says, No one is excluded. We’re radically open. God keeps getting bigger, and we have to expand with God.
HOWARD ANDERSON, FORMER RECTOR, ST. PAUL’S-DULUTH
Such incarnational theology is one of the hallmarks of the Anglican Way. The Church of England’s first systematic theologian, Richard Hooker, boldly proclaimed that something of God is present in all life, and that via the incarnation we are indeed “partakers” in the divine life. “All other things that are of God have God in them and he them in himself likewise. . . . All things therefore are partakers of God, they are his offspring, his influence is in them.”6 For Hooker, this means we are at once held by God and the ones who hold God. The Almighty God has chosen to be in union with us, taking on created nature and in the process joining us to God’s own life.
More than that, Hooker believed God has chosen to be vulnerable to us, chosen to need us, and even to impart a spark of the divine nature to us. “Sith God hath deified our nature (by the union confirmed through the incarnation), ... we cannot now conceive how God should without man either exercise divine power, or receive the glory of divine praise”7 God has established a radically mutual relationship with humanity, and based on those terms we are God’s partners, the ones on whom God depends. Those are the radical implications of the incarnation, and they reveal the profoundly relational being of God.
God invites us to share in that nature, not only by some pure, mystical connection to God in Christ, but through our flesh, blood and spirit relationships with one another. At times, the church has conveniently interpreted this call as one to uniformity. If anything, what Christ came to offer, and died making possible, was union:
[H]e is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross. (Ephesians 2:14–16)
God rejoices when we move beyond ourselves, beyond our hostility and ignorance and suspicion, past our “dividing walls” and into relationship with one another, signifying to the world that we are one reconciled body, the body of Christ. In this, we reflect the mutual relationship and union that is the very nature of Godself.
The God of Welcome
Looking closely at the witness of Scripture, we see a God who not only seeks relationship and union with the creation but who reaches out intentionally for everyone, and in particular for the outcast. Regardless of how unclean, unworthy, insignificant, or marginalized we may feel or others may claim we are, the God of grace and welcome shatters every barrier to embrace us and draw us home.
Lest we think the welcome is meant for us or our group alone, the Scriptures are filled with reminders to God’s chosen ones that they are not the only ones God welcomes. In Deuteronomy, Moses speaks to the Israelites as they journey from slavery in Egypt and through the wilderness. The frightened, tired and confused clan no doubt sought comfort in the knowledge that their covenant with God made them special. They soon learned that there is no rest for God’s chosen ones. Instead, God’s people are called out for a special mission.
Online Extra: Bible Studies on the Biblical Foundations of Radical Welcome
[T]he Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17–19)
It is true that God stands with God’s people through every trial, but not so that they will sit comfortably with the privilege of apparent divine favor. Now they have to stand in solidarity with, graciously receive and welcome the vulnerable ones within their community and beyond it whom they might find it most difficult to accept: the orphan, the widow, the stranger, The Other. God has done it for them. Now they are called to respond in kind, literally imitating the God who graciously welcomed them.
Isaiah rails at Israel for trying to please God with superficial religious acts while ignoring God’s yearning to extend justice and welcome. He shares this judgment as he has received it from God:
Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see them naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58:6–7)
God has made it clear: if you love me you will work for liberation with the oppressed and marginalized in your midst, and you will share your home and food with those who have none. You will not hide from the brothers and sisters I have placed near you. Rather, you will actively go out to meet them and draw them to yourself, even if it is risky, even if you feel uncomfortable (and would you not be uncomfortable, after encountering the naked poor and welcoming them into your home?).
That message has certainly been muffled by people of faith over millennia. “If you are Christian,” we say, “be kind. Give charitably. Serve the needy” Each is a noble pursuit, but they are not hospitality and welcome the way God does it. God’s way is like Abraham, who greets the three angelic strangers at the oaks of Mamre with nothing short of reverence (Genesis 18:1–8). He arranges for their feet to be washed, brings them bread and an extravagant meal that includes the meat of a calf. He treats these mysterious outsiders like honored guests.
I’m very happy about having a gay bishop, radical hospitality and radical inclusion. But we strive for that so we can do Matthew 25:35: “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat.” We do it because we still have a dynamic sense that the gospel can change lives.
BONNIE PERRY, ALL SAINTS-CHICAGO
God’s way is like the father in the outrageous story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). The rash younger son asked for his inheritance while his father lived, an act that, at the time, was the equivalent of wishing his father dead. Having squandered the gift and hit rock bottom, he returned in desperation to his father. By every standard in their society, and by his own internal moral compass, he had to know he was as good as dead to his family, barely fit to live among his father’s servants. But the moment his face showed on the horizon, his father raced out “filled with compassion” to embrace and draw him in. I imagine the young man approaching, dirty and humiliated, head hung low with the fear of justified retribution and anger. Much to his surprise and our own, his father saw only a glorious face and a reason to celebrate in a wildly generous manner.
Henri Nouwen reflects on the meaning of this prodigal welcome for his own life, where he came to realize
God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, expects his children to come to him, apologize for their aberrant behavior, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. To the contrary, he leaves the house, ignoring his dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them.8
That is God’s hospitality: the welcome that actively loves and receives us just as we are, despite every reservation, expectation or term we might set out, however strange we imagine ourselves to be, however far out we have been cast. That is Jesus’ hospitality, as he illustrates with seemingly every action, and nowhere more clearly than in his radically welcoming table fellowship. He invites lowly fishermen, unclean prostitutes, marginalized tax collectors, and insignificant widows to partake of the lavish feast he has come to offer all. And he does
