We Were Once Strangers

Hospitality in a globalizing world

In this new series, I plan to explore the art and practice of hospitality. I do not claim to have any expertise in this area, but in all my sojourning I have been hosted often and have experienced both good and bad expressions of hospitality. I want to reflect on what I have learned.

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I grew up in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh people are culturally known for their hospitality, as are many Muslim peoples. I have countless childhood memories of neighbors hosting me in their homes, of being served tea and bread till my stomach was fit to burst. For the entirety of my childhood, in a sense, I was a guest to the Kazakh people, a foreigner in a strange land, and they welcomed me.

It is somewhat ironic that the Kazakh people should excel at hospitality, considering that they are historically nomadic. But I think it is reflective of a deeper truth: those who have lived as sojourners are often best equipped to host because they know what it is like to be a stranger in a foreign place.

As I have argued elsewhere, in our rapidly globalizing world, the experience of the sojourner is becoming the norm. The accessibility and ease of travel is making it so that we are all nomads now. Few people are ever at home. For this reason, it is critical for the church to learn to excel at the practice of hospitality. In such a transient age this might be our most compelling witness.

Israel received a serious mandate concerning the treatment of foreigners in their land: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”¹ Following Jesus, we should not consider ourselves exempt from such an exhortation. As “ingrafted branches,” we share Israel’s heritage; their story is our own. Therefore, this mandate applies to us.

We are not called to merely tolerate the foreigner, but to love them as ourselves. Hear the Golden Rule resonate with these words. We welcome the foreigner because we were once foreigners. Even if we do not know the experience of living as a stranger in a foreign land, we likely know what it is like to be an outsider, so we should strive to welcome strangers as we ourselves would like to be received.

In the United States, the current administration has made changes that have deeply impacted foreigners and immigrants and placed an unprecedented degree of stress on various refugee resettlement agencies and other nonprofits who serve foreigners living here. Politics aside, the church should see this as our opportunity to step up. Refugees are in an incredibly vulnerable position. Those of us who enjoy relative stability should look for opportunities to leverage our privileges to help those in need and be hospitable to them.

When most people raise this issue, they tend to focus on financial giving. While that is certainly a legitimate burden, I am speaking more about the personal burden to live in a manner that welcomes the foreigner and immigrant into our lives and into our homes. We like to outsource care for the most vulnerable among us to individuals and institutions who are specifically designated to serve these communities while neglecting care for them ourselves. Refugees have needs that go beyond material ones—being a foreigner in a strange land can be an overwhelming experience. They need people who are willing to walk with them and make them feel at home by welcoming them into their ordinary lives.

Failure to practice hospitality is often indictive of a dangerous kind of entitlement. Every good thing that we enjoy is a gift from the hand of God. We should be generous therefore with the good things we have and seek to steward them in a manner that honors the One whose hospitality we ourselves receive, for “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”²

Strangers and immigrants offer a tremendous blessing to those who receive them. Their lives, experiences, and perspectives can enrich our lives and communities. Furthermore, Jesus teaches that when we fail to welcome the stranger, we fail to welcome him. When we extend hospitality to the stranger, really, we are receiving him.³ If we truly come to recognize Christ in the foreigner and stranger, how will that change the way we welcome them?

1. Leviticus 19:34

2. Psalm 24:1

3. Matthew 25:31-46