Yesterday I was in the back yard raking fall leaves and I heard an airplane flying overhead. I am a fairly overeducated and intelligent person and consider myself quite non-superstitious, but I have to admit that when that plane flew overhead, I looked up to make sure that it was on a proper flight path, i.e. not too low and in seemingly good hands, and not heading directly to the downtown core. It’s silly to admit, but yesterday wasn’t the first time that this happened to me. I have to confess that every plane that flies over my head gets a judgmental assessment from me, often unconscious, making sure that its flight path is normal.

You have probably made the connection – my need to check up on every plane flying overhead is directly related to the planes of 9/11 that did not follow proper flight paths and brought unimaginable destruction and fear into our world. On that day, someone in New York City stated: “the world will never be the same after the events of today.” It is true. Perhaps particularly so for Americans and somewhat for Canadians, the events of 9/11 have dramatically affected our world: wars have started, borders have been secured, whole religious and ethnic groups have been marked as suspect, and if I may say, irrational fear and suspicion have crept into the hearts of those of us who witnessed the tragic events of that day.

But the world of fear did not start on 9/11, though 9/11 certainly has added to our fears and suspicions. There is a danger in calling today’s world more suspicious or fearful than yesterday’s world or yester-year’s world. And it might be balanced to say that it doesn’t take a terror filled disaster on the scale of 9/11 to get our fears and suspicions going:

• Standing beside a questionable character at the bus stop can make us double check that our wallet is still in our pocket.
• Watching the 10 o’clock news about home invasions can make us go and re- lock the door.
• Seeing a panhandler on the street ahead of us can be enough to send us scuttling across the street at the intersection.
• Reading newspaper articles about refugees and terrorists can keep us from traveling to other parts of the world.

Since the snake, since the beginning of time, we have had reasons to distrust, to view suspiciously, to hold at arm’s length or even further, those people or circumstances that are strange to us, that we have no acquaintance with. Perhaps we can boil it down to an evolutionary response to survive – watch out for those things or people that will do us in, steer clear of them, and you will survive. Left to ourselves, we weaponize space to keep our country safe from incoming missiles, we tighten our borders to keep out bad people, we reshuffle government agencies and create (Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) a department whose express role is to protect Canadians, we build walls for protection both interiorly and exteriorly, we fortify our doors, we buy small arms to protect ourselves from invaders, and eventually we are safe – and extremely fearful and suspicious.

I paint an extreme picture, to help us get the point, not to scoff the complexities of the world. Every increased security measure we install in our lives to protect us from the strange, results in a reciprocal increase in fear in our hearts.

SCRIPTURAL MOORINGS – CENTERING OUR PERSPECTIVE
We have named the fact that it’s a fearful world, a chaotic and suspicious world, a place of dis-trust, and, in the midst of all this, it can be hard to know how to start practicing a life of radical hospitality. The practice of hospitality becomes deeply enriched as we explore the biblical roots of living a life of welcome. As we orient ourselves to the biblical vision of hospitality, we find ourselves enabled to take steps of faith that carry us further and further into the practice of a hospitable life, until we find that it is the open door that dispels fear, not the closed and bolted door.

I am not a biblical scholar, but allow me to make a few observations that will hopefully give us a starting point, a base upon which we can re-orient ourselves for a fuller discussion of radical hospitality. I would like us to focus on these simple points of remembering:

• Remembering our context – God’s creation
• Remembering who we are – sojourners and aliens
• Remembering who the other is – honour, not hostility, to the stranger
• Remembering who God is – host and stranger
REMEMBERING OUR CONTEXT – GOD’S CREATION

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it”. (Psalm 24:1)

This is our starting point: we live in a created place – in a universe, in a world that comes from and is sustained by the creative hands of God, we live, breathe and die in the loving hands of God. This is fundamentally not a place of fear, but of the profound presence of God. It is not governments or regimes, wars or terrorists that define our world, ultimately. Rather, our context for living and doing is in the context of God’s creating and sustaining. Everything comes from God and returns to God. We are the guests!

REMEMBERING WHO WE ARE – SOJOURNERS AND ALIENS

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Gen 12:1)

At the heart of biblical spirituality is the journey of faith – leave what you know and I will show you where to go, or as Jesus says it, “Come and follow me.” While we as a culture value stability, our true identity as people of faith is not as stable, rooted people, but as vulnerable sojourners.

“Don’t mistreat any foreigners who live in your land. Instead, treat them as well as you treat citizens and love them as much as you love yourself. Remember, you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Lev 20:33-34)

The motive for the Hebrew people to treat foreigners with love and respect, i.e. practicing hospitality, is based out their own memory of what it was like to be a foreigner. We are called to remember that we once were foreigners. But this is difficult for us as 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation immigrants. Our challenge is to maintain our alien identity!

Perhaps, we should create situations where we are vulnerable. We could give up our car and use the bus, walk through a neighbourhood we don’t feel comfortable in, or travel and be dependent. Having an experience of vulnerability, of being a foreigner, and remembering it, gives motivation for being hospitable. If we have never been in a vulnerable situation where we have been dependent on others hospitality, it becomes increasingly difficult to really be hospitable.

REMEMBERING WHO THE OTHER IS – HONOUR NOT HOSTILITY, TO THE STRANGER

“Jesus said also to the one who had invited him, ’When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’” (Luke 14:12-14)

Jesus’ teachings in Luke 14 reveal that the stranger is the one we are least likely to invite to a dinner party – the one who is hard to have a conversation with. When the polar ends of society come together around a shared meal, then the other is finally being encountered. Jesus takes this invitation even further by calling us to love our enemy – the truly other.

“Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. He quickly ran to meet them, bowed with his face to the ground, and said, ‘Please come to my home where I can serve you. I’ll have some water brought so you can wash your feet, then you can rest under the tree. Let me get you some food to give you strength before you leave. I would be honoured to serve you’.” (Gen 18:2-5)

The story of Abraham and his three guests is set in a culture of hospitality, where tremendous honour was given to the strangers, includes footwashing, a place for rest, and food. Walter Brueggemann states that a stranger is a “person without a place.” To truly honour the other is to create a place for them.

REMEMBERING WHO GOD IS – HOST, GUEST, AND STRANGER

“When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to Zacchaeus, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today’.” (Luke 19:5)

Jesus turns hospitality on its head. He invites himself as guest, but subversively becomes the true host, welcoming Zacchaeus into a place where his identity is renewed and secured – a “son of Abraham”

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me….. And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you…? Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matt 25:35-40)

Ultimately, Christ is the stranger and we are told that we encounter Christ through those we welcome. This is powerful motivation for opening the doors of our hearts, homes, churches, communities, and countries to those who are strange to us.

CONCLUSION
The challenge – the call – is deep within us: the voice of Jesus calling us to follow him to that place where strangers are family and enemies are our table guests. This is the call to radical hospitality, to an action of love that unseats us from our perceived securities and our dangerous suspicions and places us on the journey of trust, self-giving, and other-loving.

[Servants is celebrating a Year of Radical Hospitality in 2007. This article was written by Loren Balisky, a member of Kinbrace community which welcomes refugees in Vancouver, Canada. Kinbrace is an initiative of Salsbury Community Society (www.salsburycommunitysociety.ca)]

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