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Conversations Guide
By Kim Engelmann

Welcoming The Stranger: Living Out God’s Soul Stretching Love
Jan Johnson

In this article Jan discusses the importance of welcoming the stranger, and in so doing creating a “home” for them. Jesus himself identified with the stranger in his statement “when I was a stranger you welcomed me”. This is a poignant reminder that when we welcome strangers we are welcoming Jesus himself. This welcoming posture is not just a warm feeling, but actually is something we must learn to do and ought to have practical results in terms of meeting the needs of those we welcome. Even in the Old Testament welcoming the stranger was a command; often it was the Israelites themselves who were strangers and sojourners and who needed to be welcomed. In the parable of the Good Samaritan it is clear that the stranger (the unclean sinner from the Jewish perspective) is the one who shows hospitality to the wounded traveler. Not the priest, or the Levite, but the stranger who himself has been ostracized, has learned empathy for others who are left by the side of the road. Jan challenges the reader to reach out to all people (as God has reached out to the entire world) even those who don’t belong to our “own group”. This welcoming reach must extend to outcasts (those unacceptable in normal society like sex offenders), wrong-doers, people outside their own territory (political refugees), or anyone who is different from us politically, ethnically or theologically. Anyone we are tempted to exclude or ignore (even the elderly) we must be watchful to welcome as Jesus himself. Empathy is key, as is practicing the presence of God, to overcome our own shyness and think not only about our own interests, but also the interest of others. As we practice this, and invite God into our interactions with others, things begin to flow more easily and we become unselfconscious and more centered on others.

Most of us know people who love to hear themselves talk. About themselves. All the time. You would fall over if they ever asked How are you? and then actually sat silently to take in whatever you might say. Authentic curiosity requires us to stop talking, to be patient and quiet, to actually be present.

Recently, I sat in a pub with a new friend. We had participated in a meeting with a larger group, but the two of us lingered around the table afterward. “What’s your story?” he asked. His eyes were intent, his posture fully present and open. He wasn’t going anywhere. My friend had asked me a question, and he was waiting, curious to hear the answer. An hour later, we had shared more than biographical detail. We shared hope, tears, life—all meaningful gifts.

Hospitality is a virtue, a moral as well as theological virtue. It’s an offshoot, one of the many, of charity. It’s elusive; now you see it, now you don’t. It has boundaries, but they aren’t at all clear. We’re fraught with its presence and distraught by its absence…

                                    Excuse me; there’s someone at the door.

Hospitality has fallen into hard times these days. Worse yet, the commercial world has picked up the word and used it for its own ends—such as the phrase “hospitality industry,” which refers primarily to hotels and convention centers. There’s nothing wrong with commerce—that is, we need thriving businesses for our economic growth. But Christian hospitality goes a bit deeper than making money off of people you don’t know and never will see again. To me, this is an abomination of the word’s meaning, far too shallow to capture the ancient biblical vision. I would like Christians to reclaim the word for what we do in our homes and churches.

Friday. The small square on the calendar is empty. No appointments. No job site meeting with my client and the architect. No phone calls to make. No need to leave the house. Empty square days are the days when I can sit in the black leather armchair in the living room for as long as it seems good. These are not ordinary days when my time is cut short by the note in the appointment calendar.

My place of prayer is in this room. My prayers meander and wander prompted by the view out the window, the reading of Scripture, and the reproduction of Rublev’s icon of the Old Testament Trinity painted by my friend, Dan Cassis.

One cannot think of Andrei Rublev, the Orthodox monk who at the turn of the fifteenth century produced this icon near Muscovy, the precursor to modern-day Moscow, without also thinking of his spiritual abba and mentor Sergius of Radonezh. Their stories are as entwined as that of a boy and his father.

With this in mind, a particular event from Sergius’s childhood is worth recounting. Sergius was a good and earnest student, yet he struggled to read, says his hagiography. But one momentous day a starets, a spiritual elder, visited him and gave him holy bread. From this day on Sergius could read. Christians soon adopted the belief that this visitor was, in fact, an angel. It is not difficult to see possible linkages between this event in Sergius’s life and the icon Rublev created decades later. Notice the Trinity is presented as three angels (the text that informs this image, Genesis 18:2, refers only to “three men”), offering us holy bread.

Ok, I admit it. I am not very good at welcoming strangers. I am sure this is due, in part, to my introverted nature and the fact that my relational world is already very full. Truth be told, on most days I just don’t feel the need for more relationships and would rather stick with the intimate few. The other part of the truth is that some strangers are, well, stranger than others, which make things just plain uncomfortable. And since I am being completely honest—I seem to have the ability to walk into a room and sense immediately who is the strangest of them all so I can then expend vast amounts of energy avoiding the whole situation. I am not proud of this; I’m just sayin’…

During each Christmas season, God assigns me a role in the nativity scene so I can focus on something besides painful memories that can derail me at the holidays. A couple of years ago, God assigned me the role of the innkeeper. In that innkeeper role, I became the midwife for Jesus’s birth—and also a midwife for people who are experiencing their own rebirth at the manger. I felt this role as a profound calling and I was grateful for this compassionate gift from God. But God, in infinite wisdom, had more in store for me that Christmas.

When I was in a time of crisis, Andy and Phyllis opened their home to my infant son and me. Andy is my long-time supervisor at work, and he and Phyllis have taken in so many people in various transitions that we joke that it is a rite of passage to live in their home for a while.

Andy and Phyllis taught me a lot about hospitality in the easy way they hosted me. They have a room always at the ready. The house itself is comfortable and uncluttered. You never feel in the way in the shared living spaces, and at the same time privacy was readily available. Their teenage son, David, babysat for my son and was nonchalant when the baby threw up all over him. David, too, was offering hospitality.

Naming is deeper than labeling. It includes the labels we give to things and people, but it is primarily a matter of the heart. Names are given in the heart and then embodied in words and actions. Names are first and foremost expressions of relationship. Embedded in our words and actions are the names we give to and receive from others. Gestures of value, nods of recognition, glances of curiosity, looks of compassion and signs of paying attention build up one another. Alternatively, when negative words and actions combine, naming can strip or even threaten a person’s life.