The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way–now that you have come to your servant.” “Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.” So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread.” Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree. Genesis 18: 1-8 (NIV)
One of the things that impressed me the most on my trip to the Holy Land was the hospitality that we experienced wherever we stayed. Arriving at the hotel after the long bus trips, we were always greeted with smiling faces, kind words, fruit juice, and sometimes with a light snack. My thoughts immediately turned to the story of Abraham greeting the three visitors, and I thought how sad it was that I rarely experienced this type of hospitality back home. I originally dismissed the whole thing as a cultural difference, but then I remembered it didn’t used to be that way. People were a little more patient; they smiled a little easier, said please and thank you more often, and offered you a cold drink on a hot summer day.
Reflecting on hospitality, Henri Nouwen made the powerful observation that “we live in a world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God….” The consequences are that our society has become increasingly more fearful, defensive, and aggressive as we cling to our property and look at our surrounding world with suspicion- expecting an enemy to suddenly appear, intrude, and do us harm. When we see a stranger, the words of Mom and Dad come back to us, “Don’t talk to strangers!” The radar flips on and, if we expect anything at all from the stranger, it’s that they will take away something important, even sacred to us. Honestly, “people who are unfamiliar, speak another language, have another color, wear a different type of clothes, and live a different lifestyle from ours make us afraid and even hostile.” Our condition has left people searching, searching to find a hospitable place where we can live in community without fear.
If that’s the reality, how are we as Christians to take fearful hostility and transform it into open and free hospitality? It starts with deepening our understanding of hospitality as something beyond a handshake and a smile, exchanging pleasantries, or creating a warm and cozy atmosphere. It means re-discovering the radical concept of biblical hospitality: the kind of hospitality that Abraham and Sarah showed to the three strangers at Membre (Genesis 18:1-15), the kind of hospitality the widow Zarephath offered to the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17:9-24), and the kind of hospitality the two travelers extended to Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). This radical biblical hospitality extends beyond social graces to reveal two important truths.
First, when we fulfill our obligation to welcome the stranger into our home (or church), we receive a gift: Sarah received the news she was with child, Zarephat’s son was raised from the dead, and the Risen, Living Lord was made known to the travelers and the disciples.
But there’s a second truth, not often considered: the host is to give the gift of free, sacred space for the stranger to enter as a friend, rather than as an enemy. To borrow the words of Nouwen once again, hospitality is not about welcoming people so that we can change them, but offering people space where change can take place. It’s about opening up the opportunity for the stranger to experience true freedom and encounter God by singing their own songs, speaking their own language, dancing their own dances. “Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find their own.” Hospitality is creating a friendly, empty space where we reach out to others and invite them into a new relationship.
The challenge for us then is to grow in practicing ‘radical’ hospitality, where we intentionally give the strangers who come to us the gift of sacred space, so that they might encounter the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
Spirit and Truth 