The Stranger

The apostle joins a strange promise to a plain command. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, he says, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. The command is hospitality, the ancient and honored duty of opening the door to the stranger and the traveler. But the promise attached to it lifts the whole thing out of the ordinary, for it warns us that the stranger at the door may be more than he appears, that in receiving him we may be receiving, unawares, a messenger of God.

He is thinking of Abraham, surely, who sat in his tent door in the heat of the day and saw three men standing by him, and ran to meet them, and bowed himself, and pressed on them water and rest and a meal, not knowing at first that he was entertaining the Lord himself and his angels. He is thinking of Lot, who took in the two strangers at the gate of Sodom and found he had sheltered angels sent to save him. Again and again in the old stories the messenger of God came in the guise of a stranger, and the welcome given to the stranger turned out to be a welcome given to heaven.

THE STRANGER AT THE DOOR

But the Lord took this old truth and made it deeper and more searching than any tale of angels. For he identified himself with the stranger, not in disguise now and then, but always and truly. I was a stranger, he will say at the last, and ye took me in, or, I was a stranger, and ye took me not in. And when they ask when they ever saw him a stranger, he will answer, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. The stranger at the door is not merely a possible angel. He is Christ, come in the least and the lowly, and what we do to the stranger we do to the Lord.

This changes forever how we look at the one who comes to our door, the one who interrupts our peace, the one with a need and no claim on us but his need. We are tempted to see an inconvenience, a demand on our time, a breaking of our order. But there is One hidden in the stranger, and the welcome we give or withhold reaches past the stranger to the Lord who stands with him and in him. To turn the stranger away is to turn away Christ. To take him in is to take in Christ. There is no neutral treatment of the stranger, for behind every one of them stands the Lord.

THE HOSPITALITY OF THE HEART

Now the solitary might think this word is not for him, that hospitality and solitude are at war, and that the one who has shut his door to be alone with God has no business opening it to strangers. But this is a mistake, and the very desert fathers who most loved solitude were famous also for their hospitality. Their cells had doors that opened. They understood that solitude is not misanthropy, that the closing of the door to the world’s noise is not the closing of the heart to the world’s need, and that the same love which draws a soul apart to God sends it out again to the stranger. The one who has been alone with the God of love does not become less loving, but more.

The heart of the matter is a hospitality of the heart, a readiness to receive, that does not depend on a house full of guests. It is the disposition that welcomes the interruption as possibly sent from God, that does not resent the stranger who breaks the solitude but wonders whether he was sent, that keeps the inner door open even when the outer one is shut for prayer. Even Mary, who chose the good part and sat at the Lord’s feet, would rise to serve when serving was the love of the moment. There is a rhythm between the shut door and the open one, and the wise soul keeps both, closing to be filled and opening to give.

And we must guard against the peculiar temptation of the solitary life, which is that solitude should harden into selfishness, that the love of quiet should curdle into a love of self, and the shut door become the sign not of communion with God but of indifference to man. Solitude sought for God’s sake makes the heart larger; solitude sought for self’s sake makes it smaller. The test of a true solitude is whether it sends us back to the stranger with more love or less. If our aloneness with God has made us colder to our neighbor, it was not aloneness with the God who is love.

STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS OURSELVES

And there is a reason we of all people should love the stranger, which is that we are strangers ourselves. The great cloud of the faithful confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, seeking a country, not at home here, passing through. And the apostle calls us the same, strangers and pilgrims, exiles from our true home, travelers on a road that leads elsewhere. Knowing this, we cannot look down on the stranger at our door, for he is only what we ourselves are, a pilgrim far from home, and the kindness we show him is the kindness of one exile to another, the fellow-feeling of those who are all on the road together.

The old law had said as much to Israel. Love the stranger as thyself, God commanded, and gave the reason, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. You know the heart of a stranger, he said, having been one; therefore be kind to the stranger. And we, who were strangers to grace and were taken in, who were far off and were brought near, who were aliens and were made citizens of heaven, of all people should keep an open door and an open heart to the stranger, remembering what we were, and who took us in.

THE STRANGER ON THE ROAD

On the day of his rising, the Lord himself came to two of his own as a stranger. They walked to Emmaus heavy with grief, and a stranger joined them on the road and opened the Scriptures to them, and their hearts burned within them, and still they did not know him. And as they drew near the village, he made as though he would have gone further, and everything hung on what they would do with the stranger at their door. They constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent, and he went in to tarry with them.

And then the wonder. As he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them, and their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. The stranger they had taken in was the risen Lord, and it was in the receiving of him, in the shared meal they had pressed upon a stranger, that he made himself known. Had they let him go on into the evening, had they kept their door shut against the stranger for the sake of their grief, they would have missed the risen Christ himself, so near and so nearly lost.

Mark that they had to constrain him. He made as though he would go further, and they would not let him, but pressed their hospitality upon him until he yielded and came in. There is a lesson in that pressing. The stranger, the one in need, the possible Christ at our door, will not always force himself upon us; he may make as though he would go on, and it is left to us to constrain him, to insist, to press the welcome. The lukewarm and half offered hospitality lets him go by. It is the constraining welcome, the abide with us, that keeps him, and is kept by him.

So when the stranger comes and seems ready to pass on, do not let him go easily. Constrain him. Press the welcome. For you know not whether you entertain an angel unawares, or the Lord himself in the guise of the least of these, come near on the road at eventide, waiting to be asked in, and ready, in the breaking of bread, to open your eyes and be known.

So be not forgetful to entertain strangers. Keep the door of your heart open even in your solitude, and receive the interruption, the one who comes with a need, as one who may be sent from God, as one in whom Christ himself may stand. Do not let your love of quiet harden into a love of self, nor your shut door become a shut heart. Show to the stranger the kindness of one pilgrim to another, remembering that you too are far from home, and that you too were once a stranger and were taken in. For thereby some have entertained angels unawares, and more than angels, the Lord of angels, who comes still to our door in the least of these.