Gospel of the Hospitable Family

I think it would be better to change the phrase “Gospel of the Family” (Relatio Synodi [R.S.]) of the 2014 Extraordinary Synod) into “Gospel of the Hospitable Family” for the Ordinary Synod in October 2015.

I think the following four realities deserve more attention in the discussion of the social context and the challenges in family life today: (1) the homelessness and the insecure residency of many families worldwide, (2) the many refugee families who have fled and are fleeing from war and oppression,

(3) the age-old shadow of idolatry of the family, or the priority of family interest over the common good, especially with the reality of clannishness, tribalism, or political dynasties in many weak States, and (4) the estrangement, alienation, or insufficient compassion that Catholics in problematic relationships or fragile families have experienced in their contact with some church institutions and communities. 

On the estrangement of some Catholics in problematic or broken relationships, one reads in the Instrumentum Laboris (Working Document) for the 2014 Extraordinary Synod: “persons who are separated, divorced or single parents sometimes feel unwelcome in some parish communities…some clergy are uncompromising and insensitive in their behavior; and, generally speaking…the Church, in many ways, is perceived as exclusive, and not sufficiently present and supportive” (I.L. 75).  These Catholics feel like unwelcome strangers in the Church.

Just as the Body of Christ cannot turn its back on those who suffer from poverty and disease, it cannot be heartless toward those who suffer from estrangement, broken relationships, and fragile families.  As Vatican II affirms: “The Church encompasses with her love all those who are afflicted by human misery and she recognizes in those who are poor and who suffer, the image of her poor and suffering founder.  She does all in her power to relieve their need and in them she strives to serve Christ.” (Lumen Gentium 8)

On the plight of refugees, the “Message” of the Extraordinary Synod says: “We think of so many poor families, of those who cling to boats in order to reach a shore of survival, of refugees wandering without hope in the desert, of those persecuted because of their faith and the human and spiritual values which they hold.  These are stricken by the brutality of war and oppression.”  The plight of refugees belongs to the category of “families in extreme situations.” 

I propose to include in the discussion of the vision and mission of Jesus as regards the family his radical redefinition of his family: “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew12:50).

Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of God’s Reign or Kindom, one image of which is the gathering of peoples, especially estranged peoples, to feast on “God’s abundance” of gifts “for renewed community” (John Koenig).  As Jesus declared, “Many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the Kindom of heaven” (8:11).

God’s Kindom is much more important than any treasured ties based on blood, marriage, affinity, descent, or the decision of guardians or authority figures.  Thus, Christ has declared: “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (10:37).  Among faithful followers of Christ, (baptismal) water is thicker than blood.  Water in the Holy Spirit is weightier than ancestral blood.

Jesus rejects any idolatry of the family, and thus conscientious pastors, missionaries, and theologians ought to consider the possibility that a “Gospel of the Family” might turn into a betrayal of the true Gospel in contexts in which clannishness or tribalism prevails to the detriment of the common good. 

In reference to one of the shadows in Philippine family life, the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines states: “Unity is sometimes solely based on ties of flesh and blood.  The family community itself consequently becomes insensitive to the greater demands of the common good.  When this happens, the families no longer care to participate in the development of society or the mission of the Church.” (PCP II, 582)

Especially among members of the elite, the welfare, comfort, prosperity, or political power of their families is their concern above all.  The unequal access to politico-economic power in many struggling societies contributes considerably to the pervasiveness and persistence of poverty, which in turn contributes to the dissolution of many marriages (R.S. 8) and to the decision of many couples to live together and delay or do without a church wedding, which in some locales is deemed “too expensive” (R.S. 42).  “Economic difficulties” constitute one of the significant obstacles to “the responsible procreation and education of children” (PCP II, 584).

The new family of Jesus comprises those who welcome the will of heaven, which finds a home in their hearts.  In this light, I hope the 2015 Ordinary Synod would include in its discussions of the family apostolate the Christian practice of hospitality.

Jesus valued hospitality when he sent out the Twelve two by two to preach the good news and heal the sick in villages throughout Galilee, and he instructed them to take no bread, bag, or money, for they were to hope for and rely on the hospitality of households that would welcome them (Mark 6:7-13).  The mission of the disciples involved the acceptance and offering of gifts: they were travelling strangers who received the gift of hospitality (food and shelter), and they offered their gifts of healing and good news.

The apostle Paul benefited from and promoted “house church hospitality” (Koenig).  He urged fellow believers to cherish God’s mercy through Christ and his Gospel by avoiding complacency and by offering their bodies as “a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).  One of the ways in which believers can practice the sacrificial life in a world that at times can be hostile to them is the following: “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.  Practice hospitality [philoxenia].” (12:13)

“Xenos, the word that means ‘stranger’ in Greek, also means ‘guest’ and ‘host’…xenophobia [is] fear of the stranger…philoxenia [is] a love of the guest or stranger.  Philoxenia can also mean love of the whole atmosphere of hospitality and the whole activity of guesting and hosting.” (Ana Maria Pineda)

Although it never mentioned hospitality, the “Message” of the Extraordinary Synod, in the first biblical text it quoted, offered the image of a Christ seeking hospitality: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)  A few paragraphs later, the “Message” called for a Church that would be hospitable to everybody, as it stated: “Christ wanted his Church to be a house with doors always open to welcome everyone.” 

Similarly, the Relatio Synodi does not mention hospitality, but near its conclusion it offers an image of the Church as a hospitable people: “The Church can assume a valuable role in supporting families, starting with Christian Initiation, by being welcoming communities” (R.S. 61). 

In the case of Evangelii Gaudium, this image is found: “A people for everyone… The Church must be a place of mercy freely giv­en, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel” (E.G. 114).

In its Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (1965), Vatican II mentions “active hospitality” as one of the ways in which the family accomplishes its divine “mission of being the primary vital cell of society,” and it lists the following “among the various works of the family apostolate…adopting abandoned children, showing a loving welcome to strangers, helping with the running of schools…supporting married people and families involved in material and moral crises” (Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11). 

The Relatio Synodi mentions the adoption of children as an expression of “openness to life,” and it says: “The adoption of children, orphans and the abandoned and accepting them as one’s own is a specific form of the family apostolate (cf. Apostolicam Actuositatem, III, 11)...Such a choice is a powerful sign of family love, an occasion to witness to one’s faith and to restore the dignity of a son or daughter to a person who has been deprived of this dignity.” (R.S. 58)

What is Christian hospitality?  It is “the practice of providing space where the stranger is taken in and known as one who bears gifts” (Pineda).  The stranger is not just the foreigner, but can be the homeless person, the orphan, the evacuee, the refugee, the outcast, the abandoned, the forgotten, or the estranged member of the community. 

 

Even without possessions, every needy stranger bears the gift of his or her joyful and sorrowful memories and stories, which can offer real-life lessons.  “Strangers have stories to tell which we have never heard before, stories which can redirect our seeing and stimulate our imaginations” (Thomas Ogletree).

For the believer, however, the ultimate gift is the mysterious presence of the Lord and the divine word in the person of the stranger in need (Matthew 25:35).  Pope Francis says: “Whenever we encounter in love another person, we learn something new about God.  Whenever our eyes are opened to acknowledge the other, we grow in the light of faith and knowledge of God.” (E.G. 272) 

When Christ is welcomed as the guest in the hearts or lives of believers, a transformation occurs in which the guest becomes the host who makes believers feel at home in God’s presence and who offers the gift of wisdom, light, energy, rest or relief from suffering. 

For example, Jesus was a guest at dinner in Matthew’s house in which “many tax collectors came and ate with him and his disciples,” but he became the gracious host in showing them God’s gift of mercy and friendship (9:10-13).  In turn, Matthew the host became a guest, as he experienced the welcoming and gracious presence of God through Jesus.

Christian hospitality “involves creating space where people can learn how to receive and give” (Pineda) and where guests can turn into hosts, and hosts into guests.  Such an understanding of hospitality resembles that of married life, as there is “mutual self-giving in the Sacrament of Marriage” and mutual receptivity to or acceptance of the other (R.S. 21).  Each spouse has made the commitment to open one’s heart, one’s inner house or sanctuary, to the other spouse and to keep it open for life, so that spouses regularly turn into guests and hosts of each other’s inner house.

The lack of mutuality or mutual consent among spouses was perhaps one of the reasons for the opposition of the historical Jesus to the practice of divorce in his patriarchal society.  The decision to divorce could be made by the man alone through a certificate of divorce given to the woman (Deuteronomy 24:1), and it was not rare for the woman to find herself in a worse or dire economic condition afterwards.  Thus, it was not rare for a divorce to be unfair to the woman. 

Jesus cared for women who yearned for healing, right relationships, or relief from suffering (Matthew 9:20-22; 15:21-28) and unlike other Jewish teachers, he welcomed female disciples (27:55-56). 

After his statements on divorce and “eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom” (Mt 19:12), Jesus welcomed the little children (19:13-15).  They usually are the ones who endure the most suffering when their parents undergo divorce.  Such suffering is a form of “injustice which very often is associated with divorce” (R.S. 47).  The dissolution of a marriage and its aftermath almost always make it more difficult for a household to be hospitable to little children. 

At the same time, this question ought to be considered: even if he was primarily concerned about the fate of the woman and the children after a divorce, could the wise Jesus have wanted to give a rock-hard teaching on divorce and the indissolubility of marriage, when he was aware that his primary interlocutors were “some Pharisees [who] came to test (or trap) him” (19:3)?  It would be interesting to examine the question on how Sacred Scripture is utilized in the R.S. and the 2015 Instrumentum Laboris.

Missionary activity and pastoral care for those who suffer from homelessness, abandonment, neglect, discrimination, exclusion, persecution, or broken relationships can be envisioned as a venture in mutual and active hospitality in which space is created for everybody to receive and share gifts. 

Active hospitality does not merely wait for the homeless, the stranger, or the needy to come and beg for help or shelter.  Believers go out to meet them in the streets or to look for their huts, hovels, or holes-in-the-wall in order to invite them into welcoming hearts and hearths and to ask them to share the gifts of their presence, feelings, memories, and stories.

Missionaries, pastors and pastoral agents, including married couples and their families, who reach out to fragile families and couples in problematic relationships have to do so with sensitivity and receptivity to their real-life stories and struggles and the day-to-day signs of how “the grace of God works also in their lives” such as their everyday energy “to care for one another in love and to be of service to the community in which they live and work” (R.S. 25).

Another sign of God’s grace at work in persons with problematic relationships is the deep thirst for true love, and this is shown in the passionate interaction between two strangers, Jesus and the Samaritan woman in social intercourse at the well (John 4:4-26). 

It would be a practice of both wisdom and humility for missionaries and pastoral agents who want to proclaim the Gospel of the Hospitable Family to be receptive to or to seek first the day-to-day signs of grace, God’s self-giving, in the lives of fragile families and wounded couples, and to acknowledge, to show appreciation for, and to learn from these signs of self-giving, and to let themselves be surprised by these signs of grace.

After receiving the gifts of initial welcome and encouraging signs of grace, missionaries and pastoral agents can offer their gifts of compassionate and patient pastoral “accompaniment” (R.S. 45, E.G. 169) and the timely and eventual challenge to couples or family members to proceed to the next or higher stage of growth in their relationship with God, their interpersonal relationship, and their participation in the life, worship, and mission of the Church.  “To find the right way to gain their trust, their openness, and their readiness to grow,” wise discernment is necessary on the part of pastoral agents who accompany them (E.G. 172).

A “Gospel of the Hospitable Family” is relevant in our time of ecological crisis and anthropogenic climate change.  Jesus once said, “foxes have holes and birds have nests,” but humans are homeless (Matthew 8:20) usually because of indebtedness, greed, aggression, or war. 

In our time, many humans are still homeless, while the foxes are losing their holes and the birds their nests with the destruction of their habitats owing to greed, irresponsibility, and indifference, which also sustain involuntary and oppressive forms of poverty globally.  Human activities are rapidly depriving many vulnerable people and endangered species of hospitable places, spaces and places where they can thrive.

In discussing “the Wisdom of the Biblical Accounts” in his latest encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis includes the following text from the Torah: “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers’ (Lev 25:23)” (L.S. 67). 

The Creator is the ultimate owner of the earth, the “common home” of all earthly creatures.  The Creator is the Host, and humankind and all other species are guests, or at least strangers who are welcome to partake of and cultivate the gifts of God’s earth. 

The Creator has chosen humankind to be a genuine partner with a unique responsibility to help keep and make the earth hospitable to all peoples and other creatures.  Such responsibility requires humankind to create great space in their hearts, their inner houses, for other families, other peoples, other species, and the Ultimate Other, each one of whom bears visible and invisible gifts, benefits and challenges.

To conclude, (1) I propose to change the phrase “Gospel of the Family” into “Gospel of the Hospitable Family.”  (2) I propose to include in the description of the vision and mission of Jesus his radical redefinition of his family in order to maintain the challenge of the Gospel in contexts in which people tend toward clannishness, tribalism, dynastic politics, or an idolatry of the family.  

(3) I propose to include in the discussion on the vocation and mission of the family the Christian practice of active hospitality in which the homeless, the vulnerable, the stranger, and the estranged are sought, welcomed, befriended, and considered bearers of visible or invisible gifts.

Gender and Sex in Genesis 2-3

What do chapters 2-3 of the Book of Genesis say about gender relations and the deep human hunger for emotional and sexual intimacy? What was the serpent that lured the woman to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is there something wrong with “knowing good and evil”?

In Genesis 4:1, “Adam knew (yada’) his wife Eve, and she became pregnant.” The knowledge that leads to pregnancy is knowledge in practice and not just in theory. Here, knowing is inseparable from doing. In the case of marriage, ideally it is intimate knowledge that is gained from shared activities not just in the bedroom, and it goes beyond the shallow knowledge from casual sexual encounters, where many people choose to remain nameless or to give false identities. Truly intimate knowledge among spouses raises marriage to sanctity rather than promiscuity in contrast to the animal that mates with any partner out of instinct.

Similar to knowing one’s spouse, knowing good and evil in Genesis is primarily practical knowledge, which is gained from doing and not just from thinking. Furthermore, the expression “good and evil,” like “light and darkness” and “heaven and earth,” can refer to a scale or a continuum of everything in which the two terms are the extremes. Thus, “knowing good and evil” can mean doing everything or at least being capable of doing everything.

God told the man: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die (or you are doomed to die many times)” (Gen 2:17). The desire to do everything or to be able to do everything has brought death and destruction to human beings across many generations.

The serpent told the woman, “The moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods (Elohim) who know good and evil” (Gen 3:5). “Elohim” can be translated also as “rulers” or “mighty ones,” and thus the message could be: “you will be like (absolute) rulers who attempt to do everything.”

In society, no individual, family, or group should be given the ways and means to do everything they want. Absolute rule by anybody or any group should be avoided, and an effective system of accountability, check and balance and the review and oversight of the decisions and actions of rulers should be put in place. The exercise of power without accountability will arouse greed, envy, lust and other base instincts that will cause death and destruction to oneself and others possibly from one generation to the next.

The principle of check and balance can be discerned even in God’s choice of a helper for the human creature. “The Lord God said: ‘It is not good for the human to be alone. I will make for him a helper (ezer) as in front of him’” (Gen 2:18). What is “a helper as in front of him,” which is usually translated as “a suitable helper” or “a fitting partner”? None of the wild animals that God formed and brought to the human proved to be such a helper (Gen 2:19-20).

God formed the fitting helper, the woman, from the tsela’ (Hebrew for rib or side) of the human creature. While most biblical translations choose “rib,” it is possible to translate tsela’ as “side” especially if one brings into the picture what some ancient peoples especially ancient Greeks believed: the original human creature had four arms, four legs, two faces, and two sexes like twins joined at their backs or like Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man with four arms and four legs in a square and a circle.

The original human creature was lonely in the absence of a familiar face, and did not see such familiar face in any of the wild animals that God brought to be “a helper as in front of him.” Finally, the man recognized the familiar face in the woman that God took from his side. For German rabbi, Samson Hirsch (1808-1888), “woman was created from man to show that only in partnership do the two form a complete human being.”

A superior partnership can be formed where there is face-to-face interaction and where the partners can freely unite or separate from each other, unlike in the original human creature where male and female had no choice in the back-to-back conjunction. “Man needs to live face-to-face with the Other, dancing to the choreography of his own freedom” (Avivah Zornberg). The complete human being entails a face-to-face partnership into which the sexes should freely enter.

“A helper as in front of him” can also mean “a helper against him.” The medieval French rabbi, Rashi (1040-1105), says: “If man is worthy, the woman will be ‘a helper;’ if he proves to be unworthy she shall be against him.” Thus, for man, the woman is "katapat" (Filipino): “an equal who can face him as worthy confidant or worthy opponent.” No animal can be a worthy or effective opponent of man when he chooses to be cruel or oppressive.

What about the crafty serpent that deceived the woman to eat the forbidden fruit? Many religious teachers have considered that serpent to be the devil and the real opponent of humankind.

For most biblical scholars, the serpent is a multivalent symbol of cunning, life, and the ancient fertility cults. The serpent is a symbol of cunning because it can move quietly and secretly before it makes a deadly strike. It can symbolize life because it seems to regenerate itself whenever it sheds its skin. It also resembles the phallus, the erect penis.

It is suggested in Genesis 3 that the serpent used to stand erect, for the punishment for its deception was “on your belly shall you crawl” (Gen 3:14). Some religious teachers have concluded that the fault of the woman was lust, for she decided to set aside God’s prohibition as she attended to and interacted with an erect serpent.

Biblical scholar, Bernhard Anderson, describes the ancient fertility cults involving the god or Baal in Canaan, where the Israelites settled, as follows: “The Baal of a region is the ‘lord’ or ‘owner’ of the land…The astonishing revival of nature [after winter] was due to sexual intercourse between Baal and his partner...Farmers were not mere spectators of the sacred marriage...Human pairs, by imitating the action of Baal and his partner, could bring the divine pair together in fertilizing union.” Thus, there were temple prostitutes with whom worshippers could imitate the sexual action of the gods in order to revive and preserve the fertility of both the land and the people.

The God of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, and David is a God who understands the very human desire for sexual intimacy, but is a God who does not require the sexual act whether to achieve emotional intimacy between human beings or to achieve a sacred union between the divine and the human. God can be so close to us as one who chooses to dirty his hands in forming the human creature from the humus of the ground (Gen 2:7) or to act like the father of the bride who leads the woman to her man (Gen 2:22). Yet God is free from the human condition in which sexual self-discipline has been a perennial challenge especially for men in authority.

After the woman and the man ate the forbidden fruit, they began to feel the desire to do everything including the desire to dominate, and concomitantly they felt fear and shame about their nakedness, which makes one vulnerable to domination by another. The couple lost great trust in each other, became ashamed of their bodies, and thus underwent their first “death.”

After their offence, they hid from God, who sought them out and asked questions like a wise parent who apparently knew already the problem (Gen 3:8-11). “God opened the dialogue to give the man the opportunity to acknowledge his sin and be pardoned. Instead he hurled against God the very kindness that God had shown him, the gift of the woman.” (Midrash Aggadah)

A blame game begins: the man blames the woman, “whom You put here with me” (Gen 3:12), while the woman blames the serpent, an animal God had made. The worsening offence damages the relationship among human beings, the rest of creation, and the Creator. Alienation or estrangement among them is a state of sin, and the sacred writer describes the disorder of such a state (Gen 3:14-19).

Sin turns the partnership of man and woman into a relationship of domination: “I will increase your labor and your pregnancies; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your desire shall follow that of your husband, and he shall be above you.” (3:16)

In ancient or traditional communities, “women would be facing up to 8 pregnancies and would understandably be unwilling at times to be sexual” (Carol Meyers), but husbands would insist on sex and expect to have their way, whenever they desire sex. Sin denies or obscures a woman’s right to have equal say on the times for sex, the manner or style of sex, and the frequency of pregnancy.

A relationship of domination of the husband over the wife greatly increases the woman’s pain in bringing up children, as she is usually expected to be solely or primarily responsible for child-rearing. Thus she will experience more pain than her husband will, as the child grows into a distinct individual and begins to detach from her with the attitude that, while woman is to be loved or cared for, she has to be kept subordinate.

Among the lessons of Genesis 2-3 is the following: God’s original vision of gender relations involves equality and mutuality and not domination among the sexes even in the realm of the satisfaction of the natural hunger for sexual intimacy. Equality and mutuality among spouses in our communities have national consequences in the long run. The authoritarian and undemocratic tendencies of many of our political, economic, and religious leaders can be partly but firmly traced to the examples of their parents and the way they were brought up as children.