A Proud Portland Tradition

For more than three decades, the city of Portland has received waves of refugees and immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Our own parish has been the beneficiary of our city’s hospitality as we have welcomed new Orthodox from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Albania, and several other countries. Many came as refugees from war and persecution. And before these recent waves of migration, our parish welcomed many older members of our church who fled from communism. So our parish knows first-hand the importance of welcoming refugees and immigrants.

Our city recently received about 250 refugees and asylum seekers from Africa and is making every effort to provide housing for them. Over $900,000 have been donated to the city by concerned members of society to help with the expenses that the city has undertaken. Several members of our church community contributed a total of $3,804 to a special collection. This amount was sent to the City of Portland, as the contribution of Holy Trinity Church to the effort to help the asylum seekers. The contributors to this effort are proud to share in the proud Portland tradition of offering hospitality to refugees and migrants.

At the entrance of our liturgical space we have a beautiful and profoundly spiritual icon of the Hospitality of Abraham. The icon represents the incident recounted in chapter 18 of Genesis. Three men visit Abraham and Sarah in the desert. But Abraham and the text of Genesis address these three men as YHWH, the name reserved for God and usually translated as LORD in our English Bibles. Although it is highly unlikely that the three Persons of the Trinity decided to take a walk in the desert, nevertheless the incident is profoundly spiritual, as it takes us deep into the life of God as Trinity. It is one of those many passages in the Hebrew Bible that are premonitions of how the Christian church came to understand God as Trinity. The icon is called Hospitality of Abraham, because that’s what Abraham offered – hospitality to three men.

Hospitality is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It permeates the familiar stories of Abraham, Joseph…..all the way down to Jesus and his parents fleeing Herod and finding safety in Egypt (Matthew 2:13). No wonder Jesus identified with the hungry, the poor, the refugee!

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (Matthew 25:35-36)

And so throughout the New Testament letters, hospitality is one of the requirements placed upon all Christians: Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it (Hebrews 13:32). And not only angels, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, if we take his own words in Matthew 25 seriously, as quoted above.

But even more deeply, hospitality is at the heart of why God is Trinity. God is not a solitary being legislating and judging from a distance. God does not save by declaring who is worthy and who is not. God saves by opening his heart to us and inviting us into God’s life. Trinity is about community – three divine Persons in perfect unity and communion. Trinity is hospitality. Let us always show the same hospitality to others that has been shown to us. It is one of our traditions here at Holy Trinity Church of Portland.

Tags: asylum seekers Hospitality