Hospitable Conversation

The Church in the 21st Century

Anna Holmes

The beginning of a new Papacy seems a good time to look at the model of church. There has been much conflict in the Catholic Church since Vatican II over the appropriate model. The last Pope Benedict was a peacemaker in Catholicism after the bitter battles over Modernism. I pray that the new Benedict may be able to heal some of the hurts inflicted in the past 40 years.

Conversation
Reading the New Testament I am always struck by the hospitality and conversation of Jesus. He eats with sinners, and is fed and given water by women of dubious status. We do not hear him sorting out the worthy from the unworthy while feeding the 5000. We do not hear of him dismissing the woman taken in adultery or refusing to speak with the woman at the well with five husbands and more. He asks her for a drink.

He does not turn away from the argumentative Syro-Phonoecian woman who wants her daughter healed nor from the ranting Gerasene madman. He does not even refuse to share the Last Supper with Judas. Such hospitality treasures the uniqueness of persons with all their shortcomings. That is what all Christians are meant to do. It is also the model for institutional churches.

The first piece of furniture as a family we ever possessed was a round dining-table. I cherish that table still, because a round table allows conversation between all who eat at it. There is no head, no hierarchy at a round table. All are equal. That table has heard some memorable conversations.

Conversation is talk shared between equals who both speak and listen to each other – in other words, who are hospitable to one another. It is the time when people face each other openly and freely. Conversation is at the heart of faith. The centre of the Blessed Trinity is an eternal, loving, conversation. I was reminded of this very forcibly on the first Sunday after Easter. On the road to Emmaus two disciples converse with a stranger. They then offer him hospitality. It is only when they share bread that they realise who he is.

Hospitality
Some of my greatest experiences of hospitality have been in communities that were not Christian. I have had my hands washed and been given hot mint tea by Muslim villagers. I have even been fed fish baked over a fire on a beach by a Sri Lankan fisherman, a darker version of St Peter. Another one fished me out of the water by the hair when I was in grave danger of drowning. I was given milk and cassava in Africa by people who shared with me what little food they had. It was a real experience of Eucharist.

My church experiences, sadly, have not always been so positive. I have been prevented from going into church because my arms were bare. I have gone into church unwelcomed, as a stranger in a strange land. I have been frowned at and avoided by priests in a church at the sign of peace, because I dared to ask awkward questions.

Reflecting on church history I think a major reason for a lack of conversation and hospitality in the church is the notable absence of women in management and decision-making. This is odd, when you think that in the New Testament it was usually the women who welcomed and fed Jesus. He was born of a woman and showed himself first to women after his Resurrection. Women image God when they give birth and when they breast feed. This maternal image of God is present in the Gospels and in the Old Testament, but somehow it gets ignored today.

Time and again in the Gospels and in Acts the apostles are made to reshape their ideas of the church. It was to be inclusive of all, hospitable to all, led by people whose agreed faith in the overwhelming love of God shown in the presence of Jesus, gave them unity.

The imperial model
Unfortunately, after the church became the state religion in the fourth century, the imperial model of church was embraced. Conversations became discussions, and even these ceased when the Roman centre was able to impose its will on the rest of the church. This only became a universal reality when the distant edges of the church could be reached by cable, telegram or wireless. Now they are instantly accessible, with a consequent push to make the church even more centrally controlled.

The theology of church has, over the past 1600 years, been imposed by Popes and a Vatican Curia – an odd name for a civil service – with a rigid vision of church as a pyramid with Pope and Curia at the top and lay women at the bottom. It is a strictly patriarchal view of God as male, as only being imaged by males.

Until Pius XII died in 1958 the institutional church and the Popes really did believe that social status was God-given and should not be questioned; and that, consequently, democracy was a creeping evil. The ideal society was seen to be an absolute monarchy with ruler at the top and peasants at the bottom. Therefore oppressing, ejecting or banning people who merely asked the sort of questions which might change social structures, was perfectly in keeping with this model.

It all was supposed to change for the Catholic Church after Vatican II, but somehow the inertia in the system prevented real change happening.Civil Services tend to be like that. They manipulate sameness around those who appear to be in control but actually are not.

The hierarchical and vertical model of church ignores the fact that we are all created equal before God. The hierarchical model has, unfortunately, re-emerged in recent years, even to the point of demanding assent from priests and theologians for non-infallible teachings, like that on contraception, even if they disagree with it. To demand such assent seems to deny their freedom of conscience. Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Ratzinger, commenting on the teaching of Vatican II, wrote: “Over the Pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.”

To sum up
If we take seriously the teaching of Jesus, lack of hospitality and, even more, lack of conversation cannot be countenanced as a matter of faith. The church early in its history enshrined the idea of Trinity as the way God is. Not as a distant father or an earthbound son – but as three persons in community and continued conversation: Father/Creator, Son/Redeemer and Spirit. If that is the image of God and human beings are made in that image, then why is the Catholic Church not similarly in hospitable conversation?

There is a factor, however, that has opened up possibilities for revolutionary change. The internet allows discussions and support to be shared across all boundaries and on a worldwide basis. This means that those who are oppressed by the church, who in former ages might have been isolated, are no longer so. People who wish to discuss and explore alternative ways of church can do so freely over the internet.

What I yearn for is a conversational church – a church in which all are welcome and problems of theology can be worked through, in the same way that glitches in communication are worked through in families. I yearn for a church where listening is the prime means of communication. I have a sense that many have left the Catholic Church because they hear only complaints and criticism from their church leaders rather than words of encouragement and love.

I long for a church where people, each bearing the image of God, can speak their truth and be heard. We do not yet live in the fulness of the church – that can only happen after the end of the time.

In the meantime, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a church of Trinitarian conversation, of making, of caring, of creating? It would be a splendid counterpoint to a world where there is so much destruction, hatred, and indifference.