A LENTEN PILGRIMAGE Rev. Fr. K M George The Hospitality
While living in a tent in the wilderness Abraham received three travellers in his tent-house under the shade of an oak tree. They were total strangers to Abraham. His hospitality became legendary, and the incident narrated in Genesis 18 gave rise to interpretations of the doctrine of Trinity later in the Christian patristic era, and also to the celebrated icon of "Philoxenia" (=hospitality, literally 'love of strangers') by the Russian iconographer Andre Rublev in the 14th century. The theme of hospitality has found a place in the reflections of contemporary philosophers like Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur as well as in the political ethics of modern nation states.
We know from experience that the poor are more hospitable than the rich in general. That means that the virtue of hospitality does not necessarily depend on material resources that we possess. In the ancient monastic tradition, hospitality was a prime Christian virtue for the monks living in the desert with practically nothing to offer to the guests. St Benedict (6th century) in the west instructed in his Rules to consider every guest as Christ himself. (Remember the ancient Indian dictum "Atithi devo bhavah" - let the guest be god).
In Christ's self-offering through suffering and death out of love for us and for our salvation we see the supreme example of divine hospitality. It is in the desert of the nothingness of self-emptying (kenosis) that God receives us strangers and aliens into the divine household and the banquet of the kingdom.
The anonymous woman who anointed Jesus at the house of Simon the rich Pharisee (Matthew 26:6-13 and parallels) deeply understood this and responded to the divine hospitality by an unusual and 'extravagant' act of human hospitality. Jesus drew out the contrast between her and Simon. The nameless and despised woman extended her hospitality at a very inhospitable time and place while the hospitality shown by the rich host was superficial and tainted with hidden ulterior motives.
The woman exemplified the meaning of the overwhelming divine hospitality of the Son of Man who was about to die on the cross by her own overwhelming, evocative, and seemingly 'crazy' gesture of love. Jesus alone recognized it and said that she did it for His burial. What a marvellous moment of mutual recognition between the divine and the human! In all likelihood, the nameless woman must have followed Jesus up to Calvary and beyond. Think of the "fragrance that filled the whole house" (John 12:3). Consider how the story of this gesture continues to be told and retold across the ages in memory of her as an integral part of the entire Gospel narrative (Matthew 26:13).
There is a subtle connection between love, hospitality and complete self-giving. It may be a bit difficult for us to understand the suffering and death of Christ as part of God's hospitality towards the created world. But Jesus himself tells us that:
"There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends."
(John 15:13)
Voluntary suffering for the sake of love for others is the ultimate in hospitality. When you take into your household people who are total strangers and passers-by, people who are not related to you in any way, people who are in some dire need of help, you are making a silent commitment to ultimately lay down your life for them. Here hospitality is salvation in its rich meaning. To be hospitable means to be committed to save life.
The opposite of philoxenia or love of the stranger is "xenophobia", fear of the stranger. We are taught to hate the alien, to suspect the passersby, to mistrust and fear anyone who comes towards us. The irony of the age is that our world is now being ruled by high security systems and alerts claiming to save our life. At ever-rising cost of resources and relationships we actually curtail human freedom and rights, natural camaraderie and fruitful human exchanges in order to build devices of death in the name of safety and salvation. The long-term blessings and promises to humanity that true hospitality brings in, like in the case of Abraham and Sarah, are becoming more and more alien to us.
"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. And that is what we are!"
(1 John3:1)
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