Such struggles of the early Christian evangelists and their impact on the practice of Christian hospitality in the early church threatened the embryonic Christian identity particularly of Gentile Christians. Thus the First Letter of Peter exhorts them, “as resident aliens and visiting strangers, to keep apart from the fleshly passions which wage war against you” while warning Jewish Christian missionaries to “conduct yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honourable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.”295 It is not surprising then that early Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, came to see themselves as “exiles in this world as in a foreign land”296; as “psychological pilgrims, migrants and strangers”297 in the world. Brox argues that the early Christians “wanted to be298 as well as felt strange”; indeed they estranged themselves from the world around them by seeing themselves as aliens and guests on the earth as they awaited the second coming of their Lord Jesus Christ.299 They added an eschatological, a transhistorical and transcendent dimension to the Hebrew Scriptures’ concept of the promised land by seeing themselves as resident aliens in the world, awaiting their transition to their true home, the
295 1 Pet 2:11-12.
296 1 Pet 2:11. See also Heb11: 13-16; 1 Pet 1:13-17, 2:11 and 4:1-2; 1 Jn 4:4-6. 297
From ‘I Am a Stranger: Will You Welcome Me?’, 48. As the author of Heb 11:13-14 says in reference to the Patriarchs: “All these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth; for people who speak this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.”
298
My emphasis.
heavenly Kingdom of God. As Christ was not of this world, so they too saw themselves as living and carrying out their mission in the world but not being part of it. 300 As Pettena points out, a text like Ephesians 2:19, which stresses that the early Gentile Christians were “no longer strangers and aliens” but “citizens with the saints and also members of God’s new household”, not only replaces “spatial categories with temporal categories” but also, by recognizing that the Kingdom has been initiated already but not yet accomplished, compels these new citizens to the permanent condition of pilgrims and foreigners during their whole earthly life as their definitive entry into the Kingdom will be only after death.301 In this context Pohl remarks that our contemporary situation is surprisingly similar to the early Christian situation in that we too find ourselves in a fragmented and multicultural society which is charaterized by disturbing levels of loneliness, alienation and estrangement.302
Nevertheless, as Brox sums up his article, “there was still room for the stranger, for all people, in the ultimate dénouement of history, because of Christianity’s conviction of the divine will of salvation and universality.”303 Richard reinforces Brox’s summation by remarking: “being a stranger in a
300 See particularly Jn 17:14-19. Such attitudes continued on into post-biblical Christianity as is
exemplified by Brox’s quotation of a statement from Pope Leo 1: “In the knowledge of being a stranger and alien in this earthly suffering, the faithful should wander through this earthly pilgrimage ... bravely passing through. The Apostle Peter is a God-pleasing example to us of such abandonment”, “The stranger in early Christianity”, 48, original source not cited.
301
Adapted from Pettena, Migration in the Bible, 10-11.
302
Pohl, Making Room, 33.
hostile environment [became] for Christianity a divine vocation”304; one in which the Christian Scriptures encourage Christians to
above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.”305
It is in this context that the Apostle Paul speaks of a new age which had been initiated with the resurrection of Jesus, “the new Adam”; one which will see the dawning of a new creation and a new vision of Christian identity in which “the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” will be abolished and all will be fellow citizens in the household of God.306
Conclusion
To conclude then both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures provide rich sources of insight into the perceptions and treatment of the alien, the sojourner and the stranger in early Judaic and Christian communities and the ways in which hospitality to the stranger, the maginalized and the needy were viewed as integral to Hebrew and Christian relationships to God.
The immigrant journey itself has many striking parallels with [both] the Exodus story and the Christian story. Crying out for liberation from oppressive conditions of poverty, immigrants cross bodies of waters, traverse large stretches of desert, face the relentless pursuit of authorities, and journey in hope toward a promised land. The journey of immigrants is also the way of the Cross, yet their spirituality
304
Richard, Living the Hospitality of God, 37.
305
1 Pet 4:8-10.
compels them in hope of a better life through the power of a compassionate God.307
Key themes in the Hebrew Scriptures are those of the obligations of the Israelite people to strangers together with the manner in which these obligations should be carried out, particularly to those strangers resident among the Hebrew people, and the way in which such expression was underpinned both by God’s covenant with the Hebrew people and the Hebrew people’s own experience of being migrants, aliens and oppressed human beings. Central to the Hebrew Scriptural treatment of Israelite relationships with strangers was the exodus experience; an experience which influenced the manner in which later Jewish people regarded their period of Babylonian exile and the ways in which they responded to the stranger in their midst when they were restored to their homeland. Overall, as the Hebrew Scriptures demonstrate, hospitality to the stranger and the marginalized became an integral element in Israelite religious and national identity.
The Christian Scriptures continue the tradition of hospitality to the stranger and the marginalized, sending it in new directions and demonstrating how it is crucial to an understanding of the life and mission of Jesus, indeed to the very identity of Jesus himself as the incarnate Son of God. That it should become, as with Judaism, an integral part of Christian identity and discipleship is well exemplified not only in the life, teaching and death/resurrection of Jesus but also in the formation and expansion of the early Christian Church from the
307
Daniel G. Groody CSC, “Dying to Live: The Undocumented Immigrant and the Paschal Mystery”, Migration in a Global World, 115.
Jewish into the Gentile world. Thus perceptions and treatment of the stranger in early Christian communities and the ways in which hospitality to the stranger, the marginalized and the needy are carried out are crucial to an understanding of the Christian relationship to God. Unfortunately, as Pohl contends throughout her book, as our contemporary societies have become more stratified and bureaucratized, as we have become more reliant on institutions and agencies for the care of the stranger, as our households have become more private and separate from the public space, and as hospitality has become more commercialised or a vehicle for extending power and influence, we have lost the earlier traditions of hospitality and need to recover them. Even in our churches hospitality has decreased in its moral, spiritual and physical significance.308
Overall, as will be demonstrated in the two following chapters, understandings of the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptural perceptions and treatment of the alien, the sojourner and the stranger are vital to a full and rich comprehension of Church social justice documentation in relation to the migrant and refugee and on the migrant and refugee themselves. Equally, it is important to any analysis of the work of migrant and refugee pastoral care bodies within the Archdiocese of Perth.