Courageous Hospitality

COURAGEOUS HOSPITALITY – Tony Filipovitch

Good morning, and welcome!  As Kim mentioned, I’m Tony Filipovitch and I am a member of this congregation.  In fact, although Kathy & I have officially been members since 1997, we have been Unitarian Universalists much longer.  I remember, when we signed the Registry, the whispers of surprise—many people thought we had been members for years already!  We had been teaching RE, I had delivered several sermons by then, we were serving on various committees….

I want to talk about courage and hospitality today, so I figured it was only fair to begin with my story.   As some of you may know, I was raised in a Catholic Seminary—all of my high school and half of my college were at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit.  When Kathy & I were married, our wedding was concelebrated by three priests—my spiritual director, my Dean of Men from the Seminary, and Kathy’s godfather.  Those were the days of the Second Vatican Council and Pope John XXIII “throwing open the windows” to the wider world.  Over time, our church left us and we found spiritual expression elsewhere—in folk dancing, in protests and political action, in poetry and theater.  When we lived in Tulsa, my students told us that we really belonged at All Soul’s Unitarian; we told them, “No thanks, been there done that, not going there again!”

It took courage and hospitality to get us here.  Our oldest, Alex, came home one day from first grade and asked why “we don’t believe in anything.”  This was 1986.  We explained that of course we believed… in all sorts of things.  She said, “No, I mean about God and Jesus.”  Oh-oh.  Quite by chance (or Fate or Grace of Kismet or Karma), a few weeks later Mary Kelley phoned us and asked to come by to visit.  Mary’s husband, Phil, taught with me at the University, but we did not know each other well (then).  Mary was clearly nervous when she arrived, but she charged ahead and told us about this new religious education program that the Unitarians were developing an would we be interested in bring our young children.  That took a lot of courage on her part; and all she was doing was extending the hospitality of a group of friends so it might include us, if we were interested.

To make a long story short, at first the kids brought us along to the UUFM on Pohl Rd.  Eleven years later, when we finally officially joined, we were dragging them along, and then they were gone and the truth was out—we were coming for ourselves.  For my students were right, we belong here, among you, our fellows.

I want to invite all of us today to spend some time thinking about the kind of courageous hospitality that Mary showed.  Those two words are interesting in their own right.  “Courageous” come from the Latin, and it means, literally, “action of the heart” (cor-agit).  It is different from bravery (which comes to the English from the Italian, bravo, which means “demigod”).  Courage, like love, is not puffed up or proud or full of itself (like bravery) nor does it require preternatural effort or ability (like heroism).  It is simply acting on the inspiration your heart leads you toward.

“Hospitality” comes from the Medieval Latin, hospitalis, which means “to receive a guest.”  Interestingly, in Latin the root of the word—hospes—means both “host” and “guest” in our language—a good host is one who makes a guest feel that the pleasure is all one’s own.  It is also interesting that hospitality comes into English before courage, and bravery comes even later.  From its origins in English, hospitality was also linked to our words “hospital” and “hospice.”  The first hospitals were not refuges for those with means—until the 20th century, hospitals were places where the destitute and the stranger went for care (and often to die) because there was no one else to take them in.  It took real courage to cool the fever and change the dressings of those strangers.

In the Hebrew Torah, in the book of Deuteronomy, it is written, “Love ye therefore the stranger:  for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  And, to be honest, the phrase “courageous hospitality” does make me think about some of my favorite heroes—Dorothy Day and her House of Hospitality, Mother Teresa spending her life helping the poor in the slums of Kolkotta.  But I also like the way Lars Leafblad, when he was at the Bush Foundation, talked about courage: “It’s not a matter of heroism or heroic leadership all the time, but of simply moving forward into the unknown, which is always fear inducing….”

In Reaching Out, the Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen explores how the movement from hostility to hospitality is a central spiritual journey.  He wrote that, “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 distorted by dividing lines.”  He goes on to say that hospitality can be offered only by those who “have found the center of their lives in their own hearts.”  Coming from the heart, making a safe space for others—courageous hospitality!

Often, creating this kind of space takes courage from both sides.  One of my favorite stories comes from CE Murphy’s Urban Shaman:

“In Ireland, you to someone’s house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea.  You say no, thank you, you’re really just fine.  She asks if you’re sure.  You say of course you’re sure, really, you don’t need a thing.  Except they pronounce it ‘ting.’  You don’t need a ting.  Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble.  Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn’t mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it’s no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen.  Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.

“In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don’t get any damned tea.”

Murphy goes on, “I like the Irish way better.”

Sometimes we need help, a little encouragement, to act on our hearts’ best instincts.  And sometimes it takes courage to take the time to discover the desires of the heart of another.  And sometimes the strangest stranger is the friend sitting across from you.

It takes heart, and it takes space—and it takes money.  About half of this Fellowship’s budget goes to just keeping the doors open—funds for the Children’s Faith Development Director and for a Minister come after that.  And, after all, you didn’t come here just to sit and take in the space (well, maybe those of you with Quaker or Buddhist leanings did).  The Minister and the children’s programs are part of what makes this a beloved community.  And, so, this month we are asking you to pledge your monetary support as well as your moral support for what we here are together.  This is not always easy—money is the last taboo for Americans.  We are a lot more comfortable talking about sex than we are about money!  It will take courage from the volunteers who will be approaching you; please extend to them your hospitality.  And it will take courage (remember, “acting from the heart”) from you to make your pledge.  But, together, all of us are creating something so much greater than each of us could do alone.

Among us there are still a dozen or so members who were here to welcome Kathy & me and our children when we first came.  Others have moved away, some have died.  And I have had the pleasure of welcoming many of you into our beloved community.  In the years to come, I hope you will have many opportunities to open your arms to embrace the stranger and make this place even more of a welcoming place for religious liberalism in our world.