When an alien resides with you in your land,
do not mistreat such a one. ~ Leviticus 19: 33

Do not neglect hospitality, for through it
some have unknowingly entertained angels. ~ Hebrews 13: 2

Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886 – 1968) was one of the towering Christian figures and thinkers of the 20^th century. The principle author of the Barmen Declaration which was a document renouncing the infiltration of Nazi ideology into the Protestant churches in Germany, Barth was an elected member of the leadership council of the Confessing Church which was a minority group of German Protestant Christians that offered a modicum of resistance to the Third Reich in the mid-to-late 1930’s and early-to-mid 1940’s. Something Barth was reputed to have said came to my mind this week no doubt spawned by the most recent version of demagoguery emanating from the mouth of the President of the United States and the continued troubling images of the dehumanizing situation and conditions taking place at our southern border.

As my homiletic’s professor used to put Barth’s words in an updated and American context, “Preach with the Bible in one hand and the New York Times in the other.” The closest verification of Barth having said such a thing in the midst of the Nazi instigation of horror along with the government-sanctioned corruption of the Christian faith and the gospel of Jesus appeared in the May 31, 1963 issue of TIME magazine which had a feature on the Protestant theologian. It said, “[Barth] recalls that 40 years ago he advised young theologians ‘to take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.’”

This quote, in turn, reminded me of one of the best kept secrets among Catholics (and other Christians), namely, a document put out by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and ghost-written by the American Benedictine William Skudlarek on the art and purpose of preaching titled, Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly (FYH).1 One could argue that the quality of Catholic (and all Christian) preaching would increase dramatically not only if homilists were intimately familiar with this document, but if preachers knew that their congregations had read and studied it as well and thus were clear about the role and responsibility of the homilist, the purpose and aim of the homily, and the responsibility of the listening assembly and the entire community of faith.

For those Christian communities who use the common lectionary,2 the point of Barth’s statement and the message of Fulfilled in Your Hearing have been accentuated these last two weeks when the disturbing headlines and realities in our country and world are overlaid with the readings designated for last Sunday and this Sunday. As stressed in Fulfilled in Your Hearing, “The homily is not so much on the scriptures as from and through them.”3 Last Sunday the gospel was the all-too familiar but potentially transformational parable of The Good Samaritan by which Jesus hopes to subvert people’s understanding of what it means to be neighbor and the gospel’s radical call (or should I say command) to be neighbor. Tomorrow’s gospel reading is the equally familiar story of Jesus’ visit to Martha and Mary, but the first reading from Genesis 18:1-10a is the timely and provocative story of Abraham and Sarah welcoming the three strangers.

Last week on Facebook, Fr. Terrence Moran, the Director of the Office of Peace, Justice, and Ecological Integrity for the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, posted an icon depicting the good Samaritan and the man in need accompanied by the simple but pertinent inquiry:

An informal FB survey: if you went to church today, did the preacher make a connection between the gospel and the Good Samaritan and what is happening today with immigrants/refugees?

To be honest, I fear the survey will show far too few. Tomorrow, the 16^th Sunday of Ordinary Time offers a similar opportunity for preachers and communities of faith to reflect on the present situation in our country and throughout the world regarding our response to strangers, migrant families, refugees, and detainees when viewed “from” and “through” the story of Abraham and Sarah.

In the time and culture of Abraham and Sarah, hospitality was a social necessity and cultural norm. Before Jewish hospitality was viewed as a virtue, it was a code of conduct to ensure survival in a geography and climate that could be very unforgiving. In a time when travel was precarious and often necessitated by war, persecution, or famine, a code of mutual aid, even among strangers, was at times the only thing standing between the sojourner and death.

Terebinth

Abraham is not only willing but eager to offer hospitality. He sits at the entrance of his tent watching for those travelers who might be in need. Sandwiched between his initial act of reverence (he greets the three strangers by bowing to the ground before them) and his not eating with them in order to attentively wait on and be of service to them, he offers the three travelers three signs of hospitality: first, water for washing and refreshment, second, bread, meat, and milk for nourishment and sustenance, and third, his tent and the nearby terebinth for shade and rest. The generous hospitality offered by Abraham and Sarah transform the strangers into guests with the potential for guests to become, if not friends, then perhaps one day when circumstances are reversed, reciprocal hosts and helpers.

Since the time of the Rabbis, the identity of the three strangers has been debated. But Hebrews 13: 2 suggests a common understanding from the time of the New Testament among Christians that Abraham and Sarah were playing host not merely to three strangers but to angels, messengers sent by God, or manifestations of divine presence. The 15^th century iconographer Rublev portrays the three as an allusion to the Holy Trinity, as the “house of love”4 into which we are the invited guests welcomed into the sanctuary of the beloved community who is God.

When we use the story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18 as a lens through which to see immigrants and refugees to our country and throughout the world and to inform us about what we are to do and how we are to do it, it requires us to ask basic but essential questions: why are people coming? What or whom are they fleeing? Have we listened to their stories to find out why? How have we received them—with accusation, assumptions, fear, force, hostility, demonization, and dehumanizing conditions or hospitality and sanctuary grounded in generous listening, understanding, deep sympathy, mercy, compassion, concern for justice, and Christian love? What are we called to by virtue of the fact that we are not Americans who happen to be Christians, but Christians who happen to be Americans?

In Germany during the rise of Nazism, the Confessing Church arose in opposition to those who identified themselves as Deutsche Christen (German Christians) but who, in fact, worked with or in the German government to make the church and the gospel subservient to the vision and course of action of the Third Reich. Then and now, Christians are called to be guided first, not by a political party or self-interest or personal expediency, but by the vision of the basileia tou theou (the reign of God) that Jesus embodied and came to announce so that we might participate now in making the dream of God come true on earth as it is in heaven.

Most concerned Americans agree that there needs to be a sensible and humane strategic plan and legislation to deal with the increasingly urgent issue of immigration of those who seek asylum from physical and life-threatening danger, persecution, poverty, or a safer, better, and more dignified way of life via citizenship. But until that happens, and when it happens, preferably by elected officials and legislators who listen to the will of the people for policies that wed justice and mercy, Christians are summoned and commanded to a life of faith that does justice. It is not an option. We are called to enact the hospitality, compassion, care, and radical love that is informed by the gospel and rooted in the conviction that each and every person– regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, or intellectual capacity—is the image and beloved of God.

The gospel of Matthew encourages us to replicate the hospitality, generosity, and care of Abraham and Sarah: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me” (Mt. 25:35-36) In the same spirit five centuries later, St. Benedict tells his brother monks (and us as well), “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” It is not optional for us who personally and communally identify as Christ-ones to respond to the stranger, the sojourner, the refugee in any way that is not marked by reverence, understanding, compassion, and loving kindness. This is neither naïve nor Pollyannaish. What it is is the privilege, cost, and litmus test of those who choose to receive the name of Christ.

Finally, it is noteworthy, that the story of Abraham and Sarah’s hospitality culminates in the three messengers offering the nonagenarians the too-good-to-be-true good news that in seven months Sarah will be attending a baby shower–hers– at 90, while 99-year old Abraham stays home to paint a corner of the tent baby blue for the son who will be born and bless them two months later. Whether there is any cause and effect, it is important to see that there is some connection between lives given to hospitality and solidarity with others and lives of God-given generativity and fecundity.♦

For you music lovers, here’s a musical companion piece to my reflection from my favorite version of the Traditional song “Wayfaring Stranger” by Charlie Haden and Shirley Horn. It captures the pathos of many of the images that have come from the detention centers along our southern border. Kyrie eleison. Click on Title in blue.

NOTES

1 The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly, © 1982.

2 The Lectionary is a three-year cycle of scripture readings that matches texts with corresponding seasons or feasts and ensures that a comprehensive reading of scriptures over three years of Sundays.

3 USCCB, Fulfilled in Your Hearing, 20.

4 Henri J. M. Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons, 19ff.