Sermon

October 8, 2006

          Have you experienced extraordinary hospitality from someone you hardly knew and will never forget the encounter? I recall walking along the road in South India, where I had just visited a tea plantation and the monsoon rain started pouring down. I had no umbrella. A woman hurried up to me and asked in beautiful, clipped English, “Would you like to share my umbrella?” She put it more over me than herself. She told me that she worked part-time as a secretary at the convent on the hill and was returning home for lunch. She insisted that I have lunch with her and practically pulled me into her tiny house where she had raised her 14 children. She was Catholic and photos of the Saints and Jesus, Mary and Joseph adorned the walls as much as the gods and goddesses did in any Hindu home. She made tea, of course, and shared a modest meal and told me of her children and her extended family and eldest daughter who she was marrying off to her brother whose wife had died leaving two little children.

I remember this incident as if it were yesterday for I had never experienced such hospitality. If I had not been staying at a hotel, I think she would have pressed me to stay with her. However, India is not famous for its hospitality to strangers. The ancient world known most for its hospitality is ancient Greece where the concept of “xenia” or “guest-friendship” was cultivated. Hospitality means the practice of generosity towards guests. Scholars think that xenia came out of their belief that the gods visited humans and their fear that a stranger might be a god in disguise; if the guest was not treated well and it turned out to be a god, the host’s days would be short for sure.

            This fear that a stranger might be God or an angel of God in disguise was part of what drove hospitality in the Middle-Eastern culture. In the Bible story of Abraham and Sarah, three men stop by their tent and predict that Sarah will bear a child. Sarah laughs because of her advanced age. This angers Abraham because he doesn’t want to offend his guests fearing that they are angels. Today, in the Middle East, being a gracious host is expected and is a primary requirement of Islam. In the Koran, we read:

“Be kind to parents, and the near kinsman, and to orphans,
and to the needy, and to the neighbor who is of kin, and to the neighbor who is a stranger, and to the companion at your side, and to the traveler… Surely God loves not the proud and boastful such as are niggardly, and bid other men to be niggardly, and themselves conceal the bounty that God has given them.” Qur'an 4.36-37

            Speaking of the Middle-East, some of you might know that Jessica Andrade who grew up in this congregation has been working in Yemen for almost two years now. I wrote to her asking what her experience of hospitality was in Yemen. This is what she wrote back:

“Hospitality is amazing here. It is one of the most
important things for a person's honor. If you are in someone's home they are responsible for you, and treat you accordingly. If you mention that you like something, they go out of their way to get it for you. They invite you into their homes for lunch almost immediately and honor you with the best that they can give. Right now, during Ramadan, they are especially hospitable. When they break fast, it is called iftar, and there is LOTS of food. People invite you all the time to their homes to drink coffee with them. In old Arabia it was very important that when someone came to your home you fed them - normally dates and coffee, sometimes other fruit if they were really important. When I moved to the old city here, the women brought over goats milk and bread quite frequently to welcome me to the community. Also, Thilo, my partner, was invited several times to go and chew qat (which is a mind-relaxing narcotic, legal only here and in Great Britain). It is also not just a food thing; they are responsible to protect you and your family. For example, the time a man followed me home, he was roughed up by the teenage boys in the neighborhood. They were protecting their neighbor [me], and being hospitable. It is honestly quite amazing ….They are so very giving - even though they have so little compared to us. They would definitely describe us as stingy if they came to the US.” Jessica will be home to visit at Christmas time so you can ask her more about this.

            We find wonderful hospitality in the west as well for it is also ingrained in Judeo-Christian culture. The most famous hospitality parable of Jesus is that of the Good Samaritan. You might remember that a man lay at the side of the road to Jericho beaten and bleeding. Two men passed by him, one a priest and the other an official of the Jewish temple. Along came a Samaritan from a particularly despised group of Jews. The Samaritan took care of the man and took him to an inn and gave money for his ongoing care. People like Mother Teresa took to heart this teaching and I think you have read that she believed that in every needy person is something of God or Jesus. Hospitality is a high deal that some people take on as a life task.

Monasteries that grew up from the fifth century onwards cultivated the practice of caring for the stranger and the poor and needy. They were the first to start hospitals. We can see that the word “hospital” and “hospice” come from “hospitable.” The most famous of these was the monastery of St. Benedict. Benedict created a book of rules to live by, now called The Rule of Benedict. Many if not most monasteries today use this Rule, including some Buddhist monasteries. It is also a collection of wisdom as well as rules for a community. It begins, “Listen carefully, my child, to the instructions…and attend to them with the ear of your heart….” “Listening” is the foundation of the Rule. This is a deep, attentive listening with the “ears of the heart.”

In the past, I have often raised up to us the Dalai Lama’s concept of deep listening.  I believe that the listening with ear and heart taught by Benedict is a western version of deep listening. (By the way, Benedictine orders are independent orders of monks and nuns, mostly of Catholic faith but also of Anglican and a few of other faiths as well. We could form a monastery ourselves based on the Rule of Benedict if we wished and we would be a bona fide Benedictine monastery as long as we follow The Rule.)

            The kind of hospitality encouraged by Benedict is radical hospitality. “Radical” means extreme or revolutionary or out of the ordinary. I have been thinking recently of our Welcoming Congregation program as radical hospitality. When we say we are a “welcoming congregation” most people would say, “Of course, all congregations are welcoming.” But, we mean radically welcoming of all people, without exception and especially welcoming of any oppressed group—in this case, the group of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people. St. Benedict based his Rule on the teachings of Jesus and encouraged us to walk in the radical footsteps of Jesus. And today, we say, “Yes, indeed, and do not let society’s prejudices get in the way!”

            Our Guest at Your Table program falls into this category of radical hospitality when we put a money box on our dining table from Thanksgiving to Christmas at an empty chair that is for the guest, the stranger whom we do not know who is in need across the world. This is a tradition we have every year and the proceeds go to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

            Today’s reading  is called “The Fine Art of the Good Guest” is interesting in that the guest models for us being as gracious and grateful to the host as the host is to us. He bids us listen to the host's stories and accept graciously whatever the host offers in terms of food or activities. Benedict takes it a step further; radical hospitality is “not about social graces but about mutual reverence.” (p.xviii, Homan and Pratt) “It is…a spiritual practice, a way of becoming more human…Hospitality is both the answer to modern alienation and injustice and a path to a deeper spirituality.”

            I believe that our Small Groups have an element of radical hospitality about them for they practice deep listening or radical listening to one another and have a level of acceptance that nurtures trust and safety and thus the individual can flourish. If you are curious, we will have some sample sessions beginning in a few weeks and you can sign up for these in the Parish House.

            A few days ago, the checker in the Supermarket, looked into my eyes and said, “How are you today?” This was not your usual, “How’re you?” that has no real interest in your well being. This was a genuine inquiry. I held this young woman’s gaze and I responded, “I am really, really well. Thank you. How about yourself?” She nodded and said, “Me, too.” I left with a smile on my face and look how I remember it!

            When people come here for the first time and are warmly welcomed and deeply listened to, they are much more likely to return. It is a courageous thing to come into a whole group of strangers. As a spiritual community, we could say that it is not only our obligation to be hospitable to visitors but it is also growing our own soul as well. What a wonderful contribution to the world to be a champion of radical hospitality for there surely would be less hostility, less loneliness, less fear. It is possible that radical hospitality can change the world.

            By the way, providing snacks and coffee for guests after service is also a way of welcoming. If you think you could do this one Sunday, please sign up for a Sunday to help with the coffee set up and clean up. Carol Adler’s invitation to have a cooking evening next Friday is a way of making the Sunday hosts tasks easier. Her sign-up sheets for cooks and hosts are in the Parish House next to the Welcome Center.

            When we practice radical hospitality and listening with the “ear of our hearts,” there is an acceptance in our hearts where no fear or prejudice can find a place. May we see in the face of our neighbor who we do not know the divine light that is in all things and treat him with all the thoughtfulness of the Good Samaritan.

Reference

This sermon was informed and inspired by:

Homan, Daniel and Pratt, Lonni Collins, Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love, Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2002.

 Reading: “The Fine Art of the Good Guest” by Jeffrey Lockwood from a guest of the World, Boston: Skinner House Books, 2006

            The most important thing that I’ve learned in traveling to more than twenty countries is the art of being a guest. And I’m a particularly fine visitor at the supper table. I’ve consumed live fish in Inner Mongolia, not-quite-coagulated blood sausage on the Tibetan plateau, shredded pig’s ear in China, grilled lamb fat in Uzbekistan, horse steaks in Kazakhstan, vodka made from fermented mare’s milk in Siberia, vegemite in Australia, goat in Brazil, and snails in France. I don’t have an iron stomach, by any means, but I do have the will to be a virtuous visitor.

            We are all visitors—even when we are home. Our time in any relationship or place is ultimately limited. We are passing through; nobody stays forever. How might we act if we consider ourselves guests in the lives of friends and family? Being a good guest is rather simple in principle but occasionally challenging in practice.

            One begins by demanding nothing more than the bare elements of life and dignity, which every host is more than delighted to exceed. The good guest then simply allows the other person to be a good host—to share his gifts, to play her music, to tell his stories, to show her places, and to serve his foods. Finally, a guest should cultivate and express genuine gratitude. It need not be effusive or exorbitant, only sincere.

            We might also think of ourselves as uninvited, but not unwelcome, guests of the planet. And I think the rules for being a good guest of the world are just the same: Ask little, accept what is offered, and give thanks.