France is famous for its cheese. One famous variety is Roquefort, which the uninitiated might say is just bleu cheese. Au contraire, mon ami, its much more than that. One doesn't call a Ferrari just a car and Roquefort is not just a bleu cheese. Rather, it is known as the cheese of kings and popes, said to be loved by none other than the emperor Charlemagne. To be officially donned Roquefort, a cheese must be aged in caves four miles deep into Mount Canbalou in the south of France, where the cool humid atmosphere gives it a characteristic blue-green marbling. Which is the color the face of a Velveeta-loving American tourist turns when tasting it for the first time. Who first decided to leave sheep cheese rotting in a cave for three months? Legend has it that it was a smitten shepherd who left his lunch at the mouth of a cave to woo a shepherdess, only returning to find it moldy. Let's just hope he got the girl. But, like it or not, Roquefort has been given Protected Designation of Origin status by the EU, rivaled only by something called the Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb, undoubtedly taking its name from draconian methods British mothers use to get their little Liam to eat the famous English veggie.
France has some of the strictest copyright laws there are, due to its famous brand names and the creativity of its artistic firms. When you are a world capital of fashion, food and the arts you have to be on your toes to both stay at the pinnacle of refined taste and culture, as well as hide the fact you enjoy an occasional Big Mac at the drive-thru. At France's borders, customs agents seized 7 million counterfeit objects in 2010, yet that still did not prevent losses of 40,000 jobs and six billion dollars to counterfeiting. It's a big business world-wide, making up seven percent of total world trade, a testimony to the fact that it's hard to turn down paying $20 for a Louis Vuitton purse while on vacation in Thailand. Just be careful if you happen to have that little status symbol on your arm when passing through Charles de Gaulle airport. It could cost you as much as five years in a French jail or a maximum fine of €500,000. It seems there is a high price to pay for being fake.
The French can teach us a lot about the authenticity of things. Here, everything from sculptures to speeches to screen plays can be strictly copyrighted. And the biggest criteria to qualify for a copyright protected by French law? It has to be original. And the definition of an original work is that it is "endowed with the personality of its author". I can't help but draw a comparison to us as people who Genesis says were created in the image of God. You, my friend, are an original who bears the stamp of authenticity from the universe's number one unrivaled Designer. So why would we settle for being a cheap counterfeit of something else? When we are not authentic, our true selves are imprisoned in cells of shame and fear and our lives pay a price, becoming bankrupt of real value. We were made to be more than cheap knock-offs of something else. We were fashioned out of the creative genius of a perfect Creator. In the kingdom of God, we as Christ-followers should police ourselves as diligently as the douane - the French customs agents - who search the bodies and baggage of people entering the Republic for anything suspected as fake. Counterfeits and lack of authenticity rob the originators of design the recognition and recompense they deserve. Equally, the inability to be our true selves ultimately deprives God of the glory due Him. So in our believing communities, we should uphold a strict ban on counterfeits in our personal relationships with one another and our spiritual relationship with God.
I really do want to be more authentic, both relationally and spiritually - in the way I talk to and about God, in the way I relate to people, and in the way I daily walk with Christ. It is not easy, especially when there are people with whom we compare ourselves that we consider to be the Yves Saint Laurents of the church - high quality and out of our price range. But that's part of the problem. When no one, especially leaders, lets down their guard long enough to be real - to cry, to confess, to show weakness, to voice doubt - then we all think the only way to preserve our value is to be an imitation. But that is not real Christian living. Believers in Christ are not inhuman, and to be human is to hurt, to feel deeply, to struggle, and yes, to fail. When we do not manifest this humanness, we inadvertently encourage those around us to join in trying to be some other kind of species, which is what super-spiritual, unreal believers come off looking like to the world.
The Gillette Company launched an ad campaign in 1980 for its antiperspirant, Dry Idea called "Never let them see you sweat". In one television commercial, actress Lauren Hutton says to the camera, "Three things I have learned in being an actress: never audition first thing in the morning; never try to play a character half your age; and even if your leading man is prettier than you are, never ever let 'em see you sweat". This is the mantra of a society whose heroes are people who excel at pretending to be someone else on camera. There is a huge difference between being an actor on a stage and an athlete in a stadium. When you have a teammate out on the playing field, not only can you see them sweat, but after a hug or a high five, you can surely smell and even feel the sweat. Communities of Christ-followers are called to keep it real with one another. No make-up. No posturing. No rehearsed lines. I'm tired of acting and trying to hide my sweat. We were not called to be carefully staged and preplanned but rather fully spontaneous and authentic. We're called to be on a team that, win or lose, sweats and smells together. There is a high price to pay for counterfeits, so why be anything other than an original?
Hospitality is a tricky concept. We all understand the basic gist of the word, but its varied application from culture to culture is often a source of misunderstanding. An Asian visitor to a northern European home might find it scandalous to have his host offer a refreshment only once, misunderstanding his guest's first polite "no" as literal. Equally as disturbing to a British tourist to India would be their host's very enthusiastic bordering-on-pushy attempts to refill his plate, in spite of clearly declining multiple times, and quite emphatically. Hospitality's rules are charged with history, tradition, and nuance. But it is an art, and art is something we develop and become good at by exposure to masterpieces as well as the discipline of trying our hand at interpreting and creating something that has inspiration and soul. If we are followers of Jesus and students of His word, we can't escape the fact that hospitality for us is not an option, but indeed a command. But we would do better to understand just what is this genre of art called hospitality.
When Paul told the Romans to "practice hospitality" (Rom. 12:13) or exhorted Timothy to "show hospitality" (1 Tim 5:10), it was more than suggesting giving it a good try. The commands literally mean to pursue and press after hospitality and to actively take hold of strangers and receive them into one's home. I get this image of someone seeing a stranger in town, running after them, taking hold of their hand and imploring them to come to their house to share a meal. This is more along the lines of what hospitality really means. It's both what you do to convince the person to trust you enough to come and then what you do to honor them because they did. It's too easy to read into the concept what is a given for us culturally. As with any scripture, we need to determine what the original author and audience understood when certain terms and images were used. Hospitality in the New Testament is translated from philoxenos. When I see the word philo, the first thing I think of is the Greek dough my wife sometimes uses to make delicious savory pastries. Others more theologically minded, however, might be thinking of "loving" or "preferring", which is is technically correct, but not nearly as appetizing. The other half of that word, xeno, is not the brother of the notorious Warrior Princess, but rather the word for "foreigner" or "stranger". Where am I going with this fascinating etymological exercise? Just to say that when the New Testament believer read the words "practice hospitality", he or she did not necessarily understand that to mean using your best china or to offer your dinner guests five choices of something to drink. Those are not bad ideas, but they are only surface attempts to get at what hospitality really is. Because hospitality is a value and a motivation of the heart from which flow different kinds of action. As Paul, Peter and John intended it in their writings, practicing hospitality literally means "pursue and press after a deep fondness towards foreigners and strangers".
Ah, I can see defections from the hospitality committee and welcome-wagon already, because that definition calls for a whole deeper involvement than the size of my bowl of chips or welcome brochure. It touches on our entire orientation of how we think about and relate to strangers. And what is a xenos or stranger, really? Originally it was synonymous with "enemy", because those who were not of your tribe, language or culture were strange, and therefore their motives and background were suspect out of fear and superstition. The appearance of an outsider suddenly in the neighborhood was alarming, surprising and unsettling. Although I am attempting to describe the setting in possibly early Mesopotamia, I don't think I am far of from describing exactly the same reaction when a foreign family moves into a "nice" neighborhood in modern suburbia. But this is actually a sociological regression, because members of society on the whole as they traveled and experienced first-hand what it was like to be an outsider, subsequently established social mores where aliens and strangers were no longer considered enemies to be killed or feared, but began to be accorded special treatment and protection. Sometimes strangers , even enemies, were expected to be invited into homes and treated with greater kindness than relatives and neighbors. In Hellenistic Greek culture, one could ask the name and origin of a stranger only after having fed them a meal.
Hospitality is a frame of mind and purity of motive where one is actually fond of strangers and foreigners. Is that you? Can I say that I have this special warmth in my heart toward people who immigrate to where I live, but don't learn my language and still insist on dressing like their home culture, always shopping in their ethnic grocery stores instead of Wal-Mart? The opposite of philoxenos is xenophobia. I think we're all familiar with that word, which conjures up images of Nazi skin-heads and armed border-patrolling vigilantes. Most of us are a far cry from that extreme, but how close are we to the other side of pendulum, which is actually not another extreme, but rather the water-mark set by God-lovers and Jesus-followers of the Bible? Jesus' standard of hospitality was illustrated in his story of the Good Samaritan, who offered help, lodging and healing to a Jew whose people hated and despised his own. It could be we have come as far as some older Jewish cultures, where the passing foreigner was received warmly, knowing that their presence was a temporary curiosity and diversion. But the shortcoming was that It was the resident-alien who was actually despised. The stranger who didn't just want to come and go, but actually had shaken up the demographic status-quo and decided to stay and invite his whole extended family to join him, he was the one who got the cold shoulder, silent treatment and worse. This is why Ruth was so surprised by the kindness of Boaz. It just wasn't normal for the foreign immigrant to be treated with anything but discrimination and disdain.
If we could really take on this attitude of going after a New Testament kind of hospitality, what could the results be? Jesus, who had no place to lay his head, was dependent on the hospitality of strangers. Often, the homes and communities where he was received became the recipients of healing and grace. He sent His disciples out the same way, with little money and provisions, intending that those families who understood and practiced hospitality would be the ones to receive blessings and to become part of His nascent Kingdom on earth. Paul followed suit, and his hosts often became leaders of house churches that witnessed transformed lives, miracles, and which grew organically from having simply first lived and practiced this value called loving and receiving the stranger. History tells us that temples, synagogues and later, places that received Christian pilgrims with hospitality, became known as hospices. These hospices increasingly became destinations for those aliens fleeing persecution, and offered medical care in addition to lodging, food and a warm fire. It was here that hospices developed into what were called hospitals.
As we go deeper into these last days, the frequency and the level of the persecution of Jesus' followers will only increase. Wars and famine and racial hatred will continue to leave many asylum seekers and immigrants in their wake. Government and social programs will not be able to heal the ugly wound of xenophobia and prejudice that lies at the base of every sinful heart. Only those whose hearts are cleansed and healed by the One who forgave his tormentors and reconciled a sinful world to His Father can solve what plagues our communities. And it is an epidemic to which no nation, city or culture is immune. There will be a great need for centers of hospitality and unconditional love to the weary souls of strangers, aliens and foreigners. If we are not there yet as a family or a believing community, we can start. Start valuing, pursuing and practicing hospitality in ways big and small. We can begin by being friends to the outsider and finding our hearts increasingly fonder of guests, instead of flustered by unexpected interruptions to our tidy lives and tight schedules. Our motive is to obey the words and example of our Savior, but the end result just might be unexpected blessings and honor poured out on simple hearts and hearths of hospitality that evolve into powerfully attractive hospitals of healing and hope.
I just love May. Good weather, college graduations, tons of vacation, Mother's Day, hay fever. Hey, it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe something on this list escapes you, though - like the vacation part. However in France, the month of May is always equated with a particularly generous vacation schedule. The happy month kicks off with a workers holiday on the first. This is followed by Victory Day (8th), Ascension Day (9th), and rounded out by the Monday after Pentecost Sunday. And yes, two weeks off school for the kiddos thrown in there for good measure. That's a serious block of family time, which might explain the abnormally high number of divorces in the spring. That was a joke. But the French do take their vacations quite seriously.
I was told by a French friend that his grandfather, just three generations ago, was not given any vacation time. Evidently, they had to fight for what they have. Someone should have told them they could stop fighting, because now the French holiday system is near legendary. Your average worker in this country receives six weeks of personal vacation a year. That doesn't include a dozen other public holidays, like Jesus' Ascension day, Epiphany Day, and of course this year what I call the Grand Assumption day, not to be confused with the real Assumption Day on August 15th . This is what I call the double holiday of May 8th and 9th when it falls on a Tuesday-Wednesday or Wednesday-Thursday (like this year) and most workers just decide to take the normal working Monday or Friday in between as a holiday, conveniently creating five straight days off work. It's not given to them officially, but they decide to take it anyway. It's called le pont here in France, which means "the bridge", where everyone assumes they can just receive a free pass and take that one extra day off. Hey, it's a natural bridge and you just learn to take it. And it's conceded, though they've already received their fair share of sleep-in days.
What do we do when someone takes advantage of our generosity? Do we let it go and give them a pass? Or do we count favors and tally benefits, all in the spirit of keeping everything fair? Sometimes people take more than they should. Often they are ignorant of the grace they receive and just want more. It's hard to just let it go. But that's what grace does. It gives a pass. And that's ultimately the purpose we serve on this earth - to freely give away to others the grace handed to us when we were just takers and consumers of kindness. The next time someone takes from you, do what Jesus said in His great sermon on how to be a disciple -let them have their extra demand. You just might build a bridge between the selfish and the Selfless One. And that would make any day a real extended holy-day.
