same same - but different

Late last year when i was in Thailand I came across a t-shirt in many of the markets with the text 'same same but different'. If my memory serves me correctly (and it sometimes doesn't), same same, but different was an interpretation of the idea of similarity. My myth says that Thai's don't have a word meaning similar, so it becomes, same same - but different. Now, if i'm wrong - woops! but its a good anecdote!

Regardless - the idea of same same but different keeps slapping me in the face of late. So many things around me seem to have elements of reinterpretation, recontextualisation, and straightout bastardisation... In many ways our contemporary world lives on the idea of being similar enough to something to be recognisable but different enough to be unique.

Today in Australia we pride ourselves on being able to open up our lives and 'entertain'. In many ways having people round for dinner or drinks or a bbq has become the ideal of hospitality. Yet is it? or is it same same - different?

Children are an amazing gift. They bring so many different emotions to our human experience. My sister in-law and nephew returned home instate on Thursday after spending six days with us. It was great to spend time with a mostly joyous, inquisitive, grinning six-month old. It’s a time in Riley’s life when he’s growing and developing skills so quickly – he’s learning to live.

I was stuck this week when I read a passage in Mark 9 about the need to be willing to serve others, and that this service equates with the welcoming of a child. Further still the welcoming of a child equates with the welcoming of Jesus, and inturn the welcoming God.

The little one amongst us. The most vulnerable; the most in need; the most reliant; the most dependant – this is where the call to hospitality lays.

Ouch!

we saw a stranger yesterday,
we put food in the eating place,
drink in the drinking place,
music in the listening place,
and, with the sacred name of the triune God,
he blessed us & our house,
our cattle & our dear ones
as the lark says in her song:
often, often, often goes Christ
in the strangers guise.
Celtic rune of hospitality

Too often I fall into the comfortable trap of directing my hospitality to those who I find it easy to like, find it easy to help. Often it’s the people similar to me, those whom I like.

Yet, the challenge is not simply to be hospitable – its to be hospitable to those who are most in need. Those who are vulnerable, reliant, and dependant. Just like Riley who I bundled up in my arms – totally vulnerable.

Such hospitality, such service brings about the reign of God.

same same - yes its easy to be hospitable, but the call to be inclusively hospitable... now thats different!