Hospitality Amidst Hostility: An Exhortation to the Persecuted Church
Priscilla Pope-Levison Sunday, 1 March 2009
"[T]he opposite of cruelty is not simply freedom from the cruel relationship, it is hospitality."
--Philip Hallie
This Christian community had already suffered one round of persecution. They had been evicted from their homes and businesses and were helpless to stop the looting of their abandoned premises. They were scorned and abused while spectators jeered and insulted them. Some members from the community had been thrown into prison, where they faced devastatingly unsanitary conditions. "Poor ventilation created conditions of dangerously stale air, suffocating heat and dehydration. Prisons were sleepless places. Where pallets were not available one slept on the floor, perhaps using one's outer cloak as a cover against the cold.... Most prisons were devoid of much natural light. In their inner cells and underground chambers, light was nonexistent." Prisoners were completely dependent upon the aid and assistance of community members on the outside for food, drink, clothing, and bedding, and the community had attended faithfully to them, even though they put themselves at risk for their own imprisonment through these hospitable actions. Throughout the first wave of persecution, this community of Christian believers had been emboldened to remain faithful to Jesus Christ and to each other. Now they were facing another wave of persecution. Would their response be as steadfast in its resolve as before?
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