Women’s Work, Hospitality, and Getting Saved

Women’s Work, Hospitality, and Getting Saved

I’ve often noticed that at Manna House most of the volunteers are women.  There have been some mornings when the only male in the circle at the beginning of the day was me, though more typically there are one or two more.  Meanwhile, there are six or seven women.

            I’ve wondered about this gender distribution at Manna House on more than one occasion.  There are probably a number of explanations for it, but one that I think has some truth is that hospitality is considered women’s work, and therefore not valued by many men.

            What does the work of hospitality entail?  Making and serving coffee.  Helping people pick out clothes.  Doing laundry.  Cleaning showers and toilets.  Wiping up spills.  Sweeping and mopping.  It is all considered women’s work.

            Here’s Jesus describing how we’ll meet him, “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:25-26).  Women’s work.

            A volunteer (male) asked today, “Why do you think it is that churches find it so much more appealing to save souls, to follow the ‘Great Commission of Jesus’ to go and baptize all nations (Matthew 28:16-20) than to serve the poor, with whom Jesus identified (Matthew 25:31-46)?”  He and a few other volunteers (both male and female) shared that they’ve heard ministers (male) brag to each other about how many souls they’ve saved.

            Maybe a partial answer to his question is that a patriarchal church finds saving souls more appealing than doing the women’s work of serving the poor.

            Maybe another partial answer is that saving souls keeps a hierarchical and patriarchal order safely intact.  We who are saved (those male ministers) reach down to the “unsaved” and give them a hand up (not a hand out). 

Meanwhile, Christian hospitality insists that the poor who come for hospitality save those of us who are offering hospitality.  Christ comes to us in the stranger’s guise.  The poor are not the objects of our saving efforts; they are rather the very means to our salvation.  They are the very gracious presence of Christ in our lives.

            This kind of reversal is quite discomforting.  It knocks all of us out of controlling who gets “saved” and instead makes our salvation dependent upon a group of people who are despised, feared, even hated.

            Imagine, our salvation depends upon how we treat people experiencing homelessness.  Our salvation depends upon how we treat those children coming across the border into Texas.  And just to be clear, this isn’t “works righteousness.”  We aren’t saving ourselves through our good works.  No, we’re being saved by the gracious presence of God in those who are on the streets and those who are coming across the U.S. border.

            Goodness gracious!  God sure likes to mess with those settled hierarchical and patriarchal notions of getting people saved.  We’re saved in the midst of women’s work.  We’re saved in the midst of serving the poor.  We’re not saved (and we don’t save others) through our piety and our saying “Jesus is Lord.” 

Of course we all should have known this.  It is in the Bible after all. Jesus said it, “Whatever you do unto the least of these you do unto me” (Matthew 25:40).  And, Jesus even said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21), a will which includes sharing bread and reconciliation (Matthew 6:9-12).  The gracious, saved life, includes, Paul said, extending hospitality to strangers (Romans 12:13).  Women’s work.