Craig offers some first-century context:

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, despite all we know about the Middle East at the time of Jesus, it is incredibly difficult to imagine ourselves into the Classical Era.

Family, land and place would have dictated everyday rhythms of life in a way that has been entirely lost to us. I seek to follow Jesus for a host of reasons, yet the first thing I have to recognise is that so much cultural, historical and religious detail shaped his thinking and actions that is impossible for me to identify with.

Take a modern example that dominates our life in the UK: for decades, successive governments have pledged to deal with the long-running problem of social care. One of the reasons it has been dragging on for so long is because it is difficult to admit that we are in crisis because we have contracted out a core human function – care of the elderly and disabled – to the state. Elderly people are living longer and there are also more of them due to post-war population trends. 

I have lived hundreds of miles from my parents for most of my life. Our society deems mobility a success. Self-fulfilment, freedom and a fulfilling career are valued more highly than obligations which would have rooted me to a defined geographical location a century ago. I might be very busy earning money to pay another person to look after my elderly parents, but there are so many other things a government needs and wants to do with my taxes.

The ‘crisis’ in social care is therefore a problem created by social and economic trends that have influenced numerous choices our society has made over a long period of time and which we can’t turn back. It has become a difficult issue to grapple with because the cost of social care has risen as private providers have piled into the sector and taken advantage of the fact that local authorities have statutory obligations. It has also been difficult to recruit care workers since Brexit and paying higher wages drives up costs even further.

The ‘crisis’ in social care also has a distinct UK flavour. Southern European countries, or societies that still have a strong Catholic culture, are horrified at the way we treat our elderly. And we may also struggle to understand the way some of these societies view and look after orphans or disabled people.

My point isn’t to point fingers or elicit feelings of guilt or shame. I’m simply using a current UK social issue to illustrate my point above: “Family, land and place would have dictated everyday rhythms of life in a way that has been entirely lost to us”. What it means to be a host or a guest in a 21st Century UK context is entirely different to First Century Palestine. We will do our best to take this into account as we try to to listen well to culture, scripture and each other.

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Jesus was a Jew. and Judaism was built around the Synagogue. In the First Century Synagogues met in people’s homes, which meant that they operated like extended families. The Temple, when it existed, was also a focal point, but was a place of occasional pilgrimage.

Churches, as we conceive them, are institutions that are alien to the New Testament. When we think of ‘church’ we are usually thinking about buildings, even if we also have Paul’s Body of Christ metaphor in mind. Even when we use ‘church’ to denote people the model of gathering we call ‘church’ is a hybrid mix of Temple & Synagogue. What we may call ‘high churches’ have more features we might associate with the Jewish Temple, whilst ‘low churches’ might feel more like Synagogues. But when we think of ‘church’ we are still imagining entering a special building for a special purpose, and we are therefore operating with an entirely different mindset to Jesus. 

We are going to be thinking about being a Host and/or a Guest in this series. Given all I’ve written above, imagining Jesus as a guest at a social gathering or as a host at the head of a Passover table is going to be a huge challenge. For now, let us note that what we call Host Theology has taken root in the come-to-us culture that is an essential feature of Temple-Church thinking. Jesus built a community based around a Synagogue model that is familiar to very few of our churches. So as we imagine what Guest theology might look like, we also have some imaginative work to do.