Judicial inhospitality meets prophetic practice

Diana Butler Bass preached today on the bit from the gospel of Matthew (10:40-42) which reports Jesus telling his rag-tag comrades: “whoever welcomes you welcomes me.” She sees a Supreme Court majority locking down any promise of welcome.

... While we may be blessed enough to extend hospitality, sooner or later, every one of us shows up at a door unexpectedly and unsure who might be on the other side. We need to be welcomed as we are, without qualification, accepted and cared for. ...

... In 1954, a SCOTUS ruling made Americans choose: Would white people open racially segregated public spaces to those they deemed strangers? Would outsiders be greeted with genuine welcome? The court insisted white Americans open these institutions to Black citizens. ...

This week, SCOTUS rulings reversed direction. Instead of pushing Americans toward a society of larger hospitality, the court pulled up the drawbridges of welcome in education and business. Their decisions against affirmative action and LGBTQ rights circumscribe the spheres in which some people can participate in and benefit from the rights of citizenship.

The justices turned back the buses of democratic progress. In effect, they gave a few permission to exclude others, allowing those with power to deny certain people dignity and welcome. They took their weight off the legal scales of inclusion.

Like the 1954 case, these rulings also make us choose. How do we resist the inhospitality now deemed legal?

How do we welcome strangers who are unwelcome in other settings? How do we treat those who now find themselves the legal targets of rejection and exclusion?

... The New Testament is clear. When Caesar’s law rules against hospitality to strangers, God’s people inveigh against such laws. We welcome everybody. We respect the dignity of every person. If you turn people away, you are turning Jesus Christ himself away.

The justices seem to think they are defending religion and believers; Bass contends, on the contrary, their decisions have "turned hospitality into prophetic practice."