Giving Well Beyond Common Hospitality

Saturday of the 32nd Week in Course 2022

Take a look at this judge in the Gospel. You talk about corrupt politicians? This guy doesn’t even fear God, and has no respect for any human being. I don’t ever want to have that kind of guy pushing justice in a lawsuit or criminal trial. He would have no real regard for even God’s law. Reading between the lines I can imaging he bases his decisions on how much he can make out of bribes.

But this fellow who has no fear of God is afraid of a widow, is he? If you pay attention to the original language from Luke, you see that our translation is lame. What the judge is afraid of is that the woman would resort to hypopiaze. St. Paul uses the same word when he talks about self-discipline as a beating. The judge thinks if he doesn’t do justice for the widow, she’ll beat on his head until he’s dead. So the idea is that there are circumstances where even a bad guy will be forced to do the right thing.

But God, who is all good and has made everything good, never wills anything but good. He is not pleased with human injustice, against which every rational human should take a stand. So when the oppressed, whether the robbed, or the injured, or the murdered or whoever cry out to God for justice, would he be slow to respond? No.

So contrast the interaction of the widow and unjust judge with the Christian community that St. John is writing to in his short third letter. Brothers and sisters in Christ have appeared, some known and others strangers. They come to John’s church and testify that they are welcomed, probably treated even better than the usual Mideast hospitality would demand. They won’t get any assistance from unbelievers, so it behooves the local church to support them and give them enough provisions to get them to their next destination. It should be true today as it was in the first century: God takes care of us, but the ordinary instrument by which He shows His loving kindness is the Christian disciple, the local embodiment of the universal Church He founded. That is the mission we must accept joyfully, given with gratitude so that all our descendants will be known as blessed by the Lord.