Hospitality to the stranger is a uniquely human trait. Strangers always are vulnerable and dependent on the friendliness of those among whom they pass or settle.

The essence of hospitality is that it is freely given.

Hospitality goes extra mile to embrace the other in love.

Ecumenical hospitality in the spirit of the Lord risks such excesses of love.

Fears that the stranger will bring some form of doctrinal or moral infection into the pious household of faith can be acknowledged. Simon silently accused Jesus of not knowing what sort of woman the intruder was (Luke 7: 36-50). Jesus knows both Simon and the woman better than they know themselves. He exposes where they stand in that all-important criterion, love of neighbor and of God. In part, that is also the risk of ecumenical hospitality. To come to know and receive each other in faith will expose the failures and weaknesses of division. It will uncover the subtle and not so subtle ways that those of other faith traditions find themselves assigned to inferior spots at the table.

Hospitality in the New Testament concerned meeting the need of the other without locking the recipient into the subordination to wealth and power that the patron-client system demanded. Ecumenical hospitality addresses new questions that have emerged from the ecumenical experiences of the 21^st century. How can believers welcome and come to know one another on the deep level that love requires?

Adapted from, Diane C. Kessler, ed., Receive One Another: Hospitality in Ecumenical Perspective