Sacred hospitality

On Wednesday a colleague arrived unexpectedly just as I was making my lunch. I had run out of all my veg and was stretching what I had until my next shop. He was embarrassed and protested that I shouldn't worry about feeding him. Hospitality is sacred to me - probably the Celtic blood - and I couldn't possibly not offer him food. I would normally have spare food in the fridge or cupboard to concoct something on such occasions but of course, the cupboard was bare. I didn't even have any bread. So I eked out the soup I'd planned to have for supper followed by the pasta I'd cooked for lunch and we both had enough. It reminded me of the Jewish saying 'Just enough is plenty'. My colleague had forgotten about my Lent challenge and said he felt guilty but I think he cheered up quickly enough.

Sharing food is an essential part of our lives together in human families and society. Eating together, both for host and guest, creates a bond and changes our relationships. My ancestors were with the MacDonalds at Glencoe. Like other stories of brutality, what is most disturbing is the fact that the perpetrators had accepted hospitality; the violation of hospitality is a sacrilege in all ancient societies. It is, of course, the real sin of Sodom and Gomorrah that the sacred bond and duty of hospitality is violated ; it has been wrongly claimed for too long that this story is about homosexuality.

To keep people in poverty, to deny them the basics of life - enough food, adequate shelter and sufficient warmth- is immoral on many levels. One of those levels is to deny them the right to offer hospitality, which is to diminish their humanity. I have visited areas of the world where sacrificial hospitality has been offered to me from those living in poverty, so important is it to them to offer a fellow human being the basics of life. The more sacrificial the hospitality, the more affecting it is.

As I did my shop this week, I way aware of things that I would have liked to buy and couldn't: there were things like washing up liquid that needed replacing, so the items of food had to be adjusted to allow the money to suffice. This is the constant reality of some people living amongst us, to constantly battle with buying what can make a healthy meal as well as fitting the budget. The monotony of eating the same things and treats being out of the question week in, week out is life draining and diminishing. Watching others enjoy the simple extra pleasures that you are denied makes one feel of less value: a mistake that we value ourselves too often by what we have, not who we  are.

There are two weeks left of my challenge but I know that I can't simply go back to my old way of shopping: this experience will stay with me for a long time. We all have to exercise an element of denial to carry on living a financially privileged life (whether like me you have a modest but adequate  income or you have significant wealth) as countless people in the UK and across the world struggle to  make it through the day or the week. I remember a visit to Tegucigalpa in Honduras some years ago. I stood in the road in front of some houses, looking at the view beyond. The backdrop to the city was a large shanty town with makeshift houses, no sewerage, water or electricity.  In front of me were expensive houses  surrounded with high security fences and protected by armed guards and dogs. In the front of one yard was a car with a bumper sticker saying "Jesus es Señor de Tegucigalpa" which translates as "Jesus is Lord of Tegucigalpa" . I found myself wondering what kind of theological gymnastics make it possible to come out with such a statement and to live in such wealth while overlooking such poverty! But in reality, it's what we all do every day of our lives, it's just that the poor don't live next door, so we can 'forget' them more easily.

Eva