Rhythm of Life: The Practice of Hospitality
Hospitality is a practice and if you are in the hospitality industry you know why. People are not great (to put it nicely) and we have seen it all at the Abbey. There are beautiful moments of course but the weird, wild, gross and mean moments are hard to forget. The Abbey is a space of hospitality and I don’t say that because it is easy, I say that because offering hospitality is a spiritual practice that makes you better at seeing as God sees and loving as God loves because when someone feels entitled to be a real jerk, you have to pause and write a different response than being a real jerk right back.
Mary grew up hearing the stories of her people welcoming strangers. She taught Jesus about their people’s history of welcoming the foreigner and treating the alien as a citizen, not just as a policy, but as a part of their faith. Hospitality was a part of their identity and written in their covenant with God.
Chapter 18 of Genesis invites us into the story of Sarah and Abraham welcoming three strangers. Abraham goes out of his way to invite them in and offer them the best they have. He kills the fatted calf, makes cakes…well he doesn’t…he has people do that…but he is the chief architect of the family’s welcome. He and Sarah don’t save the calf for their anniversary or a special event and choose the non-fatted calf or an old goat (honestly, I don’t know the opposite of the fatted calf but there must be something; we all know there is a difference between a nice meatloaf and prime rib you were saving for Christmas dinner). The point is, they make the most generous welcome they can offer. They don’t vet the visitors or ask for paperwork. They make themselves vulnerable and it turns out the visitors are angels. The story concludes with a blessing.
Hospitality is so vital that in the next chapter, the same three incognito angels journey further, enter the city of Sodom and wait to be welcomed. No one offers hospitality except Lot and his family. Lot puts his family at risk as the city of Sodom turns hostile, which is classically represented by a mob of angry men. They want Lot to send the guests out to be assaulted. This story isn’t about sexual expression between two partners, it’s about sexual assault. And sexual assault is about having power over another. The people of Sodom want to dominate these guests in the most intimate and violent way. This story ends with fire and brimstone raining down from on high while Lot and his family narrowly escape. The sin of Sodom was a sin of hostility in place of hospitality and this sin receives one of the most epic punishments by God in the whole of the Hebrew Bible.
The Hebrew Bible takes hospitality seriously, with both a carrot and a stick approach…i.e., you could be entertaining angels or your city could be demolished - you choose.
Mary and Jesus grow up singing the songs of a faith that welcomes the stranger. Hospitality infuses the work and life of Jesus; everywhere he goes, he feeds and includes, his stories are about abundance.
The early Christians became known for their hospitality; they break bread and share all things in common. They are so good at it that the Roman Empire turns to them as an example when the emperor asks his leaders to learn from the Christians. Today, this might be more of a corporate meeting and the emperor saying, “you know who does hostility...I mean hospitality well? The Christians.”.
As Abbeys and monastic communities began to dot the religious landscape, the rule of life required hospitality. St. Benedict called on his community to welcome the stranger as one might welcome Christ. The stranger is God incarnate. And offering hospitality to anyone was a gift and a matter of spiritual practice. St. Bridget’s Irish Abbey was famous for making feasts out of nothing and welcoming folks with plenty of bread, beer and butter.
Hospitality is rooted in a Latin word that means stranger or foreigner. It is the same root from which the words hospital, hotel and hospice emerge. It is also the root of hostility. How we treat the stranger with hospitality or hostility. How we enter into the unknown is the practice of faith. Do we choose the risky, loving vulnerability of hospitality or the guarded, controlling and dominating path of hostility?
That is why each week we gather with open hearts at this table to take in Christ the host through this meal. We practice each week in this Abbey community so we can shape how we live each day. Perhaps this week invites a little practice or a big test of your hospitality.
We practice it here each day in our living sanctuary, seeking to surprise and delight and include each and every person. It means welcoming the stranger as Christ or if it helps you imagine Dolly Parton or Lizzo or whomever helps you want to welcome another. Hospitality as spiritual practice makes everyone a VIP. And it’s real work; cleaning tables and bathrooms or getting the latte just right, and singing out welcome even if things aren’t going according to plan.
It means anticipating the needs of others, preparing our space and ourselves to welcome, it means putting our best out to share. Our faith calls us (as it did Mary and Jesus, Abraham and Sarah), to be people who welcome the stranger. And as we all know, that is hard to do in a world ruled by fear of strangers. This faith calls us to speak love into this fear, but with more than words.
Paul wrote to the churches he started about practicing Hospitality. “Practice Hospitality,” he said (Romans 12:13). He said it because it was pretty much all he had. He taught people about the life and work of a crucified Jewish peasant…a nobody by the world's standards but when people experienced what living that way meant, they changed their lives. People joined him and they tasted what it meant to be in a community where the boundaries of the world didn’t apply, ‘no jew or greek, slave or free, male or female.’ People loved it and practiced it and Paul moved on but then sometimes folks forgot the details. This is why he writes them letters, like a Bishop sending an email with the subject, Do Better. He has to remind them to wait for others; this isn’t like a Roman Banquet where the wealthy get the best stuff and the poor who don’t have as much control over their schedule show up later to get the leftovers. Paul writes again and again and it's about this practice, how a thousand tiny details actually make a big difference.
Practice Hospitality he said because it's what Jesus did. Practice hospitality because it is hard and beautiful and will astound you as a teacher. Practice hospitality because it is the grounding practice of our faith and will shape us into folks who are attentive to the needs of others. Practice hospitality and see who shows up to break bread with you.