Living It Up

Text: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Other texts: Luke 14:1, 7-14

We seek the good life.

What kind of life is that? We know the answer in the core of our being. We know, as it says in Hebrews, that it has little to do with the love of money. It is not nourished by accumulation. Instead, it has something to do with contentment, peace, humor, generosity, companionship.

The book of Proverbs is an example of wisdom literature. Wisdom literature teaches us what the wise person would do. The wise person is the one who seeks the good life. Wisdom literature guides us to the good life. In the first short reading today, it teaches us about the wisdom of humility. Jesus adapts this teaching to his own.

The book of Hebrews—being a theological treatise disguised as a letter—is not primarily about how to live the good life. But the last chapter, from which we heard today, is. It tells us what the good life means for Christians. If Jesus by his existence and death replaced altar sacrifice for his followers, then how, Hebrews asks, can they now worship? How can they now show their love of God? Rather then leaving them to figure this all out, the author of Hebrews reserves the last chapter to guide them.

At the top of this guide are two commands. The first one is: continue to love one another. The word is phila-delphía, translated often as brotherly love (thus the motto of the city). Love other followers of Christ. And the second one is: show hospitality to strangers. The word for hospitality is philo-xenía, love of strangers. Strangers here does not just mean someone with whom you are not familiar. It means strange. Weird. Do not forget to love people who are weird. People maybe not like you very much.

So, to live the good Christian life: love the ones you’re with, and love the others, too. That sounds like something Jesus might say. Be hospitable to all. And especially, he says in the Gospel reading for today, especially the ones who seem strange to you.

To be a good host—to be a good practitioner of hospitality—is to think of others first. To think of them more than you think of yourself. A good host is aware of the needs of his or her guests. More, a good host goes out of the way to make sure those needs are met. A good host puts money and time and thought into nourishing guests in body and spirit. The host is driven by love of his or her friends, and, for Christians, equally of strangers. It is a model for Christian love.

Hospitality is a form of humility. Humility is social glue. It embodies interdependence, patience, and awareness of others. It is essential for good community. Humility requires a tolerance for self-doubt and uncertainty. A willingness to wait and see. A humble host is not independent, self-reliant, or self-righteous. A person certain that her or she is right is not a humble one.

But mostly, humility requires imagination. What would other people like? What would they dislike? This is more than asking: what would I like if I were in the shoes of that other person. It is more than the golden rule. It is imagining what it would be like to be that other person, with his or her background, abilities, history, not with yours. As if, as it says in Hebrews, as if you were in their body. Imagining what it would be like—not for you to be in jail, with all your education and strength and confidence—but imagining what it would be like to be that person in jail. What would it be like to be that person who is being tortured? And then, imagining that strange person so well that you love strange them, and act accordingly.

This hospitable imagination is not rare, exotic, or saintly. It serves nurses and counselors well. But also other people with empathetic imaginations who are not in care-giving occupations. Salespeople (the best of whom are servants to their customers), and good product designers. Steve Jobs of Apple, but maybe not Tim Cook, who replaced him. Empowering leaders, but maybe not charismatic ones. Effective teachers. Best friends.

Jesus advises us in his parable to be humble. To sit in the lowest place. The humble, he says, shall be exalted. But this is not easy advice to hear. None of us wants to be at the bottom. It makes us feel little and helpless. We fear that our survival and happiness—and our chance at the good life—depends on the power we ourselves have over our time and money and well-being.

But it is possible to be humble without being terrified if we put our trust in a higher power, in God, to care for us. It would be imprudent to do otherwise. So when Hebrews tells us to be content with what we have—do not push to the head table—it adds: “for [God] has said ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, what can anyone do to me?’”

It takes practice to remind ourselves of this. It is a spiritual discipline. We get better at it over time. Just as we do imagining ourselves being another.

The Gospel of Luke has a preference for a change in the the way the word is ordered. In Luke, Mary predicts that the powerful shall be brought down from their thrones and the lowly lifted up. In Luke, Jesus calls the poor blessed, but woe to the rich. But this readjustment of powerful and powerless, rich and impoverished, is not regime change. Not the same old structures but with new bosses. It is a change in the working of the world.

For Luke, the good life is a sign of and at the same time a cause of God’s new world. Which world comes out of our own humble actions and at the same time makes our actions possible. But it is not going to happen if we all continue to make a beeline for the best seats. The evidence of this is that so far it has not—either for each of us individually or for the world. The good life continues to elude us.

When reading the teachings and parables of Jesus, it helps to ask whether it is a commandment—your should do this—or an observation—you are doing this. But perhaps in this case, it is an invitation. If we practice being good hosts, if we approach others with humility, if we imagine ourselves to be as others are, then we trust the good life will be ours. And the world’s.