The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
(Proper 6A)
The Reverend Ann Van Dervoort
June 15, 2008
Radical Hospitality
Let’s think back to our Old Testament reading from Genesis when the three strangers appeared to Abraham and he “hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Make really quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.
(Then) Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.
Then he took the curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.” (Genesis 18:6-8)
Well, had I been Sarah on that day, I would have said to Abraham “Are you serious? I’m going to the bakery!” Or, better still, “I’m going to make reservations.” She knew who would be in charge of the clean-up.
On a more serious note, what we are seeing here is radical hospitality---a hospitality that was so much a part of life in the ancient near east---one very difficult for us to understand in this day and age.
Loving strangers under the hospitality ethic was more than a suggestion: It was God’s command. “The alien who resides with you,” it reads in Leviticus, shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were once alien in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” (Lev.19:34)
Hospitality customs in the biblical world related to the traveler and the resident alien. In most translations of the Bible there is little attempt to separate the two. Different words are used inter-changeably, for example stranger, foreigner, alien, sojourner, wayfarer or gentile.
The law protected the foreigner, who settled permanently, but the travelers were extremely vulnerable. The environment of the desert and the arid land was, and still is harsh. Access to food and water was a matter of life and death; therefore, only hospitality customs protected them.
The host, then, was obliged to provide the traveler with food, water, and shelter; thus Abraham welcomed three such “strangers” into his tent. His actions may have seemed to be exaggerated, for example his bowing to the ground and washing of feet, but this was typical of Oriental hospitality.
Radical hospitality: How might we understand this concept today---a time in which our culture is increasingly hostile and suspicious toward anyone who appears to be different--- a time when our instinct is to cross the street or bolt our doors to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
I must confess that when I am alone in my home I always keep all of the doors locked. (My husband has even accused me on occasion of locking him out!) I must also confess that when I am in the church alone, I also keep the doors locked. Yes, “Our doors are always open,” but not all of them.
Radical Hospitality, it seems, has become the “spiritual buzzword” of late, as many congregations in many faith traditions struggle with what it means to really become inclusive and welcoming.
Our beautiful church is certainly unique with our “open-door” policy. I’ve never known another like it. And so many over the decades have found a place of respite and prayer at any hour of the day or night.
Radical hospitality, however, must not be this narrowly conceived. It involves a much wider ranging image, revealing fundamental relationships of well-being for individuals and society. Let’s examine this concept:
“When we speak of hospitality, we are always addressing issues of inclusion and exclusion,” according to an exceptional work on this topic. (Homan and Collins, Radical Hospitality: Benedicts Way of Love.) “Each of us makes choices about who will not be included in our lives---- (so) hospitality has an inescapable moral dimension to it.”
We can talk about hospitable openness till the cows come home, “but it doesn’t mean anything as long as some people continue to be tossed aside. But calling hospitality a moral issue does not tell us the whole truth about it either. Rather---- (and here is the message of key importance) ----hospitality is, instead, a spiritual practice----a spiritual practice----a way of becoming more human, a way of better understanding ourselves.”
The word radical comes from the Latin radix, meaning root--- so radical hospitality comes from a deeper place—from our spiritual center.
A “deeper spirituality”----what might this mean? St. Benedict, a 4th century monk, called the “Father of Western Monasticism,” practiced a rule with his monks that remains popular and useful to this day.
He taught his monks a lesson for us all to take to heart---a lesson that says that we need the “other,” the stranger, because the stranger brings another face of Christ into our lives; therefore, practicing hospitality is to welcome Christ.
Benedictine spirituality is based on listening and acceptance of the other, and on the Christian conviction that every life is sacred. His conviction was that “All of us are headed together toward union with God.”
Acceptance does not always mean condoning all about the other or necessarily agreeing with the other. Rather, acceptance in Radical Hospitality is about receiving the other rather than judging.
Radical Hospitality leads to a provocative degree of acceptance--- acceptance of not only the stranger, the poor, the needy, but also the opponent or the enemy. It is the same challenge that Jesus presented: the challenge to love our enemies.
For Jesus, life was about loving strangers and enemies. Life was about radical hospitality---ministering to those that everyone else wanted to exclude.
We are told too often that the world is a fearful place. Yet, the “enemies” that we are charged to love---to receive—are not necessarily always those across the borders or the seas—or lurking in some dark place plotting to commit murder or mayhem.
It is a mistake to believe that our greatest need is safety. Rather, our greatest need is connection--- to be able to touch one another in those places of authenticity---to know that we are known—to know that we are sacred—to know that we are human.
If we are more open, especially to those who differ with us at our deepest theological or political convictions, for example, perhaps we may be taken to a place we dearly need to go, right to our center. It is this kind of radical hospitality---not violence---that changes the world.
Finally, when we gather at God’s table this morning, let us not forget the “others,”—those “strangers” all over the world and in our own backyard who are also gathering----to share the bread and the cup---as well as those who have chosen not to attend the party and especially those who are turned away. It is this act of turning away that makes Jesus weep.
God’s party is ongoing, so “Whoever you are and wherever you might be on your spiritual journey, you are always welcome at the table to receive holy sustenance.
This, my friends, is Radical Hospitality. Amen.
Works consulted:
All of these writers were helpful to me in writing about Radical Hospitality:
Dr. Marilyn Sewell, 9-12-04
Dennis Bratcher, 2006
Joseph Wakelee-Lynch, Jan-Feb. 2003
Bret Lortie-11-1-07
Wikipedia, Benedict of Nursia
