The Saving
Hospitality of God
The Potlatch
Societies of the Westcoast Peoples can appear an attractive
source for us of a kind of Sacred Hospitalitya giving that
attempts to
level hierarchy for the Common good. The potlatch was a cultural
celebration where everyone in the given society was welcome to come and
receive gifts from the host families. The gift giving, however, was
linked to the idea of accruing Honour by giving away wealth. It was
not,
as is customarily thought, simply a way of distributing wealth more
evenly through a society. It may have had this impact in the short
term,
but it was intended to confirm the authority of the giver. Those who
gave most were affirmed in their position as chiefthe gift giving
was
not so much about levelling society as about a form of paternalism
where
the strings attached to the gifts were related to the authority of the
gift-giver to give gifts. The event did not subvert the power
structures
but rather re-affirmed them. Slave did not leave the potlatch now free
and Chief did not give up power. There may have been a “dishonouring”
of
one chief by another through the size of gifts given, but the very
structure of hierarchy was not eroded but affirmed.
The gift of
hospitality may in many cases simply be a way of reaffirming
the power structures of the world. The gift giver or the giver of
hospitality may be using the hospitality and the gift giving as a way
of
re-establishing or affirming their claim to authority. The quantity and
quality of the hospitality and the gift given was meant to establish
the
authority and honour of the gift-giver and not to give honour or
appreciation to the recipient.
There may have
been in the Potlatch moments of grace, moments when the
inequality between givers and gift receivers was transcended. It was
perhaps in those comic dances that often were interspersed between the
dances of the Chiefs. Those comic dances, like the tricksters often
represented, stood the order of society on its headthe powers were
portrayed in comic dress and the order of things was for a moment
suspended in laughter.
It is safe to
say that the practice of hospitality that was widely
practiced in the Ancient Near East was of this kind, an attempt to
establish or reaffirm status and community authority. Hospitality of
this sort was not a threat to established order but in fact was one way
in which such structures could cement the authority of a ruling class.
The social structure was thereby not challenged by such practices but
was
rather made more secure. The giver of hospitality was not giving power
away, but affirming his/her power to welcome or turn away the stranger.
In this sense, the hospitality given was not for the recipient but an
action meant “for” the honour of the giver. Hospitality could in fact
be
used to shame the guest by heaping upon him gifts that were well beyond
the capacity of the receiver to return. The gift was another tool used
to keep the social order in place and the poor locked into their
position.
The structure of
self-sacrifice or gift giving can have built into it a
hidden or at least silently implied, hierarchical structure. We give a
gift often to make sure we are not shamed for being “cheap” or in order
to make sure we are accepted and acceptable. In a sense our gift is
often an attempt to buy favour. The economy of the gift is used as a
way
to keep in place particular social realities and to reinforce the laws
of
the powerful.
So we come to
these words in John, titles that are applied we are told by
John to Jesus. Peter is named in his turn by Jesus. John names Jesus
Lamb of God. Andrew names Jesus “the Anointed One” or Christos,
Messiah. Jesus names Peter Cephas. Each naming is an attempt at
disclosing
something about the true identity of the one named.
The name John
gives to Jesus is remarkable. “Lamb of God” is a
remarkable naming for an Anointed one of God. The “anointed” was to be
one who leads an army against the enemies of God, a Sacred General or
ruler. Instead the Ruler is said to be a lamb, a lamb and not a lion.
The phrase “Lamb of God,” is remarkable for other reasons. The use of
the image of the lamb is not unknown in the surrounding culture. Aesops
fables demonstrates the use of lamb in the common thinking of Ancient
Near Eastern Cultures. It is not remarkable that the lamb is viewed as
vulnerable creature. The lamb is preyed upon by other creatures. The
image of the lamb is not one of power or authority but rather of the
opposite, one who is subject to this authority and power. The Lamb is
seen as the victim and the one who is powerless. Further the innocence
of the lamb is related directly to its vulnerability. While raptors
such
as Owls represent a kind of wisdom, the lamb and the sheep represent a
kind of dumb following after that can lead to careening over a
cliff.
The lamb as
sacrifice to the gods or God was understood both in Hebrew
tradition and in the surrounding cultures. The remarkable shift comes
when this sacrifice is no longer merely a victim but becomes one who
carries the Divine blessing and power. In second Isaiah this imagery
begins to take hold. While it is easy to simply see this victim as
merely one who substitutes in our place to receive the wrath of God, we
must begin to see that much more is implied. Quite removed from this
substitution theory of the victim, is the full identification of the
Divine and the location of the Divine’s power in the victim. It is not
that God inflicts pain on one in order to substitute one punishment for
many, rather the victim him or herself carries the Divine within. In
short the Lamb of God, is of God, not merely used
by God. Of God,
or an Incarnation of Deity, the Lamb of God is God for us. The
sacrifice and the punishment are not externalized in a substitute,
rather
God takes on and beomes the victim of all the “sins” of the world. In
short the image presents us with a theology of God as the one who feels
and knows the sufferings of the worldis vulnerable to the attacks
and
violence and violation of innocence. God is the subject of the
brokennessit is God we meet in the oppressed, the poor, the
despised and
the marginalized.
It is not that
we do not instinctively know that “Lamb of God” represents
a kind of innocent vulnerability, rather our habits of mind have not
fully thought or felt through the implications of using such a metaphor
for Jesus. We might ask ourselves why the tradition did not use the
Royal Imagery of the Lion, or the majestic power of the Eagle. If the
idea was to communicate the power and majesty of the divine, surely
lamb
of God is not an image one would use. Because we are habituated to the
image in the Christian church we do not often wrestle with its
counter-intuitive and counter-cultural implications.
The idea that an
anointed, a Caesar or God King, would be imagined as a
lamb is a remarkable reversal of cultural and social norms. The
God-King, or Anointed was more likely viewed as a hammer or a Avenging
Eagle or even a rock. To give the appellation of lamb to such a figure
is certainly to call into question the structures of culture. This is
an
image that calls for a re-imagining of how power works, who the
powerful
are and of what Divinity consists. The way in which the economy of the
world operated, and by that word I mean the way in which things operate
in relationship to other things, the metaphysical pattern of reality is
reversed. Oikonomia, the Greek word, means the way in which a home is
managed. That way is for the village and the cities of the Ancient Near
East based upon the honour and shame structures of class and custom and
the power of religious and political authority. The lamb of God comes
to
reverse all the codes of honour and shame and to level the political
authority of the world.
What this
imagery is about is therefore a radical deconstruction of the
powers of the world. We are not to simply move with those powers but to
resist them by embracing the lowest and the most victimized as if they
were images of the sacred. The point is not that we now think that
victimization is a sacred act but that we see that what we victimize is
in fact that which is most sacred. The other, the stranger, the outcast
are to be afforded hospitality even or rather especially because that
breaks the deepest code of societythe Divinization of power. The
reversal of the Lamb of God is one that lifts the powerless up and
levels
the differences between rich and poor. The saving hospitality of God,
unlike the hospitality of our world, is offered with no strings
attached. It is an attempt at creating a common ground of love.