Hospitality to Strangers
We all have our circles of acquaintances, friends, neighbors, schoolmates, and colleagues. We travel within our circles of friendship, camaraderie, social class, and economic standing. We are most comfortable within those circles where we find a sense of belonging. Stepping beyond them makes us a bit uncomfortable, perhaps even worried or afraid.
Within our cultural and social settings, we know what to expect. We know how to organize our actions and reactions to others. We know how to interpret another's words and gestures. We can navigate body language and cultural cues rather successfully. When we step outside those known circles, life gets a bit more complicated. We feel unsure about ourselves and unsure about the people we encounter. We do not have the assurance needed for interpreting cultural cues correctly. It makes us uneasy.
Then we find the gospel calling us to reach out in love, compassion, and grace to all sorts of people who are not like us. We find that we are to treat immigrants with the same acceptance and care we would give our own children. We find commands to extend hospitality to strangers, to welcome one and all into our lives even as Christ Jesus has welcomed us. The gospel becomes a challenge. It calls for a degree of discomfort, uncertainty, and stepping into uncharted territory.
Throughout the Ancient Near East, measurements of righteousness were tied to how one treats outsiders. We see this in Job, as well as narratives from ancient Ugarit, speaking of how treating strangers reflects one's degree of righteousness. Greek myths of Zeus appearing as a stranger called those who worshipped the Greek pantheon to deal kindly with strangers. They were to offer hospitality, recognizing that Zeus might come to call, testing their hospitality. By the same token, we find Abraham being visited in Genesis 18 by strangers, immigrants traveling through the land.
The text tells us Yahweh appeared to Abraham, but, from Abraham's perspective, these were simply strangers who showed up before his tent. He did not know them. He did not recognize them as being Yahweh's messengers. He did not understand that God had been before him until after these strangers were departing on their way.
Indeed, there is some confusion as to when Abraham understood Yahweh to be present and when he simply understood these visitors as immigrants passing through on their way to Sodom. The text is not clear, because it is not very interested in relating the historical details for us. It is more interested in helping us understand what was going on beyond the historical aspects of the encounter. Abraham received unknown visitors and treated them to a very generous hospitality and welcome. In so doing, he greeted and received God into his embrace.
That is the point of the story here. It is a story of his encounter with Yahweh, but it is moreso a story of Abraham's righteousness. It is a story illustrating how in the midst of the mundane course of life Yahweh is present. It is a story reminding us that the manner by which we treat immigrants, strangers, and others who are not like us is the manner by which we treat God. God is present in the people we encounter, those bearing God's very image.
In the coming of these strangers, God was present. In their departure, God was still present. It was also through these strangers that Yahweh imparted a promise to Abraham and Sarah regarding the promise of Isaac's birth. Abraham's hospitality paved the way for them to be assured God would bless Abraham with children. It spoke of his righteousness, and they became vessels for God's promise to be restated and affirmed.
This is also a story that established Abraham's righteousness in contrast to that found during these strangers' visit to Sodom. While Abraham sent his servants to slaughter and prepare a calf for his guests and had Sarah oversee baking bread from 100 pounds of flour, Sodom simply wanted to mistreat the strangers. Abraham was declared righteous in light of his hospitality. That was simply where it was on visible display. By contrast, Sodom was doomed for lacking in hospitality. Sodom's injustice toward strangers declared its unrighteousness before the world.
Hospitality here, along with generosity, is not really the heart of the issue. The issue is this measurement of Abraham's justice or righteousness. It was through his generous hospitality that his righteousness found expression. He welcomed the stranger, the alien, the immigrant and prepared food for them to eat in security. He offered them his welcome and his protection.
The food he placed before them went far beyond any standard expectation. People did not eat meat except on special occasions, on feast days. Ignoring that, Abraham went out of his way not simply to feed them a reasonable refreshment. He offered them the very best he had as more than sufficient to meet the needs of these strangers turned guests, turned friends.
These guests made no demand or request of Abraham. He simply saw them and understood that as travelers they were in a vulnerable position. They were not protected by the laws and customs which would grant justice to those settled in the land to the exclusion of outsiders. He brought them into the circle of his protection and provision. He assured they would have all they needed.
We would consider his actions as going far beyond what was necessary. That is the narrator's point. Abraham did not limit his actions of hospitality to any bare minimum. This was not a question of pro forma actions. He did not attempt to determine how little he might get by with. He did not attempt to measure what he might receive in return for his generosity. Instead, he took it upon himself to meet the needs before him as generously as he knew how to do.
When it came time for these guests to leave and continue their journey, Abraham walked a ways with them, making sure they knew their way forward. He granted them extra protection within his company, ensuring no one would bother them in their vulnerable state.
It is in this manner of action we find Abraham's hospitality working to describe and flesh out his righteous character. It is in this manner of offering welcome and acceptance to vulnerable strangers and immigrants that we gain a better glimpse of Abraham as being like God. It is in his providing for the needs of others before they even asked that we find a reflection of Yahweh's generous provision for all.
Hospitality in this passage was not a question of being polite. It was not a question of checking off the list of do's and don't's. It was not an issue of befriending others in the hope they would offer more in return. Hospitality is displayed here as living up to God's character and expectations for us. It is about actually loving our neighbors without holding back and without discrimination.
It is in welcoming strangers and immigrants as children of God that we find Abraham being counted as righteous. On one hand, he went out of his way to go above and beyond our expectations. On the other hand, he simply fulfilled what God expected and required of him. Where do our actions place us according to God's definition of righteousness? Perhaps we need to offer a larger welcome.
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