But a concern is raised that if welcome and compassion are privileged--or perhaps over privileged--where does spiritual formation take place? Where are Christian virtues modeled, practiced, and acquired? Where is saintliness and sanctity promoted, even expected?
In short, where does holiness fit in?
I think these are deep questions, and post-Unclean I've been thinking a great deal about queries along these lines.
The first thing I noted, in turning to this puzzle, was this: the people I tended to hold up as hospitality exemplars--people who showed radical compassion--were very often people of great holiness and sanctity. People of worship, prayer, moral discipline, and religious observance. I'm thinking here of people like Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, St. Francis, Jean Vanier, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I'm thinking of the people at my church: the most hospitable are often the most holy. I'm thinking of the holiness of people outside my religious tradition, like Gandhi and the Buddha.
And, of course, I'm thinking of Jesus.
The most holy people are often the most hospitable.
And yet, I stand by the argument I made in Unclean: the pursuit of moral purity often undermines the life of welcome as "sinners" and the morally "unclean" tend to be shunned and excluded. The church stories we all could share illustrating this dynamic would provide ample evidence of the dynamics Unclean was trying to describe.
So what's the trick? How are we to pursue holiness in a way that makes us more hospitable rather than less?
I think a part of the trick is this: holiness is a first-person rather than a third-person enterprise. Holiness is a personal rather than public affair.
Isn't this what Jesus was saying when he said don't worry about the speck in your sister's eye but attend to the beam in your own? Isn't Jesus saying that holiness is a first-person issue rather than a third-person issue? That holiness is about me and not about you?
When holiness becomes a third-person affair we end up as the moral police. We end up judging the behavior of everyone else. I think this is the root of the problem with the Christian culture wars. Across wide swaths of evangelical Christianity there is third-person finger wagging about the decline of values and morals in the larger culture. Christians become moral police and holiness Nazis (American culture: No soup for you!).
But in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus preached that holiness is a first-person, private, and closeted affair. Holiness is for you, not your neighbor. And what's the goal of all that holiness? I'd phrase it this way:
Holiness is a training you pursue to become more hospitable.
When I think of athletic training I think of the phrase "a finely tuned athlete." I think holiness is doing something similar, creating finely-tuned spiritual athletes.
The trouble is, to keep with the athletic metaphor, for most of Christianity holiness has become a spectator sport rather than a regimen of personal fitness.
So this is what I think is a piece of the puzzle in negotiating the relationship between holiness and hospitality. Is holiness a first-person or a third-person effort?
Holiness should be, if Jesus is to be believed, a first-person effort. Holiness shouldn't be moral blood sport, a spectator sport of moral finger wagging at the culture. Holiness should be a matter of personal training and fitness.
Holiness is about becoming a finely tuned instrument of welcome.
