Something from the reading at Morning Prayer today really struck me. It was from Luke 14:

He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’

I haven’t been able to come to any of the Rhythm of Life discussions but have been thinking about it. The two things this made me think of were hospitality and balance. I was talking to someone in the community the other day and he said that there used to be a strong tradition in moot of people inviting other people that they didn’t know very well round for dinner – which doesn’t happen very much any more. That’s not quite ‘the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind’ but there is something in it about expectations of repayment. If I invite my friends round for dinner, it’s not necessarily in expectation that they will invite me to their house, but that I will be cared for, nurtured and sustained by their company. By inviting strangers, you take a risk that it will be hard work, that they won't enjoy your company or you theirs. But that’s at the core of true hospitality, inviting without any expectation of return.
This leads me on to balance though. Often when I come to a service I’m tired, and want to be refreshed and fed. What I really want is to talk to the people who I know care for me. It’s very hard, in that frame of mind, to talk to strangers, new people, people I have to make an effort with. Relationships need to be nurtured, and we all need close relationships to sustain us, and it’s appropriate for some of those relationships to be within the community. We’re not monastic in the sense of forgoing any exclusive relationships.
So there is a struggle – for me to achieve balance personally through attentiveness to my needs, self-care, and fostering the relationships that are important to me, but also for me to give, to be attentive to the needs of those on the fringes of the community, which is I suppose about balance within the community.
I often think the greater challenge in ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’ is to love myself – and that’s a long and difficult task. But I think sometimes I can tell myself I’m looking after myself - loving myself – when actually I’m refusing to take steps into challenging and uncomfortable places.
This Bible passage presents me with a real challenge. Anyone want to come over for dinner?