Open Table - Week 2
It’s Easter, the day that Christians celebrate the incredible, mind-bending story of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We might be a little familiar with this story now, but to We examine the story told in Luke 24 where Jesus appears to two men, walking away from Jerusalem, deeply discouraged because the one they had hoped would be the hero of the day, Jesus, has been cruelly killed by the Romans. Jesus shows up, and walks beside them, but they don’t recognize Him at first. So Jesus goes through a series of intentional (and even a bit odd) lengths to show the men it’s Him, and that Death has not won, and that History is about to be cracked open. And in this story we see a deep truth: we can miss Jesus if we don’t pay attention. And we see another deep truth echoed from the beginning pages of the Bible: God longs to walk with us, and break bread with us.
If a “vice” is defined as something that you do, over and over again, that’s bad for you and leads you to become a worse person, then the opposite of that is a “virtue” - something you do over and over again, that helps you become a better person. And in this case, we find that the invitation of Jesus to become “hospitable” is a virtue we practice. It’s not just something we do, but more like a kind of person we become. And in this case, it’s the kind of person who takes steps to turn strangers into neighbors, and neighbors into friends. Just like Jesus.
