Explore The Monastic Rhythms That Make for Healthy LeadershipSample

Learning to Welcome the Stranger

Hospitality was the fourth core practice of the Benedictine monks, and even today, if you call upon a monastery of their order, you will be offered food and a bed without charge. This virtue was often spoken of by none other than Jesus, who both extended himself regularly to the stranger as well as praised others who did so. Perhaps most notable was the story of the good Samaritan who went out of his way to invest time, compassion, and money in the care of a wounded traveler, crossing cultural and ethnic barriers in the process.

The author of Hebrews inspires us to love and extend ourselves to those in need, caring for them to the extent we would go for actual family and identifying with them as if we were ourselves in such need. Jesus raised the bar by saying that when we invest in hospitality, he receives that act of love personally (Matthew 25:40). If love is the essence of the gospel (Romans 13:10), then hospitality is a high virtue indeed.

But perhaps the greatest revelation and admonition for welcoming the stranger comes in Jesus’ last prayer in John 17, where we begin to realize that there is no stranger. The extreme oneness that Jesus shared with his Father is a oneness that he brings us into, both with him and with one another. When we really think about what he’s saying here, it makes the brain explode. Jesus envisions a fullness of his kingdom where we are bound to one another in such a way that there is no other! We are fused into oneness as a heavenly community even here on earth.

Who needs your reach today?