World Refugee Day and Gospel hospitality

Jun 30, 2023

By Thomas O’Loughlin
Indeed, we face a situation where despite record numbers of refugees, many Christians would wonder if this had anything in particular to do with them. Even worse, right-wing governments in many developed countries see having a “harsh environment” towards refugees and asylum seekers as a popular vote winner. Worse still, these same governments sometimes boast of their defence of Christian faith and tradition – and few of the Christians in those countries see any problem.

The United Nations may hold this day to highlight the need for more human understanding of the problem; but the Church may need to highlight it because failure to sympathise with refugees may be a failing in discipleship.

Hospitality: a human value and a Christian virtue
Let’s play a little game. Imagine yourself in the position of a guest arriving for a party. It is not a family party where everyone has known each other for years and can trace how each is related to the other, but a party of friends and acquaintances. You can sense from the moment the door opens whether the welcome you receive is really warm or just a formality. You cannot but notice if you are put at ease – and you know that is “how it should be”: your host is being hospitable.

Hospitality has been commented upon for as long as human beings have been keeping written records. This affirmation of the importance of hospitality can be found in some of the oldest strands of the Pentateuch (Lev 19:34): “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

But back to our game: now imagine what it is like not to be welcomed with hospitality. Again you arrive at the door, but you are “processed” rather than welcomed and told you can “leave your coat over there”. You cannot help noticing that there’s an “in” group – VIPs or people the host wants to impress – and there are the “also rans” who are there to swell the numbers. You cannot help feeling that some are more equal than others, or that there is a very defined limit on the food and drink, or that the atmosphere is very transactional. The whole event has a cold feel, but you might console yourself that you had to go anyway.

Four modes of hospitality
It is at this point that we can consider the hospitality that is part of the Christian Way. There are at least four dimensions to hospitality within the Gospels. Let’s look at just one passage for each.

1. The hospitality of love for the stranger
The most succinct expression – some would argue containing the core of the message of discipleship – is in Mt 25: 31-45: the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

When the Son of Man comes in His glory … he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these, my sisters and brothers, you did for me.”

2. The hospitality of reconciliation
In Luke 15 we have a sequence of three parables that highlight the hospitality Jesus showed to sinners – even when it scandalised those who took a firm line and would not “go soft on sin”. The chapter opens with these words:

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to listen to Jesus. So the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then we have the Parable of the Prodigal Son whose high-point is the wonderful hospitality of the father’s meal welcoming back his lost son:

“Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!” So they began to celebrate (Lk 15:23-4).

3. The hospitality of mercy
Faced with the question as to who is our neighbour (Lk 10:29), Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-37). The Samaritan is the one who showed mercy, cared for sick man and paid for his stay in the inn.

4. The hospitality of gratitude
We all recall that Zacchaeus (Lk 19:1-10), the crooked tax collector had his sins forgiven and promised to repay those he had defrauded, but we forget that the conversion comes when Jesus is staying in his house. Zacchaeus offers Jesus hospitality, and “salvation comes to his house”. In giving and receiving hospitality we can be transformed.

Hospitality is something we all know about
Inhospitality has also left a trail in our memories. In Mt 25, hospitality is offered as a key to discipleship, and inhospitality is presented as the key to the failure of following Jesus: “I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me” (Mt 25:43).

Now switch sides and play the game again, this time from the side of the host. Think of planning even a small gathering of a few friends and notice how offering welcome and hospitality ? just putting people at their ease ? is a higher level concern than whether you are going to have this or that food. And yes, think of the darker side: those times when you hosted people but it was not hospitality that was uppermost, when “welcome” and a shared meal was used as an instrument to serve another purpose. We have all tried to offer real hospitality, and yes, as imperfect humans, we have all gone through the motions and put up a front of hospitality.

The challenge to the Church
We all like to think of ourselves – and the groups we belong to – as hospitable. Looking at what we actually do, should make us more hesitant to declare that.

Where is the nearest hotel housing refugees? Do we have a sneaking like for populist drum-beaters of nationalism who claim migrants “are taking our jobs” or taxes or whatever?

Do we Christians even think it is important? Looking at many of our celebrations, it would be hard to imagine that hospitality is anything more than a formality. In our celebrations of the Eucharist do we actually experience hospitality and practis___e it? Many are simply “had to be there” events that feel very unlike a welcoming meal. Are we even offered the cup to drink – or is that just for the clergy?

Many celebrations are more marked by who cannot eat and drink than by the forgiving welcome of the Lord. The way we behave officially in the liturgy often signals a type of inhospitality that we would never permit at home. Maybe it is because we have such an inhospitable liturgy that we do not link this charism with the Gospel.

Is our presentation of Jesus that of the one who ate with sinners? And if we recall that mercy, do we practise it towards strangers, outcasts, and refugees?
We need to think a lot more about hospitality as a basic mark of discipleship. Perhaps we should adopt this day as a day for Christian memorial as well? We all know what hospitality feels like. The real challenge is to practise it. --LCI

(Thomas O’Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK))