Christmas

A Time to Celebrate God’s Hospitality Toward Humankind

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, the Christ, about whom the Bible says ‘the king of peace’ (Is. 9:6). While it is a joyful occasion, Christmas is nonetheless not any ordinary celebration of a birth whatsoever. It is indeed the feast of the Nativity of the incarnated God, the God who visited humankind in its own backyard – the humanity. In fact, God was visiting humankind when they (Adam and Eve) first said ‘No’ to God. About 4000 years later, it was again during God’s visit to humankind that Mary said ‘Yes’ to God. During this period, God was visiting humanity in a number of means and forms in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Christ was repeatedly found visiting men and women on their own shores – beaches, plains, tax collector’s desks, houses of reputed sinners, etc. Therefore, it is only in His hospitality that God could liberate humanity from the bondage of sin. 

Christmas, therefore, is the celebration of God’s great hospitality shown to humankind. It is indeed great because, according to Rahnerian thinking, if God were to become anybody else other than God, He only became and continues to become a human being (and not any other created species). Christmas is therefore the culminating point of the long contemplation that the perichoretic triune God had in order to participate voluntarily in the joys and sufferings of humankind. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14).

Given this liberating hospitality of God, Christmas invites us to participate in such divine nature in the context of Sri Lanka today. Were we hospitable to our Sinhalese as well as Tamil brethren before, during, and after the war? If ‘yes’, then why was the need to take arms at all? Such hospitality is still a felt need in post-war rehabilitation camps; in prisons wherein live those whose trials were unjust or not tried at all; in youth who are wooed to destructive abuses; in nursing homes and hospitals wherein a person-in-need is often considered as a ‘case-to-gain’ rather than a ‘brother/sister-in-need’; in children’s homes and in homes for the aged where loneliness engulfs the warmth of hospitality found in the Bethlehem’s manger; in the affected masses of the recent climatic situations which are often a result of lack of discernment (both locally and globally) on our mother, the earth, who groans in pain; in the poor and the voiceless whose silence cries the loudest before God. Were we hospitable to those Myanmarians who sought refuge in Sri Lanka recently? How can we say that we are hospitable to those who labor in plantations when they are still not entitled to the rightful benefits enjoyed by any ordinary citizen or employee on the Island? As different cults and sects, how hospitable are we when we defend our own faiths in the efforts of reconciliation?

It should be highlighted that when God visited humanity in its flesh, the latter was in sin. It is god’s merciful hospitality that did not make human beings outsiders of His Kingdom. When encountering the woman alleged to have been caught in the very act of adultery (by men), Jesus did not make her an outsider of the Kingdom. He was rather hostile towards the wrongs committed (by the woman and the accusers) and hospitable towards the wrongdoers (the woman and the accusers). ““Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord,” she answered. “Neither do I condemn you.” Jesus declared. “Now go and sin no more”” (Jn 8:10). Pope Francis refers to the Church as a field hospital after battle, the last resort of the wounded. Are we, the Church of Sri Lanka, hospitable to our own woundedness as well as to the wounded other? If so, then how can we consider a person as deserving to be deprived of the country’s citizenship just because of an act he committed or refused to commit, when (though totally deserving) God does not remove us from our sonship in His Kingdom even in the gravest act we commit or omit? Can we, the Church of Sri Lanka, be more hospitable and discerning towards wrongdoers in our words and deeds? 

Therefore, may this Christmas be a time to experience and share with one another, especially with those most in need, the divine hospitality shown to the entire humanity by God. Starting from the season of advent, it is also a time to feel sorry for the times in the past we have not been so hospitable towards our fellow brothers and sisters (both personally and collectively) as a country or as those belonging to different political and religious groups. Let’s also not forget to take some special efforts to rectify the moments of hostility shown to mother earth in the past. May we all be touched by the great hospitality that God wants us to live and let live in this Christmas and in the New Year 2018!