Hospitality 2

The Stranger

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk–
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control–
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

This was my father’s belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf–
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children’s teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.

           —Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936

Don: Kipling’s poem reflects the sentiment of many in our society today, but it is not that of Jesus:

So He [Jesus] came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. (John 4:5-23)

This story includes many principles of hospitality, such as:

1. It requires face-to-face interaction;
2. It may be requested if it is not offered (the woman points out some of the many natural barriers to offers of hospitality, including racial, religious, and gender barriers);
3. It embraces the unknown, including the knowledge of who a stranger really is;
4. Ideological hospitality is easier in a context of physical hospitality—When hospitality is offered, when a host makes a commitment to ministering to the physical needs of strangers, a bond is established that makes different ideas easier to tolerate;
5. In the end, ideologies—including religious ideologies—will become irrelevant (“Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know….”)

The Judgment scene in Matthew 25 speaks only of physical hospitality.

In antithesis to Kipling’s poem, an essay on hospitality written by the French knight Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt in 1765, begins:

Hospitality is the virtue of a great soul that cares for the whole universe through the ties of humanity. The Stoics regarded it as a duty inspired by God himself. One must, they said, do good to people who come to our countries, less for their sake than for our own interest, for the sake of virtue and in order to perfect in our souls human sentiments, which must not be limited to the ties of blood and friendship, but extended to all mortals.

I define this virtue as a liberality exercised towards foreigners, especially if one receives them into one’s home: the just measure of this type of beneficence depends on what contributes the most to the great end that men must have as a goal, namely reciprocal help, fidelity, exchange between various states, concord, and the duties of the members of a shared civil society. (See link.)

de Jaucourt goes on to give many historical examples of hospitality, including that of Abraham and especially of the Greeks, who held hospitality to be “the virtue most agreeable to the gods” and who even established public buildings for the reception of foreigners. Alexander the Great declared all foreigners except the malicious ones to be his relatives. The Romans emulated and even surpassed the Greeks in their practice of hospitality to the foreigner. In what is now Germany, it was sacrilegious not to open one’s door to a stranger. Further:

The rights of hospitality were so sacred that one looked upon the murder of a guest as the most unforgivable crime; and even if this murder was involuntary, one believed that it would attract the vengeance of the gods. Even the law of war could not undermine the law of hospitality, since the latter was considered to be eternal unless one abdicated it in an authentic manner. One of the ceremonies that was practiced in such cases was to break the mark, the tessera of hospitality, and to declare to the disloyal friend that one had broken forever with him.

We no longer know this beautiful bond of hospitality, and we must admit that the times have produced such great changes among peoples and especially among us, that we are much less obligated by the sacred and respectable laws of this duty than the ancients were. (See link.)

The essay closes with these paragraphs:

Hospitality was naturally lost throughout Europe as all Europeans became travelers and merchants. The circulation of money through the lettres de change , the safety of roads, the convenience of vessels, of posts and of other cars; the hostels established in all cities and on all roads to lodge travelers, have all come to replace the generous assistance of the ancients’ hospitality.

The spirit of commerce, while uniting all nations, has broken the ties of benevolence between individuals; it has caused much good and evil; it has produced incalculable commodities, more extensive knowledge, easy luxury and a love of interest. This love has replaced the secret movements of nature which formerly linked men through tender and touching bonds. In their travels, wealthy individuals have gained the enjoyment of all the delights of the country they visit, joined to the polite welcome that is offered proportionally to their expense. We see them with pleasure and without attachment, just like those rivers that fertilize more or less the lands through which they pass. (See link.)

Jesus concluded his discussion with the woman at the well by saying that:

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:5-23)

What does all this have to tell us in a world where polarization and rejection of differences seems—judging by the daily news—to be on the rise, if not the norm?

David: de Jaucourt’s complaint that global commerce—which was new (in terms of scale) in his day—was ruining good old-fashioned hospitality is mirrored in our modern complaint that technology (especially the social media) is doing it. Times change, yet as another Frenchman famously pointed out, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. We have more examples of change than our predecessors did, which might help us in trying to isolate and understand the constant.

We have historical evidence, it seems, of a decline in hospitality, and I admit to being the first to berate Facebook for dragging it down even further. But I have to remind myself that we have overcome the loss of certain ways of practicing hospitality, and perhaps have overcome even the loss of some of the principles of hospitality as Don expounded them just now.

But there is one constant: Humanity, which I would define as love for one’s fellow human being and a desire to be loved in like manner. de Jaucourt’s essay and Jesus’s entire ministry both resonate resoundingly with us, centuries and millennia later, precisely because they contain that constant.

On Judgment Day, will I have a record of having been hospitable to Jesus—of having fed him and clothed and accommodated him? I will argue that in supporting, with my vote and tax dollars, a democratic system that feeds, clothes, and houses many (though not enough) people in need, that I have indeed been hospitable to Jesus; hospitable in the only way I can reasonably be expected to be hospitable in a world of stranger danger—a world that was far less palpable to people in biblical times and even in de Jaucourt’s time.

Donald: The woman at the well was regarded as a stranger. What’s the difference between a stranger and a foreigner? And when does a stranger cease to be a stranger and instead part of the community?

Why do we travel? Commerce is one reason. Vacation travel is a relatively new but robust phenomenon. Immigration is another. We have more opportunity than our predecessors to be strangers ourselves, and other countries and communities find themselves with more strangers in their midst. There are more or less subtle differences in which different types of stranger are treated.

Don: The kind of homogenous community that Kipling apparently (based on his poem) desired was more conceivable in his day than it is today. Just look at our small group here today! They include individuals from Jordan, Palestine, India, England, the Philippines, and the US—six ethnicities in a group of nine people, with one of them physically in Hawaii, another in western Michigan, and two in mid-town Detroit! No one of us thinks of any other of us as a stranger or a foreigner. The great challenge is to expand this level of heterogenous community globally.

Robin: In today’s society, in modern times, how do we know when it is safe to invite a stranger in? Have times so changed that we need to change the kind of hospitality we give? Is hospitality, in the inner city at least, now going to consist of handing out bottles of water and sandwiches, and warm Winter clothing, because it is not safe to invite just anybody into our home? Is that not the reality we face?

David: Perhaps the Devil, in his form as Time, has killed off the old form of hospitality. But he has not succeeded in killing off the constant—the god-like inner spirit of love toward our fellow human now reflected in the plastic bottle of water we hand out to the homeless.

Michael: There is a modern, social media-enabled form of hospitality called “couch surfing”. I have a couch in my living room, and advertise it on couchsurfing.com to any couch surfer who wants to visit Detroit for a night or two. There is no charge for the accommodation. Many people use it.

Kiran: There are background checks on couchsurfing.com. I used the service to stay with someone, a Caucasian couple who were fascinated by my Hindu background and Christian commitment. We have since continued a relationship via emails and blogs. People use it for this very reason—to be introduced to differences.

[Editor’s note: Here’s a New Yorker article—excellent and amusing as are all New Yorker articles—about couch surfing.]

Michael: AirBnB is somewhat similar but in its case there is a charge for the accommodation.

Don: It sounds horrifying to an introvert!

Kiran: In my experience, it’s actually amazing, and it helps to iron out the differences among people.

David: Hosting a couch surfer for a day or two is one thing, when there is barely time to explore and savor our guest’s differences. But what happens over time? Are the differences ironed out to the extent that our similarities are what remain to attract us? Isn’t that what has happened to us? We are no longer a former Hindu, a Daoist, an Adventist; we are just Kiran and David and Alice. We are here now because we are similar, not because we are different, but if we were meeting for the first time we would all be fascinated by our differences. We still pump Michael for the Palestinian perspective, and Alice for the Arabic interpretation of the Bible, but we love them as friends rather than are mesmerized by their having these particular attributes. When we invite the stranger Kiran to share our couch it should be he who is really interesting and who really matters, not so much his perspective on Hinduism.

Michael: The Seventh Day Adventist Church seems particular diverse ethnically.

Donald: The SDA Church’s general conferences are spiritually uplifting in that regard. It is a diverse group of people gathered around a common set of core beliefs. The Olympic Games reflect a similar ethos. Perhaps that commonality of purpose and belief is what distinguishes stranger from foreigner from friend.

Samuel: Any Seventh Day Adventist who visits my home town of Cebu City in the Philippines is not a stranger and is welcome to my home. Hospitality is one way of converting people to our faith. On the Sabbath, we invite visitors—non-Adventist strangers and foreigners—to lunch at the church. They invariably appreciate our hospitality.

At one such lunch, a non-Adventist visitor from Wales asked if he could visit our home. When he saw it, he asked if he could stay with us, and ended up staying for several months. Though not an Adventist, he respected us by observing our Sabbath. He still keeps in touch with us, now that he is back home in Wales.

David: In his excellent book No Sense of Place, Joshua Meyrowitz noted:

When… we hear over the car radio of a devastating earthquake, or the death of a popular entertainer, or the assassination of a political figure, we not only lose our ability to rejoice fully, but also our ability to mourn deeply. The electronic combination of many different styles of interaction from distinct regions leads to new “middle region” behaviors that, while containing elements of formerly distinct roles, are themselves new behavior patterns with new expectations and emotions.

Gone, therefore, are many people’s “special” behaviors, those that were associated with distinct and isolated interactions. Gone are the great eccentrics, the passionate overpowering loves, the massive unrelenting hates. the dramatic curses and flowery praises. Unbounded joy and unmitigated misery cannot coexist in the same place and time. As situations merge, the hot flush and the icy stare blend into a middle region “cool.”

In some communities, such as the Pashtuns of Pakistan and Afghanistan, blazing hot and ice-cold passions persist. The Wikipedia entry on hospitality notes that the Pashtuns are noted for their very strong, old-world sense of it, where a guest is afforded priority over everything, regardless of his (I guess female guests are an oxymoron in that society) religion. The downside of this hot passion for hospitality is an ice-cold consideration for anyone misfortunate enough not to be their guest. In the West, we have reached the cool middle region where we won’t invite the stranger in but we will contribute taxes to pay for their welfare. Which is the better world—hot/cold, or cool?

Chris: Hospitality always seems to come easier when there is a common thread. As a band member in my Adventist high school it was commonplace to be housed with other Adventist families, often complete strangers, when we went on the road. The common thread was our shared Adventism. Adventist missionaries of old sought out other Adventists to stay with when traveling. It was the common practice and still is to some extent today. I would seek help from the Adventist community if I got into difficulties when traveling abroad.

Is there a common thread that links us on a wider scale?

Anonymous: The common thread is our humanity. We need to come together on that basis, and to do that we have to believe that the stranger—even the bad stranger—is our brother or sister and we must lose our fear of him or her.

Robin: That is so ideal, but you only have to watch the nightly news of murders and mayhem to know it’s not going to happen. How can we be reasonably hospitable rather than foolishly, dangerously hospitable? It’s nice to think of hosting angels unaware, but not so nice to think of hosting devils unaware.

Anonymous: It’s not necessary to distinguish between them. If one is true and honest to God, and doing the good work that you want and love to do and that God asks you to do, then God will protect you.

Donald: In our church ministry, typically we seek to serve those who are destitute. Of course we should do that, but what of serving each other—those who are not destitute but may have less visible needs? Should I pass them by as I go to serve the person who needs the bottle of water? Or is hospitality just something that belongs between each one of us? Sometimes it seems that in the process of doing good we can be less than nice to one another.

Samuel: We once hosted members of a rebel group, the National People’s Army, in our home. We served them a nice meal. Our neighbors were horrified, but we were never troubled by them after that.

David: I am not sure if Kipling changed his apparent attitude toward strangers over the course of his life or whether, in writing The Stranger, he was not just doing what artists do; that is to say, describing an aspect (ugly as may be) of life, of humanity, because it exists, but without necessarily subscribing to it. I have to believe that the man who wrote:

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk–
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

… did not consider his other poetic creation, the exotically foreign Gunga Din, to be a stranger. The poem’s English soldier narrator saw Gunga Din’s very soul so clearly that he could not but conclude:

By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Perhaps the soul is the common thread in our humanity, as it is in the kingdom of heaven. The hospitality of which Jesus speaks is the hospitality of the kingdom of heaven, and it is a kingdom achievable here on earth, as I believe the examples Sammy has shared with us today demonstrate.

Don: I feel there are more principles to be extracted from the story of the woman at the well, that might help us with Donald’s reasonable question: What is expected of us?

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