We have domesticated hospitality, shaped a kind of eco-system of inviting that keeps the welcome circulating among our own "kind" of people, or at least those we can feel comfortable around. Our generosity toward strangers and all those we might consider "strange" is often offered from a distance, without personal contact. But Peluso-Verdend reminds us that the "Greek word for hospitality, philoxenia, means 'love of the stranger,'" and "banquet behavior fitting for the reign of God ought to affect dinner invitations even now" (New Proclamation 2007). Byars observes that the list of those "strangers" changes from one time and place to another, the ones "whom respectable people expect to turn aside. Jesus' challenge reaches across boundaries of place and time, calling us to be more aware of those from whom we are inclined to avert our eyes, and to follow him rather than those who baptize common prejudices as virtues" – that is, we are to include at our tables "those who do not take an invitation for granted" (Feasting on the Word). In those moments, we will catch a glimpse of the way things will be in the reign of God, but not because we have condescended to welcome those "beneath" us; rather, we will understand that Jesus has changed "the rules" for, as Dianne Bergant writes, he "redefines" both "honorable behavior" and "honored guests."
from http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/august-29-2010-l.html
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