Hospitality for All
Benedict of Nursia wrote a rule for living that has been followed by monastic communities and average Christians for centuries.*
“All guests who present themselves are to be received as Christ, who said, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”(Matthew 25:35)
* Benedict of Nursia was a monk who lived during the 5th and 6th centuries in the lands of the Roman Empire.
Given all that’s happening in our country around immigration, I thought I’d share this column I wrote that was originally published in the Herald-Palladium in September 2024.
I’ve lived in 23 different places. I know... that sounds like a lot! Two years ago, my wife and I moved to Berrien County, and we hope to make this our community for the rest of our lives, but it’s been quite a journey to get to this point.
Some of those places where I’ve lived were in different states, a few of them were in the same town, but all of them involved packing up, moving, and settling into a new spot. Moving, migrating, journeying, whatever you want to call it, takes a lot of physical and emotional energy.
We’re not the only ones that are on the move, though. According to Steinway Moving and Storage, people in this country move on average almost 12 times during their lives. With all that moving comes a lot of new faces and places.
From my own experience, experiencing hospitality in a new location makes a huge difference. When we moved into our house last year in Berrien Springs, our neighbors across the street left a small gift and note to welcome us to the neighborhood. That gesture let us know that we had found a place we could call home.
Hospitality has been part of the Christian way of living since the days of Jesus and the early Christian communities. Benedict of Nursia was a monk who lived during the 5th and 6th centuries in the lands of the Roman Empire, and he wrote a rule for living that has been followed by monastic communities and average Christians for centuries.
In his rule, Benedict wrote, “All guests who present themselves are to be received as Christ, who said, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’ (Matthew 25:35)” All of us who are on the move from one place to another are strangers to our new community, and yet we all are to be received as Jesus himself.
Benedict also wrote, “Great care and concern is to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims because in them more particularly Christ is received.” Those of us who are struggling or seeking God and a better life reflect the person of Jesus even more, so we, again, are to be welcomed as if we are Jesus himself.
This kind of hospitality was no small task in the days of Benedict and his monastery. The Roman Empire at the time was constantly at war, and those traveling through his part of the world could easily have been people intent on violence. Yet, they were welcomed by the Christian community of the monastery.
What does this call to a spirit of hospitality mean for Christians today? It means welcoming those who are moving into our community, whether they are from Cass County, Chicago, Mexico or Africa.
Welcoming and hospitality can take on different forms, from a small gift left on a front porch to help with housing and those things we need to set up a home. But whatever we do, those of us who are Christians are called to treat the person new to our community as Jesus himself.
Beyond what each of us does to welcome “the stranger,” we need to create a culture of hospitality, where society functions in a welcoming way. Creating such a culture requires leadership that models and shows the path towards hospitality.
Benedict also wrote in his rule that, “The prioress or abbot shall pour water on the hands of the guests, and with the entire community shall wash their feet.” The leaders of the monastery - the prioress or abbot - were expected to show humble service to the guests as if they were Jesus, modeling for the rest of the monastery residents how to show hospitality.
Many people argue that immigrants and those traveling to our country pose a danger, maybe even as the travelers did during the time of Benedict. Yet, immigrants do not commit crimes at any higher rate than people who were born in this country, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. At the same time, many studies show that, overall, immigrants strengthen our economy, providing workers that employers need and promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.
Make no mistake, then... hospitality is not easy. Whether it’s someone retiring in our county from Chicago, or someone immigrating here from South America, a changing population means a changing community, with new stresses as well as opportunities.
Those of us who are Christians, though, are called to treat our newly arrived brothers and sisters as Jesus in our individual actions as well as in how we create our culture and society.
As Jesus said in Matthew 25:34,35, hospitality models in this life what Jesus tells us awaits us in the life to come: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ... for I was a stranger and you welcomed me."
Peace in Christ,
Pastor Dan Robinson
