Hospitality

This past Sunday Rabbi Rami Shapiro and Imam Yusuf Abdulla and I gathered with about twenty other folks who are interested in interfaith storytelling at the Scarritt Bennett Center. The session was called The Moriah Gathering, named for the mountain on which Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac (or Ishmael, if you are Muslim). One of the key characteristics associated with Abraham in all three traditions is hospitality.
Of course we talked about Abraham and Sarah welcoming the three visitors who announce to this couple, who could have been members of AARP for 40 (Sarah) and 50 (Abe) years at the time, that they are going to have a baby. We spoke of the hospitality that Jesus extended to tax collectors and prostitutes, as well as to those who betrayed, denied and deserted him. The imam shared stories about the hospitality extended by followers of the prophet Muhammad, even when it meant that those extended the welcome went without. Hospitality is considered a virtue in all three traditions as well.
For us as modern-day Christians hospitality is a practice that has come to us from our Jewish heritage, the ministry of Jesus, the practices of the early churches, and the rules that guided life in the monasteries. St. Benedict’s Rule instructed members of its communities to welcome the stranger as if that person were Christ himself. The Christian practice of hospitality is not to be extended only to those we know and like, but most especially to the stranger and the outsider.
The practice of hospitality reminds us that God can appear in our midst in the strangest and most unlikely of disguises. That person we didn’t want to see show up at our door might be just the person God is using to teach us something or guide us in a certain direction. I have to say, I have learned a number of life-changing lessons from people with whom I disagree or don’t particularly like (and people who don’t like me--if you can imagine that!)
A second insight that comes through the practice of welcoming the stranger is that God doesn’t seemed too concerned with the importance of our schedules. God’s work is not all about our convenience. Strangers show up at the most inconvenient times. Hospitality is something we can not calendar. Like other things you might see on bumper stickers—Hospitality (or the opportunity to extend welcome) just Happens! Or to borrow a phrase from the 60’s, we might say that hospitality is "what’s happening."

- Michael Williams