Day 11 – O’Keefe – Homer and Scripture compared
Scripture, in both Old and New Testaments, commands hospitality for immigrants, and Christians are obliged to make sure our national laws and customs reflect that mandate. Scripture’s teaching about strangers may be made clearer by contrast with the ancient Greek epic, the Odyssey. This great story also explores the theme of hospitality.
Odysseus, a Greek warrior, offends a god, who delays him for ten years when he is on his way home to Ithaca after ten years fighting at Troy. His wife Penelope and his son Telemachus wait for him, but many neighbors doubt that he survives, and they come to court the beautiful woman whom they consider to be a widow. She and her son do not know how to get rid of the suitors, and complain repeatedly that they are abusing the laws of hospitality, feasting lazily on the wealth of Ithaca. Telemachus goes out to visit his father’s old friends in neighboring kingdoms, and is received with appropriate hospitality. Eventually Odysseus escapes from the goddess who had held him prisoner for years, and makes his way home. When he arrives, alone and unarmed, he disguises himself as a beggar, to see what is happening in his palace before he reveals himself. The suitors treat the beggar rudely. Odysseus and Telemachus devise a plan to trap the suitors – and then slaughter them all.
One difference between Scripture and the Odyssey is that the Greek story includes abundant material about the expectations of a guest’s behavior as well as a host’s. When Telemachus is visiting neighboring kingdoms, there descriptions of his welcome show how a host is expected to behave. Scripture, by contrast, focuses almost exclusively on the proper conduct of a host.
Hospitality includes the way you think about the speck on the horizon, the initial greeting, the extended stay, and the long-term accommodation. The Greek story includes initial greetings and a welcome that lasts a few days. Scripture includes that, but the focus of most of the teaching is on long-term accommodation.
The Greek story resembles Scripture is several ways. In the Odyssey, abusing the laws of hospitality was a capital crime, as in the Bible (the Exodus, Sodom, and Gibea). The suitors made three errors, identifying Penelope as a widow, Telemachus as an orphan, and Odysseus as a poor stranger: this is, of course, a familiar trio from Scripture. These errors would not have mattered much if they had been respectful to the apparently vulnerable trio – as Scripture mandates.
This odd thread that runs through the Old Testament – welcome the stranger because you too once were a stranger in a strange land – comes into full power in the teaching of Jesus. Literature explores it, Abraham saw it, Moses pointed at it – but Jesus proclaimed it out loud. Welcoming strangers does not bring a prince or potentate into your house on rare occasions. No: welcoming strangers brings the King of Creation under your roof, every time.
Mr. Parrott?
