When Abraham and Sarah received their three guests, and they provided for them so lavishly, they accomplished two important things. First, they ended up receiving the Lord into their midst. The three guests were quite wondrously a manifestation of God who had come to reiterate God’s promise of a child to them. This would end up being the subject of one of the most famous Christian artistic images: Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity, where Rublev imagined the three guests as being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The second important thing that Abraham and Sarah accomplished was providing for us an example of hospitality. By welcoming the Divine Presence into their home, and by providing for their guests so richly, they demonstrate to us how we are to welcome strangers into our midst.
Jesus carried on this modeling of hospitality by accepting the gracious welcome of others—even sinners!—and by providing extravagant hospitality to the masses, complete with bread, fish, and enough leftovers to fill basket after basket. In the Book of Acts we see the first Christians shared everything they had with each other and with complete strangers.
In the monastic traditions of medieval Europe, monasteries would oftentimes have a monk whose sole job was to welcome strangers. This monk was given explicit instruction to greet each person as if they were Christ himself—for, just like Abraham and Sarah, you never know when God is going to show up on your doorstep.
Thus, the Christian practice of hospitality is firmly rooted in Scripture and in the abiding traditions of our faith. In my two decades of ordained ministry, I’ve always sought to help shape the parishes I’ve served to be places of true hospitality—where people are received as they are, and are welcomed with open arms.
In our culture, loneliness and isolation are rampant. I see it all the time in my pastoral ministry. As a world we are more connected than ever, but oftentimes at the cost of real deep and abiding connection. When people are truly welcomed and received into our lives, we are able to make that authentic kind of deep connection that can overcome loneliness and isolation and come closer to the example that Abraham, Sarah, Jesus, the first Christians, and those medieval monks offer to us.
In one of the mystical strands of Judaism they have the concept of zimzum, which means “the contraction” or “the withdrawal.” The idea is that before creation God utterly filled everything, every ounce, every molecule of space. This meant that before God created the universe and everything in it, God had to first contract or withdraw to allow space for all those molecules, those stars, those people, and those Episcopal churches. Zimzum is intimately connected to hospitality, because to extend hospitality to another you have to give up something: time, space, resources.
Abraham and Sarah gave up their whole day to provide for their guests. Jesus could have been doing something else, but he decided to use his time and gifts to feed people. Those monasteries could have allocated that monks time for another task—like wash the dishes—but they chose to put him out by the gate on the off chance someone would come by to be welcomed.
I want to say up front how incredibly grateful I am for the hospitality of St. David’s. To a person, the discernment committee, the vestry, the wardens, the staff, and the people we’ve met so far, have been nothing but welcoming, generous, and helpful. My family and I feel very welcomed here.
This is a special and holy place, and I am so honored to get to be a part of it.
I’m excited to see the ways that the Lord will just show up at our church doors. I’m even more excited to see how we will welcome him into everything we do, and into our hearts again and again.
God’s Peace,
Rick
Rector
Image: detail of Holy Trinity Icon | THE DOMESTIC MONASTERY
Published on August 29, 2024