diocese and the Catholic bishop thanked the Lutherans for their support in organizing and the Episcopalians…for our money.
It doesn’t matter who we think we are if stereotypes and separation clouds our vision of hospitality.
When lunch isn’t just lunch
It is no wonder that some of my friends are fighting about boxed lunches at General Convention. Because it isn’t just the idea that everyone’s gotta eat. It is full of the notion of hospitality.
This hilariously came a week after people were fighting over communion. Or more precisely, access to communion and whether hospitality is even relevant to who gets to eat that lunch.
This is deep, theological terrain for the most devoted. I am quite ambivalent toward both disputes: I have strong, conflicting emotions.
But I am genuinely moved by the idea that we be who we say we are. That hospitality and generosity ought to be our calling cards. That people feel welcome in our midst and that the love we share inspire them to want to be a part of this thing. Yes, all of this.
It also means feeding people. Eating lunch. Because we gotta eat. And some of us have the cash. And some of us don’t.
And that moment, when we think about it? That’s when people who don’t have the cash don’t show up.
Free
The economist will talk about scholarships for the needy. Microtargeting the people in need so that they understand that their lunch is free. It’s everyone else that has to pay.
More hoops. Leading to dysfunction. Exploitation. And exclusion remains. Look at college. Aid helps people go to college, but it is still overwhelmingly true that college isn’t balanced and that the poor, as a whole, are systematically boxed out.
In other words, maintaining an unbalanced system by lifting some into it won’t balance the system.
Hospitality isn’t making things free for the needy.
It is feeding who shows up.And we may have a million reasons for why we don’t want to. But none fundamentally change the fact that we aren’t called to judge. We are called to feed.