***Who is My Neighbor?

An urbana.org column by Carolyn Carney

The Language of Hospitality

The rutted dirt roads were pushing our van's suspension to its limits as we plunged though the South African countryside. We were heading to a house in rural Bergville, where we would be staying for the week. It was dark, near to midnight, and we'd been traveling since four in the morning.

The village had no electricity, no running water. It was so dark we literally could not see our hands in front of our faces or anything beyond the reach of the headlights. How Pumlani could tell where to turn I had no idea. But soon we arrived at the home of the Mhlangus. I turned off the engine and could here something like a radio playing music coming from the darkened house. There we were under the wide African sky, heavy with stars. My eyes grew increasingly accustomed to the dark as I tilted my head to the skies. Indeed, it was as beautiful as they say.

Someone opened the door to the house and as we entered the darkness, we were greeted with jubilant singing! It was no radio! We had delightful African choruses accompanied by a battery-powered keyboard. It took awhile for me to see anything more than warm eyes and smiling teeth. We greeted in typical Zulu fashion: a three-part handshake, with the left arm bent, hand lightly gripping the crook of the right arm. It seemed like an endless line of greeters, like a wedding receiving line but in reverse.

Then we were all ushered into a bedroom where there was more greeting. And body upon body filled the 10’ x 15’ space. There must have been two dozen people, huddled on beds, sitting on laps, standing pressed up against one another—all eyes glued on the three American visitors. The darkness dissipated with the help of a few candles. At one point, the younger ones erupted into laughter, blocking their mouths with both hands. The excitement in the room bubbled up into giggles and laughter, which were squelched by the opening of the Scriptures for the devotions before bedtime. We did not understand the language of the sermon, but there was no interpretation necessary for their language of hospitality.

They did not know us, yet they gave us their beds. In the morning, water was fetched, heated and waiting for our baths. They shared their simple food and in the light of their warmth, it became a feast. I can not remember a time that I have been made to feel more special. They did not know my last name, did not know my family—but they embraced me as if I were an important relative. Every night we went to bed singing the one language we shared: Christian choruses, sung in either Zulu or English. By the end of the week, we three Americans pulled special dresses, t-shirts, perfumed lotions, extra shoes, blouses, books anything we could find, to shower our friends with gifts for all they had done for us. It seemed so small; for we simply gave out of our abundance, they gave themselves.

The gospels are rife with illustrations of hospitality: Simon Peter’s mother-in-law graciously serving Jesus and the disciples after she has been healed, the tender touch of Jesus given to the leper and Jairus’ daughter, the comforting words uttered to the woman caught in adultery: “neither do I condemn you”, Martha and Mary hosting Jesus in their Bethany home, Mary breaking the alabaster jar of costly perfume to anoint Jesus, Jesus washing the disciples feet on his last night with his beloved friends. In so many of these stories, Henri Nouwen’s words on hospitality seem central. Nouwen writes in Reaching Out, “…in the context of hospitality guest and host can reveal their most precious gifts and bring new life to each other.”

I do a fair bit of traveling in my job. Sometimes I stay at conference centers or retreat places, and other times I stay in private homes. I’ve stayed in quite a wide range of homes from one where chickens, frogs, bats and lizards roamed or leapt or squawked through my bedroom at night to those where I had my own separate entrance and a bed so high I needed a step stool to get into. But no matter the socioeconomic status of my host, the places I felt most at home in were those where the host did not make excuses for an untidy room or a messy kitchen. In these places there was a freedom to enter, to accept life for what it is and to be accepted as I am. Nouwen writes in Reaching Out:

“It is indeed the paradox of hospitality that poverty makes a good host. Poverty is the inner disposition that allows us to take away our defenses and convert our enemies into friends. We can only perceive the stranger as an enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we say, ‘Please enter—my house is your house, my joy is your joy, my sadness is your sadness and my life is your life,’ we have nothing to defend, since we have nothing to lose but all to give.” (p.103)

Recently, God has surprised me by using two very different messengers who have spoken a similar message. The first was Vinoth Ramachandra, a Sri Lankan theologian who I heard speak at the Veritas Forum in New York City in February. In speaking about our response to poverty, he said, that because humans are made in the image of God, "human rights trump the right to private property."

Then a few weeks later I began reading The Holy Longing, written by Ronald Rohlheiser, a Catholic priest living in Canada. In his chapter on "A Spirituality of Justice and Peacemaking", Rohlheiser writes,

“God intended the earth for all persons equally. Thus the riches of this world should flow equally and fairly to all people. All other rights, including the right to private property and the accumulation of riches that are fairly earned, must be subordinated to this more primary principle.”

Both of these ideas seem to intersect Nouwen’s thoughts regarding hospitality. All seem to stand in stark contrast to the lifestyles we in North America typically have become accustomed to and too often become demanding of. I have a lot to learn about hospitality.

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  What would it mean for you to make a more concerted effort to be hospitable toward strangers, guests, relatives, international students, or even enemies?
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  What would it look like to hold loosely to our property for the sake of brotherly love?
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  How could letting our defenses down and adopting a willingness to be vulnerable create a safe haven for those who really are vulnerable?
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  Who do you know in need of hospitality?

A suggestion I heard recently really challenged me. Living near New York City, we encounter many homeless folks who often ask for money. There always seems to be a dilemma in how to respond. But the challenge came from someone who recently moved to the city and is trying to apply principles of hospitality in practical ways. She said, “No matter what you decide to say, look the homeless person in the eye. Let them know they are valuable, that they matter, that they are made in the image of God.”

After all, even on a crowded, dirty city street, that is the language of hospitality.