HOME
SUNDAY SCHEDULE
NEWSLETTER
CALENDAR
DIRECTIONS
LEADERSHIP
PROGRAMS
OUR BELIEFS
SERMONS
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
SOCIAL ACTION
ABOUT US
CONTACT US

Big questions are a lot like big mysteries. They are to be lived out with wonder, curiosity, awe, and passion. The burning question at the heart of my spiritual journey is this: What does it mean to welcome the stranger?

It all started 12 years ago. I was teaching English as a Second Language to a family of Ethiopian refugees at the International Institute of Boston. This was part of a domestic Peace Corps program that I embarked on as an idealistic college graduate from California. I left the West Coast for the East Coast. I exchanged the comforts of suburban life for the harsh realities of inner city life.

Culture shock greeted me in direct proportion to my idealism. Think BIG. The quick, harsh rhythm of street life felt like a taunting game of jump rope. I constantly tripped over myself in my attempts to grasp the culture and slang. My openness to life was ridiculed as a weakness because it showed vulnerability-not a prized survival trait in this urban setting. I struggled to maintain my humanity in an environment that fiercely threatened such instincts.

This Ethiopian refugee family turned to me for guidance. After all, I was an American. This was my country. Surely I must know the language, culture and customs. I felt like such a fraud. I was just as much a stranger in a strange land as they were. How do I find common ground with my refugee family and the larger world? This divide between self and other felt debilitating.

I proposed that we share a cross-cultural meal together. They agreed. I remember walking up to their doorstep on a cold, winter afternoon. I knocked clumsily on their door with my elbow while trying to balance the food I was carrying in my arms. The wind and snow whipped my hair and left me chattering at their doorstep. As they greeted me at the door, their eyes filled with astonishment, compassion, and amusement. I was a sight to behold-a displaced Californian ill-prepared for my first white winter. They weren't the only ones who felt out of place!

What transpired in our meal sharing was an undeniable moment of grace. We were both strangers in a strange land seeking a dwelling place for our souls. We laid our burdens down - coats, dishes, and spiritual struggles. We ate cross-legged on the floor - body in direct connection with the ground, a humble position. In place of utensils, we used our fingers to dip the tangy Ethiopian pancake bread into the traditional spicy beef stew. As a gesture of friendship, Ethiopian-style, we crossed arms and fed our first bite to each other from hand to mouth. Such intimacy.

In the exchanging of food we embodied each other's journeys. Foreign tastes mingled with familiar longings for friendship, hospitality, and fulfillment. We spoke most fluently in the language of warmth and presence. We shared our meal on common ground. We bore witness to each other's sorrows, joys, and hopes. Through witnessing, we recognized our shared humanity.

We often associate the phrase "living hand to mouth" with abject poverty. And yet, in this example, feeding our first bite to one another hand to mouth was the ultimate expression of humble generosity, deep gratitude, and the fullness of human connection and friendship. I let this paradox capture my imagination. How can I interact with people who are different than me in such a way that it creates a spirit of generosity rather than a spirit of scarcity? How can this symbolic gesture of crossing arms in friendship be extended to crossing cultural and theological boundaries with respect?

Ideals are made real through simple, concrete actions. Taste, touch, connection. Those were the basic elements of our cross-cultural meal sharing. Eating together didn't solve the world's problems. But it did build a sense of community and trust among foreigners. We didn't use words such as hospitality and social justice in our conversation. And yet, that is what our actions represented. This experience was at once both intimate and tender and at the same time tremendously powerful. We welcomed each other's differences in a way that did not create an us vs. them mentality that so often leads to oppression. Equity and compassion became our common ground. Sacred ground.

Recall some of the words from this morning's reading by Rev. Lindi Ramsden. "There are times in life when the deeper questions knock at the door of the soul and refuse to go away until you open to them. There are times in life when a seemingly innocuous bush bursts into flame, interrupting one's stable life with a summons to leadership." When has life disrupted your own sense of place in the world making you feel like a stranger in a strange land? Perhaps it was the loss of a job. The end of a relationship. A distressing health condition. Maybe a move to a different part of the country where you didn't know a soul. Perhaps a crisis of faith.

You don't have to be a foreigner from a distant land to experience this sense of "otherness." This is a part of the human condition - joys and sorrows alike. It is unsettling to give up a certainty for an uncertainty, the known for the unknown. It can feel disorienting to find yourself in uncharted territory. Many times we are broken down before we are broken open into a new awareness of connection with others who are different from us. So why undergo this struggle in the first place if it causes such discomfort?

Because a summons to leadership is a summons to authenticity. Educator Maria Harris said, "…people are not motivated by direct appeals to the will. People are moved by having their imaginations touched by someone or something that excites them into hoping and acting. When the word is made flesh, redemption is at hand." It is not a redemption that is sin-based or otherworldly. Instead, the ideals of hospitality and social justice, equity and compassion are made real through concrete actions such as a meal sharing. In fact, this meal sharing experience is what touched my imagination into hoping and acting. I wanted to deepen my understanding of what it means to welcome the stranger by exploring this question theologically. It summoned me to leadership in ministry.

Being a stranger in a strange land is an age-old story rooted in the Jewish experience of exile. This is the biblical foundation upon which Jews based their code of hospitality. "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizens among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:33-34). Nothing makes old stories come alive in new ways than through current events.

I arrived in St. Louis June 2005, two months prior to beginning my internship. My choice to come here was part of a theological quest. I decided that the most authentic way for me to embody my theology of hospitality in welcoming the stranger would be for me to become a stranger in a strange land. This meant making a fresh start in a new part of the country. Where would I travel to gain this experience?

I took out a big map of the United States and surveyed the landscape. I pointed to all the different places where I had lived over the years: Berkeley, Stanford, San Jose, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston. I had a bi-coastal view of the world. It was time to fill in the map. St. Louis was smack dab in the middle of the country. I figured that this would be a perfect place to live out my theological quest. The Midwest would become my "foreign land" so to speak.

Then, on August 29th, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf of Mexico devastating New Orleans and many surrounding areas. The media uses "refugees" and "evacuees" interchangeably in describing people's tenuous living arrangements. Suddenly, the question of welcoming the stranger brought my previous international experience and my recent theological studies down to a level that was so real and current right here and now.

I voluntarily chose to uproot myself to come to St. Louis. The people from New Orleans didn't. So who is the stranger now? Them? Me? Both? The lines aren't so clear. The Chinese symbol for crisis means both danger and opportunity. It holds in tension the ambiguities and complexities of life. Not easy to do.

This painful experience of dislocation, physically and emotionally, is something that I believe everyone can relate to on some level. It touches the imagination into hoping and acting. This congregation responded promptly and generously to the call for disaster relief. The senior high youth group is currently engaged in building permanent housing for people affected by Hurricane Katrina through a nonprofit organization called Faith Beyond Walls. I am so proud to serve as an Intern Minister of Eliot Chapel. Ideals are made real through these concrete actions. Hospitality and social justice, equity and compassion are lived out in a community of faith and service. This is common, sacred ground.

I am reminded of a verse from the hymn, "Spirit of Life." These are the words: "Roots hold me close, wings set me free." I like this image because it captures the poetry and vision of Unitarian Universalism. We are rooted in a liberating tradition of faith that fosters free religious thought, nurtures spiritual growth, and acts for social justice. Roots and wings. Faith and freedom. These images evoke a sacred space of welcome within a spiritually diverse community. I believe that welcoming the stranger is best expressed by Henri Nouwen in these words:

"Hospitality…means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories, and good works, but the liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit. It is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria of happiness, but the opening of an opportunity to others to find their God and their way. The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own."
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (New York: Double Day, 1975), 25.

Welcome and amen.