| "Continue to love each other…and remember always to welcome strangers, for by doing this some people have entertained angels without knowing it."
Heb. 13.1-2
Dan, a priest and friend from my graduate school days felt an inner call to reach out to the poor and the vulnerable, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to do it. Dan had been teaching high school in an affluent suburb and wanted to do himself what he urged his students to do. His first thought was to volunteer in a shelter or soup kitchen. But after talking to folks “on the scene”, people who worked with the homeless in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, Dan found another path. The people there told Dan that there were shelters and soup kitchens and free clinics - all very important resources - but what people needed beyond that was attention to deeper, human needs: spiritual direction, retreat time, opportunities to explore creativity, basic human presence and companionship. In short, people needed to be taken seriously as persons - bodies, yes, but minds, hearts and souls as well. Along with others Dan developed a network of programs in spirituality, Bible study, writing groups and an art studio for street people and others living in the Tenderloin.
Hospitality is creating space for other persons in our lives. My own experience has mostly been working with young people, often enough from affluent homes, yet far too many these young adults - more than we would imagine - are lonely and alienated. Their physical needs are met, but sometimes what they lack is personal support, someone to care about them, to listen, to argue, to set limits, to encourage, to be present to them…. to take them seriously as persons. We can find similar patterns in hospitals and nursing homes, in housing for our elders: meeting basic physical needs, while spiritual, emotional, cultural and companionship needs are met haphazardly.
This is a challenge for all of us. At our parish we proclaim, “All are welcome”. It’s a wonderful ideal and we have many things going for us - but how well do we pay appropriate attention to newcomers and visitors? Do we speak only to family and friends and people we know? Do we notice ‘strangers”? Do we make efforts to include, invite and help makes folks comfortable?
It would be a mistake to read the story of Martha and Mary as a story setting “doing” and “being” in opposition, action versus contemplation. This is not an either/or proposition. When Christ says, “there is one thing necessary”, he is surely not brushing off Martha’s efforts as less worthy, but he suggests that when all is done and the basic needs of hospitality are met generously, a truly human life can be nourished only when we are met as persons, when we are present to one another not only through doing for, but by being for the other.
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