The main theme in this week’s Scripture readings is hospitality. The word “hospitality” is derived from the Latin word hospes. In turn, hospes, which means “guest” or “stranger,” is formed from the word hostis, which refers not only to a “stranger” but even to an “enemy.” So, in addition to being the root of “hospitality,” hostis is also the root of the word “hostile.”
Our first reading tells of the strange encounter Abraham and Sarah have with three mysterious visitors. Practically from the beginning, Christian commentators have seen these three mystery men as foreshadowing what would be fully revealed by Christ: the Most Holy Trinity. Russian iconographer, Andrei Rublev, composed one of best-known icons depicting Abraham’s three guests at table. While icons are wordless, the symbolism in Rublev’s icon points to an understanding of the visitors as the three divine persons of the Most Holy Trinity.
That this episode conveys a rather mundane theophany is gleaned from its beginning. It starts with the narrator letting the reader in on a secret: it is God who approaches Abraham as he sits at the entrance of his tent in the shade of a terebinth tree on a hot desert afternoon.1 Not knowing it is God, all Abraham sees is “three men… standing before him.”2 Without a doubt, the three are strangers to Abraham.
Rublev icon
Walking out to meet his unexpected guests, Abraham bows before them and bids them to rest in the shade of the large tree under which he and Sarah have pitched their tent. He invites them to wash their feet and prevails on them to let him serve them “a morsel of bread.”3 The three accept the patriarch’s hospitality. However, rather than providing them with minimal hospitality, once his guests are resting comfortably, Abraham rouses his entire household and prepares an elaborate feast.
Contrast Abraham’s hospitality with the hostility shown the two visitors who went from Abraham’s tent to Lot’s house in Sodom. This visit and its aftermath constitute the following chapter of Genesis.4 The residents of Sodom not only refuse to welcome these strangers; they seek to commit unspeakable acts of violence against them. Their hostile attitude is further revealed by the disdain in which they held Lot. Despite living in their midst for a long time, the men of Sodom still did not consider Lot and his family as part of them, as belonging there. The price Sodom pays for its hostility is utter destruction. Welcoming the stranger, when looked at from a divine perspective, is serious business.
Like Abraham and Sarah, Martha and Mary, sisters of Jesus’s good friend Lazarus, also hospitably welcome the Lord into their home. In this instance, rather than remaining incognito, they host Jesus, whom they revere as Lord. Hence, their two responses: to sit at the Lord’s feet, relishing the opportunity to be with him and learn from him and working to provide him great service. On first glance, it might appear that our first reading and our Gospel for today are studies in contrast: Abraham’s three visitors accept hospitality, while Jesus seems to refuse it.
It is important to point out that Jesus does not refuse Martha’s hospitality. To use today’s Gospel to exalt contemplation at the expense of service is lazy and inaccurate. Jesus says nothing about what Martha is doing until she complains to him about Mary being lazy. At which point, he tells Martha, no doubt to her chagrin, that it is her sister, who, at least in this instance, “has chosen the better part.”5 To state the obvious: the Lord is not like any other guest but that is how Martha treats him.
An episode that occurs later in Luke’s Gospel holds the key to understanding both the harmony between our first reading and our Gospel as well as the crux of today’s readings. In this passage, Jesus asks his closest followers, who are arguing over which of them is the greatest, a rhetorical question: “who is greater: the one seated at table or the one who serves?”6 He then answers his own question with another question: “Is it not the one seated at table?”7 Only then does Jesus make his point: “I am among you as the one who serves.”8 The noun translated as “one who serves,” which literally means “one serving” (i.e., serving continuously) is diakonon. In English, a diakonon is a deacon. Jesus is the deacon, just as he is the priest, and the great high priest.
Jesus wants Martha let him dwell with her, not just in her house but in the depths of her being. In turn, she can serve others in the manner to which she is accustomed. Sitting at the feet of the master, like Mary, is the disposition of a disciple. When we discuss Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, we need to remember that he is present in and through the proclamation of the Scriptures just as “really” as he is present in and through the consecrated bread and wine. This is why we should not tune out during the Liturgy of the Word, thus missing the opportunity to sit and listen to Christ. The pattern of discipleship is listening in order to learn and learning in order to do. Worship that does not lead to serving those in need is not Christian worship.
In its original Greek, the verb translated as “serves” in today’s Gospel is diakoneō. Along with diakoneō, the verb used to describe Martha’s activity is diakonia. Just as there is a priesthood of all the baptized, there is a diaconate of all the baptized. To consider yourself a follower of Jesus, you must choose to selflessly serve others, especially those in need. The name for this Christian service is diakonia. Since Jesus is the deacon, our service flows from his. As to the office of deacon, it has been noted that “the deacon makes it clear that the liturgy must have concrete consequences in the world with all its needs...”9
What it means to keep God’s commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself, which is necessary for eternal life, is the main point of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which we heard last week. The person Jesus calls you to serve is not someone from your own family, nation, or tribe, but the stranger. Our Gospel readings for the past three weeks convey that following Jesus means not only welcoming the stranger but helping the person in distress, not even if but especially when it is someone towards whom you feel hostility, whether justified or not.
The theme of welcoming the stranger hospitably constitutes a very deep stream that runs through the whole of Scripture, from the Old Testament straight through the New. We find this exhortation at the beginning of the final chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Do not neglect hospitality to strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares”10 This is exactly what Abraham, Sarah, and Lot do and what the residents of Sodom spit in the face of doing. The Rule of Saint Benedict stipulates: “Any guest who happens to arrive at the monastery should be received just as we would receive Christ himself, because he promised that on the last day he will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”11
Is it not Christ who invites and welcomes you to each and every Eucharist? By sharing the one bread, he makes us, who would otherwise be strangers and perhaps at odds, companions traveling the pilgrim path together. What is “the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past” in our second reading?12 According to St. Paul, this mystery “is Christ in you, the hope for glory.”13
In the Eucharist, Christ does not only make his presence in you through your reception of holy communion. He also dwells in you when you listen to his word. Allow me to refer, again, to St. Benedict’s Rule. The opening words of the Rule are, “Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart.”14 The mystery that life in Christ means Christ can live in you was not revealed to Abraham and was only made known to Martha after she complained about her sister, who was participating in this mystery by sitting at the Lord’s feet. It goes without saying that what is revealed must be put into practice. Contra the Gnostics, you are not saved by mere knowledge.
To borrow a phrase from Abraham Lincoln, our current situation calls on us to summon “the better angels of our nature.”15 My friends in Christ, from the perspective of divine revelation, how you treat the stranger, whether you welcome her as a guest or revile her as a threat and an enemy, is a serious choice. As Christians we should work to ensure the humane treatment of immigrants and refugees being detained crossing our border, most of whom are seeking asylum as refugees. This is not an argument for open borders. It is a plea for open hearts in obedience to the word of God.
1 Genesis 18:1, from The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, Robert Alter, 56.↩
2 Genesis 18:2, Ibid.↩
3 Genesis 18:5, Ibid.↩
4 Genesis 19:1-29.↩
5 Luke 10:42.↩
6 Luke 22:27.↩
7 Luke 22:27.↩
8 Luke 22:27.↩
9 Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, trans. Linda M. Maloney, 270.↩
10 Hebrews 13:2, from The New Testament: A Translation, David Bentley Hart, 453.↩
11 Saint Benedict's Rule: A New Translation for Today, Chap. 53, trans. Patrick Barry, OSB, 62.↩
12 Colossians 1:26.↩
13 Colossians 1:27.↩
14 Rule of Saint Benedict, Prologue, trans. Leonard J. Doyle OblSB↩
15 Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address.↩
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