An Introduction to 'Alternative Ways'
There are only a couple relatively clear career paths for people interested in religion: become clergy or an academic. But sometimes those journeys are sidetracked or undesirable, for whatever reasons, and one must find alternative ways to live out their religion / faith in the public sphere. Options can include working for a NGO (charity, relief agency, etc.) or in religious bureaucracy (denominational organization, ecumenical council, religious publishing house, etc.) and others… perhaps less well known and seemingly less obvious. Today I am interested in writing about those ‘alternative ways’ because it is there where my good friend Ana is following a newly created path: radical hospitality in the form of nonprofit restaurants. She is not the first, I know, to want to explore the viability of these new kinds of eating establishments, but she is one of the few who explains her motivation in specifically religious terms as the praxis of biblical hospitality.
This is where Ana, however, should speak for herself, which she has, in an article she recently wrote and gave me permission to use in this context. Her voice is clear and true with a faithful and ethical purpose based in the biblical texts.
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Regardless of religious belief or affiliation, most people consider hospitality—the giving of oneself freely—to be a worthwhile virtue. Showing hospitality to friends and family is all but unconscious. However, showing hospitality to the stranger (gér) is far more difficult. Though the Hebrew Bible contains “no less than 36 commands to love the stranger” (Taylor, 37), a reasonable hesitation exists in an uncertain world. Opening a table in theory is vastly different from doing so in practice. Yet hospitality is a recurring biblical theme and cannot easily be dismissed. When the commands of the Hebrew Bible are considered in concert with Jesus’ message in the Gospels and the Epistles of the Early Church, an unmistakable mandate for hospitality emerges.
The Old Testament
Abraham in Genesis 18
All visitors were welcomed whole-heartedly as a matter of form. While not plainly written, it is clear that Abraham’s actions are an extravagant gift for his visitors. Inhospitality was, and is, a taboo among desert peoples, particularly in Bedouin enclaves. Sharing table or providing food, while only part of the hospitality requirement, is an important one and occurs in almost every biblical account. Yet the significance of hospitality in some biblical narratives is all but lost in a contemporary context.
Lot in Genesis 19
Lot invites strangers at the city gate to his home. In fact, Lot does more than invite, he “urged them strongly,” insisting they come with him. It is interesting to note that Lot seems to be the only person in Sodom to offer hospitality; a serious violation of the community ethic.
The Book of Job
All indications are that Job was a consummate host, was “blameless and upright” and abided by the holiness code and the laws of sacrifice (Job 1:1). He refused to curse God or claim sins not his own. Job’s sin is not inhospitality and his suffering is not self-inflicted; a fact found later in the book. However, the fact that inhospitality could be considered one of the few sins egregious enough to warrant continuous punishment, indicates the cultural veneration of hospitality.
The New Testament
Commensality - “the rules of tabling and eating as miniature models for the rules of association and socialization” - is practiced, even if unconsciously, by all people, every day (Crossan 68). Jesus was hyper-conscious of who was at table with him and practiced what Crossan calls “open commensality”; a deliberate disregard for table taboos (Crossan 66)… Jesus’ juxtaposition of himself as stranger/guest, along with his consistent socialization with unsuitable table companions, is the very heart of his message. It is rarely a matter of either-or but of both-and. Jesus is illustrating the insupportable dichotomy inherent to such cultural divisions.
Parable of the Banquet in Matthew 22 and Luke 14
Innocuous to the modern reader, those who received the story understood the revolutionary nature of the man’s actions. One cannot control who comes in off the street; there was sure to be an unholy mix of rich and poor, male and female, slave and free, clean and unclean. Jesus is further delegitimizing the commensality taboos of the culture, by word as well as deed.
Feeding of the 5000 in Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17 & John 6:1-13
So significant was this miracle, that all four authors deemed it worthy of inclusion. Moreover, this story functions in the Gospel of John in much the same way the Last Supper does in the other three (Synoptic Gospels). From five loaves and two fish (consistent across all four gospels), Jesus managed to feed the entire crowd. This was the penultimate gesture of egalitarian hospitality. There was no knowing who was in the crowd (Matthew is the only Gospel to mention women and children, in addition to the 5,000 men), yet Jesus more than provides.
1 Corinthians 11
Paul is critical of the community because of the habit of wealthier members, those with presumed leisure, to arrive at feasts early and eat the bulk of the food. This was the antithesis of Paul’s understanding of community. It violated not only the law of hospitality but also the new sect’s culture of food. The point of the meal (the early church’s representation of the Eucharist) was not that everyone would leave full, but that everyone would leave having had something. Community - the spirit of hospitality - was the focus. Paul’s condemnation of the community’s abuse of the meal is a final sign of the biblical, née cultural, primacy of hospitality.
The Counter-Intuitive Conclusion
The practice of radical hospitality is seldom seen today. It is with surprise, and not a small amount of head shaking that society acknowledges those who open their homes to strangers in need. It is counter-intuitive in modern-day culture. Fear of the stranger, of injury, has “isolated people from those outside their circle of comfort” (Winzenburg 78). Yet, for those who take the scriptural text seriously (not to be confused with literally), the call for hospitality must be heeded. It is with this philosophy that many restaurants are beginning to use a model that integrates hospitality with dignity (ex: Soul Kitchen in NJ, Potter’s House in Washington, D.C. or St. Louis Bread Company in MO; please see below for more information).
Theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether calls hospitality “a work of justice-making, expressing love across human differences that have long been sources of injustice and oppression” (Ruether 39). Creating community around food is a tangible manifestation of our human nature. Creating community around the sanctity of hospitality, inclusion and dignity, is a tangible incarnation of the divine.
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Studies have shown that – for whatever reason – when you ask people to pay what they think something should be worth, they tend to pay more than what would have been charged. Something inside people seems to, for the most part, respond to the opportunity to decide for themselves what something is worth and do so generously. Perhaps it’s the very ability to make the decision instead of having the price forced upon them; perhaps it is the idea that when the motivation to provide a service and or product is not-for-profit people want to reward such an altruistic initiative. For Ana, it is the reason that she moved away from her previous career path to go back to school and attend a two-year culinary program in order train as a chef. In acquiring her chef’s certification and after an internship and the positions necessary to familiarize herself with her new industry, it is her hope to open her own nonprofit restaurant. To do so will be, for her, the way she would like to live out her faith in the public sphere. Living out her biblically based understanding of radical hospitality as an ethic of just love will be how she responds to her sense of the divine: creating community around the belief that there should be enough food for all and that all should be included with dignity.
Further Information on NonProfit Restaurants
Panera Cafe, Clayton, MO
"Pay What You Want" - Spring 2010
VIA HUFFINGTON POST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/18/nonprofit-panera-restaura_n_580316.html
VIA MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37213165/ns/business-consumer_news/
VIA COLUMBUS DISPATCH (= success!)
Inspiration for Panera via One World Cafe, Salt Lake City
Denise Cerreta, 2003
http://www.oneworldeverybodyeats.com/saltlakecity.html
One World Movement - UPDATE ARTICLE
Published in Success Magazine 2011
http://www.successmagazine.com/a-progressive-model/PARAMS/article/1286/channel/22
Nonprofit Restaurant Business Plan, Specifically for the Training & Employment for Mentally Ill Persons, St Patrick's Centre, St Louis, MO
Natural Soul Good NonProfit Cafe, LA
Covenant Cafe & Cafe Reconcile, New Orleans
Training & Employment for Youth at Risk & Economic Recovery Post-Katrina
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20060828/ai_n16694917/
Works Cited
Crossan, John Dominic. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 1994. Print.
The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version. Ed. Walter J. Harrison. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2003. Print
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. “Just Hospitality: God’s Welcome in a World of Difference.” Christian Century 126.16 (2009): 39. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 25 Oct. 2010.
Taylor, Barbara Brown. “Guest Appearance.” Christian Century 122.19 (2005): 37. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 25 Oct. 2010.
Winzenburg, Stephen. “Whatever Happened to Hospitality?” Christianity Today 44.6 (2000): 78. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 25 Oct. 2010.
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