Who is the stranger, who is our neighbor?

There is no person in the Christian story who more exemplifies a life of relentless hospitality than Jesus. Whether offering welcome and sharing a meal with those marginalized by the forces of domination (the sick, the widow, the "sinner") or even those complicit with that domination (Zaccheus), Jesus preached not a story of God's reign, the kingdom of God as conditionally accessible. Rather, he preached, the kingdom of God is at hand. It is here. If only we have eyes and ears to see and hear. He welcomed those who doubted him, those who betrayed him, those who sought him out for selfish reasons, those who wanted him dead. The only people he cast aspersion on were those who did not do to the least of these, those who defiled his Father's temple by placing conditions on who could enter into God's sacred space. Even then, I suspect, he still would've had dinner with these folks too, though his steely eyes would have unnerved them and me.

Jesus relentlesly pursued and welcomed the stranger and called him or her his neighbor. So it's perhaps worth asking: who is the stranger in our community? What would hospitality look like in our context, to make strangers into neighbors and even friends? In what manner should hospitality be extended? Is there a limit to our hospitality? What would it take to demonstrate the kind of hospitality that Jesus models for us?