The visitor to the monastery commented on the hospitality received during a week-long stay, “I am so impressed with your hospitality. I could not have been treated more graciously, if I had been Jesus himself.”
“I am delighted that you noticed,” replied the monk, “for you see it is our desire to treat each guest as if that person were, in fact, our Lord. We realize that it is possible that any stranger at our door may really be Jesus. To some extent, Christ is present in every guest.”
The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matt 25: 40)
Living into the faith and hospitality of that monastery is never easy. It takes courage to overcome our fear and become hospitable to the stranger at our gate, who might just do us harm, instead of good. Does hospitality demand that we take just any foolish risk that comes along? Probably not! However, many of us hold back in fear of things that do not matter in the long run, when we could reach out a helping hand.
Hospitality requires trust. You and I are not strangers to trust. Our entire civilization is built on trust. Who of us worries that every building in which we live and work is going to collapse? Instead, we trust that the architects and builders have done their jobs properly. We trust the food we eat will be wholesome and nutritious. Could we ever travel by car, if we didn’t trust other drivers to stay on their side of the road?
In his book, Reaching Out, Henri Nouwen describes the journey from hostility to hospitality as one of the three movements of the spiritual life. Hostility is born of fear. Hospitality grows as we learn to trust ourselves and to trust God’s presence.
Learning to entertain the presence of the holy in our lives, challenges us to move beyond our fears and to be open to the possibility of God’s presence in the stranger at the gate. Who knows when that person might be Jesus?
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