What’s an Abbey: Hospitality
In Ireland every Abbey has space for three important things. A well for fresh water. A fire altar or warming room for…warmth! And Community. Community space was found in the farm where seeds were sown and grains were harvested and in the kitchen where the bread was baked. It is in the pasture where the animals grazed, it's in the milking of the livestock and in the churning of the butter. Community space was in the Prior’s office for administration and in the dormitory for rest and in the infirmary for healing and in the sanctuary for worship and prayer. Abbey’s build community that cared for everyone and they did it to welcome folks. They didn’t just keep it all to themselves, they invited, they hosted and they shared with strangers and friends, guests whether planned and unplanned.
St. Brigid (Brigit, Brid) built an abbey famous for its warm welcome. Her miracles are inherently domestic. With Bridget butter and beer, bread and bacon are the stuff of the sacred. The folks that tell her stories, men of course, 100 and 200 and 300 years later start to have complicated feelings about her leadership, as the waves of patriarchal, Romanized Christianity wash up on Ireland's shore. Bridget’s leadership happened in a less gendered time, she was ordained a bishop, it may have been an accident but the stories that folks share, particularly as time marches on make her more domestic than clerical.
Bridget or Brigid, unlike Patrick, is actually Irish. The bright eyed daughter of a Druid chief. He sells her mother way in slavery and she churns so much butter she liberates them both and reunites the family. A Druid Priestess puts her on the “whose who among Irish toddlers list” with a prophecy of her importance. She is fed the milk of a ‘sacred cow’ and like her namesake, the Celtic goddess, she is filled with a divine spark.
Brigid wants to build a community in this new christianity and after giving her Dad’s stuff away over and over and over, he finally acquiesces and she liberates herself again. She seeks land for her cattle and community and goes to the local lord for a donation. He offers as much ground as she can cover with her cloak, which to his shock and my delight begins to stretch across the fertile plains of Ireland.
She builds a community full of abundance. Her miracles are about welcoming folks and setting the table, even when the Abbey team didn't think there was enough in the pot. She turns water into milk and she turns water into beer…once she makes enough beer to serve 18 parishes. The early church may grow more focused on the altar table and tell the stories of her domestic miracles to keep Brigid (and women) in her place. But that’s where the church lost its way because the kitchen table is as sacred as the altar table. Beer and bread, butter and bacon are miracles of the highest order.
Brigid’s hospitality is a sacred expression of her faith. She does this work because she learned it from Jesus. He does this work because he learned it from his tradition. My favorite story that I can listen to, just like Jesus would have, is this story of hospitality from Abraham and Sarah.
Genesis 18
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, ‘My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.’ So they said, ‘Do as you have said.’ And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.’ 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 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.
Abraham is looking out of his tent, the heat of the horizon gives way to three strangers walking his direction. He runs to them, greets them as a servant and offers food and water and shade. Then Abraham invites his whole household into the work. Sarah is making cakes and Abraham is picking out the best calf and preparing it to serve. He is serving the strangers his best calf, rather than saving it for his birthday party. And in the end, when folks have rested and full tummies…you may know what happens…the big reveal…Abraham and Sarah were entertaining Angels. They are hosting the divine. Hospitality is rewarded.
Every Mediterranean culture in this time has an honor code around hospitality (because folks who travel are vulnerable and they don’t have Hilton honors points and a Starbucks yet) and Hebrew people shared these stories around campfires and in the synagogue was a reminder to practice it. Hospitality and hostility are from the same root, which leads us to the next chapter in Genesis. The next chapter is more stick than carrot and you probably know it, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. This time the three strangers are greeted with hostility and the sin of Sodom is not about human sexuality but about assault, violence and hostility to the stranger. This time there is no blessing but curse, there is no reward but punishment. This too is a story told around the campfire and the synagogue, as a reminder to practice hospitality.
Jesus listens and he practices, he offers feasts on hillsides and feeds folks wherever he goes. He eats with people no one wants to eat with. He keeps the wedding party going by changing water into wine. And because of him, folks like Brigid imagine themselves in the story. She tells the story of hospitality over hostility; with simple gifts of beer and butter, bacon and bread.
Hospitality is hard work. It is risky and has costs. If it was easy it wouldn’t be an industry. This is the work of an Abbey. It always has been. May we have the courage to keep the tradition.
May it be so. Amen.