Hospitality to the Demonized

At Manna House we offer hospitality to the demonized. The people who come to Manna House as guests carry labels that demonize them. They are “homeless.” “Crackheads” “Crazy.” “Panhandlers.” “Lazy.” “Dangerous.” “Drunks.” “Addicts.” And some are given derogatory slang names that demonize them for being “Queer,” or “Trans.” The demonizing makes it easy to blame them for being on the streets. They are at fault, not the lousy economic and political systems that favor the powerful, not the churches, not any of us who are hard-working, responsible, clean-living people.

 

Going right along with demonizing those on the streets is the theologically sanctioned demonizing distinction between the “saved” and the “damned.” Those on the streets are damned and need to be saved. Thus the “rescue missions” that dot urban centers. Get saved and get off the streets. 

 

I started down this line of reflection in response to Fr. Gregory Boyle who wrote, “Jesus stands with the demonized until the demonizing stops.” Boyle rightly sees that Jesus rejects the demonizing and asserts a divinizing of the damned. In a biblical passage that is central for the practice of hospitality, Jesus goes so far as to say, “whatever you do unto the least of these [the damned], you do unto me” (Matthew 25:31-46).

 

As I was having these high thoughts on Thursday morning before Manna House opened, I was interrupted by a woman’s voice, not melodious but grating like fingernails on a chalk board. Her voice shattered my meditation with her complaint, “Pete! Pete! There’s a man in a green shirt bothering me. Make him stop!”

 

The pecking order even among the demonized was alive and well on the front porch. At the low end of that order is this particular guest. She is a lightening-rod for harassment. It is a rare morning when she does not make a complaint that someone is bothering her. She is always ready to take umbrage at what is said around her. She is the “Karen” of Manna House.

 

And other guests, like the man in the green shirt, know this, and some of them, like him, find it humorous to stir her up. They take pleasure in her anger and her denunciations.

 

I admit that I find her hard to take as well.

 

So, at 6:30 in the morning, ninety minutes before Manna House opens, during my morning prayer time, with her voice coming through the open window in the laundry room, I am tempted to respond, “Damn you, can’t you sit quietly on the front porch and leave each other alone?”

 

But instead, I reluctantly go to the front door and step onto the porch and say to everyone gathered there, “How about we all live in peace until we open?” That is my meager hospitality to the demonized at this moment. Then I walk back inside. I hear no more commotion and no more complaints.

 

I find it as easy as anyone to demonize those I disagree with or whom I find too different from me. When I offer hospitality to the damned, I do so as one who has not been saved. I remain all too willing to damn others. I resonate with St. Paul’s statement, “None are righteous, no not one” (Romans3:10). For Paul, this was to undercut self-righteousness based upon the claim to be saved; a claim used to exclude and demonize those deemed “not saved.”

 

Hospitality teaches a different way from dividing people into “saved” and “unsaved,” between “godly” and “ungodly.” When we practice hospitality, like Jesus, we recognize that we are all in this together, that we are all broken and in need of healing, that all of us need compassion, respect, love. 

 

If there is any salvation for any of us (the very word “salvation” comes from “salve” which means to heal), it is in the gracious healing of our mutual love for each other. We are all made in God’s image, all people for whom Jesus lived and died and rose from the dead, all people to whom God offers grace. 

In Jesus, God stands with the demonized, until there are no more demonized. And if I am going to follow Jesus, that is my call too, especially with those I find most difficult and damnable, like the man in the green shirt and the woman on the front porch this morning.