Hospitality

What hospitality means seems simple enough: welcoming the other, welcoming the coming of the other into the same, into my house, for example. But when in fact we actually offer hospitality, whom do we typically invite? Our friends, of course, those whose company we enjoy and from whom we can expect reciprocity (the circle of exchange), or else people whose favor we are currying. Either way, we welcome only those who serve our please or our interests, which means tightening the circle of the same, not welcoming the other. One very good proof of this is that we depend on the discretion of those whome we incite not to broadcast it all over creation, lest others - the real others, in this case - that they were not invited. So there is a good deal of inhospitality built into our hospitality. We welcome those who are welcome to begin with, not those who are unwelcome. But if hospitality is what we say it is - that is, welcoming the other 0 then ought it not be a matter of welcoming those who are unwelcome? Should it not be extended beyond our neighbors to strangers? Beyond our friends to our enemies? Beyond the invited to the uninvited? In fact, is not the very act of invitation foreign to the idea of hospitality - genuine or unconditional hospitality - inasmuch as "inviting" is a selection process whereby one puts in place in advance a set of prior conditions under which the hospitality will be exercised?...

The word "hospitality" derives from hostis + posse..."hospitality means to welcome or admit the "hostis," which in latin means the stranger, who is the guest (of a "host" in a "hotel); but a hostis is sometimes the stranger who is alien or "hostile."

John Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct? 78-79

Suits and tithes

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that here may be food in My house, test Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until there is no more need." Malachi 3:10

"At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your town. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the stranger, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do." -- Deuteronomy 14:28-29

The first verse gets thrown around a lot as a reason to tithe, but do we follow the second half? To "pour out for you a blessing until there is no more need." Is our tithe being used for the stranger? the orphan? the widow? For....NEED?

Or is it used solely for self-perpetuation? Salaries? Buildings? Savings?

Perhaps one of the greatest twistings of scriptures is the verse most often used on "stewardship day": the parable of the widow's mites. We are told we should be so willing to give our money that if we only have two mites we should give it.

This exposition misses the whole point of the parable. This parable is a condemnation on the institutions that allow a poor widow to give away her last two mites.

Modern subheadings obscure this in our Bibles, but let us not forget the verses preceding the parable:

And in his teaching he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."