Biography
William W. Willimon is Dean of the Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Willimon began his ministry as a United Methodist pastor for churches in Georgia and South Carolina. He is the author of over fifteen books and also Editor at Large for two outstanding publications: "Christian Century" and "The Door." [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Harmless Hospitality" 
A few weeks ago I was to speak at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I took the last flight out of Durham. We landed late. A hair-raising, fifty-dollar, one-hour cab ride later, I was deposited at a now utterly dark, locked up tight, Lutheran Seminary. Had no idea where I was supposed to sleep. I wandered about, Willy Loman-like, bag in hand, trying this door and that, everything locked and dark. It was midnight. Finally, I saw one last light in a house on campus. In desperation I knocked on the back door. A woman came and peered out through the screen door. I told her who I was. She invited me in. As it turned out, her husband was the only person I knew at the seminary — John Vannorsdahl, the President. He wasn't home, but Pat graciously fed me, phoned for me, got me to where I was supposed to be. It's great to be on the receiving end of hospitality offered to a stranger.

"I don't usually open the door at night when John is away," said Pat. "It's a tough neighborhood. But you looked harmless." I am. As a Methodist preacher wandering around Philadelphia at midnight, I am harmless.

But if you're a woman alone, be careful how you open your door to strangers. It is not always great to be on the giving end of hospitality. Thus we come to our scripture lessons for today, stories about women who opened their doors to strangers and got surprised.

There was this wealthy woman over in Shuneme. Any time Prophet Elisha happened to go through town, she invited him over for fried chicken, biscuits, gravy, and squash. It's in the Bible.

She said to her husband, "This is a real prophet, this bald-headed man of God who's always stopping by for lunch. Let's build him a special room so he can stay here whenever he likes."

My grandmother's house had a room called "The Prophet's Chamber" which was set aside for traveling Methodist preachers. This is where the term came from — the room which the Shunamite woman set aside for Elisha.

Elisha loved the room as much as he loved her cooking. So he says to her, "I want to repay you for your hospitality. Name whatever you need, it's yours." Well, I told you she was rich. She tells Elisha thanks, but she's well fixed and doesn't need a thing.

"What on earth can I gave an old woman who's got everything?" Elisha asks his servant. "Well," says the servant, "she's got no son and, although her husband is a rich man, he's old." "Great idea!" says Elisha. "Call her over and I'll give her the good news."

"At this season, when the time comes around, you shall embrace a son," Elisha tells her. "I'll embrace what?" she said (as she turned up the volume on her hearing aid). "Young man, do you know how old I am? Have you seen my husband? Who said I wanted a son?"

Nine months later, The Thursday Afternoon Book Club really had something to talk about.

Moral: Be careful about being nice to prophets. A cup of tea perhaps, a light lunch, but be wary of overnight sleep overs.

There were a couple of sisters over in Bethany — Mary (who loved to sit around and talk about great ideas) and Martha (who loved to throw big dinner parties and make cakes from scratch). Jesus was on the road traveling and Martha invited him in for a big meal. (Remind you of the Shunamite woman?)

Now put Jesus' visit to Martha in context. Do you remember the story which Jesus told to the lawyer? The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). A man, on his way to Jericho, falls among thieves. They beat him up, leave him "half dead." Now, two men go down the road: a priest, a pious layperson. They both pass by the unfortunate traveler without helping. A Samaritan, a lousy Samaritan, was the only one who stopped and helped the suffering stranger, receiving him, bandaging him, risking his own life for the life of the wounded stranger. "Go, do likewise," says Jesus.

So maybe Martha heard that story of the good Samaritan and took it to heart. Here is Jesus, out in the road. "Come on over to our house," she says. "In two hours I'll whip you up the best kosher meal you ever ate." See? Martha is doing what Jesus said to do. She has gone and "done likewise" — received this hungry, needy stranger into her house. And she's in there working like a dog (before the days of Kenmore or Cuisinart). But there's her sister, Mary, lounging at the feet of Jesus as he explains to her the finer points of the Nicene Creed.

"Hey," says Martha, wiping her dishpan hands on her apron, "Jesus, how about telling that egghead sister of mine to get in here and help? ‘Go, do likewise;' right, Jesus?" "Wrong, Martha," says Jesus. "Settle down and let's talk. Doing is OK. But there's much to be said for doing nothing, for listening. Mary knows. I'm not just passing through town on my way to Jerusalem. I'm on my way to Calvary — passing through life to death. A few weeks and I'm outta here for good. Then you'll need the Word more than food. Your fresh baked rolls are great, Martha, but as they say, ‘You can't live by bread alone' (Deut. 8:3; Luke 4:4)."

He spoke these tough words to busy Martha just a few verses after he took his sharp left turn toward Jerusalem (9:51). The strange man of God that Martha invited to dinner has a cross on his back. What's more, opening your door to Jesus, asking him in, is not just a matter of fixing up a few nice things for the preacher. It's a matter of Martha taking up her cross as well.

Remind you of Elisha and Shunammite woman? Open your door to a man of God, you might get surprised. God's intrusions are rarely harmless. "Look, all I wanted was a little food, polite conversation." What the Shunammite woman got was a trip from the geriatric ward to the maternity ward!

Now Martha invites Jesus in. "Look, Jesus, we were supposed to have a nice evening, a little activism, collection of canned goods for the less fortunate, old clothes for the poor. You have to go spoil everything by this depressing talk of death. How much is this meal going to cost me, anyway?"

Open your door to God. O.K. Just remember: this is a real God, not some make-believe image of ourselves, not some tame deity you can have over for a chat. Break bread at the table of the living God, you don't know how you'll be surprised.

The Shunammite woman was like a lot of us. She was well fixed, yes. But her life was still fixed. Well fixed can be — well fixed! The diamonds were nice, and the spring cruise. But at her age, with no child (which then meant no future) about all she could do is settle into what is, redecorate the den, add on a wing for the nice new young preacher. Her life was fixed.

When she opened her door to the bald prophet and finds out that Rev. Elisha is more of a man of God than even she expected. He gives her more than her heart's desire, some gifts she could not dare to ask for because she dared not to conceive it possible. God's presence intrudes, not always bringing what we asked for, but what God knows we need.

Martha opened her door to a similar divine intrusion. Conventional rabbis did not go to a single woman's house, much less waste their wisdom in teaching women. Jesus makes Mary and Martha disciples. Jesus will not spoon feed them, patronize them with innocuous religious platitudes. He gives the truth of His way to them with both barrels, even though it be truth which is ambiguous, not easily defined, much less lived. "Get out of the kitchen, listen, learn, follow me," He says.

Martha, like her Shunammite sister, also receives a gift, but, like that given to the women of Shunem, not the gift Martha expected. She, with Mary, is taken seriously, given opportunity to be a full disciple of the one who proclaims the intruding, barrier-breaking, living God.

Be careful to whom you open your door, and whom you invite to sit at table.

A pastor in Florida told me of how her congregation became concerned about the plight of the homeless in her city. They could see them, wandering the streets at night, sleeping in doorways.

"We've got this big fellowship hall downstairs," she told her congregation. "Why don't we simply invite these homeless men to come spend the night here?" Why not? How nice of the church to do something for the homeless!

The first night, fifty-five homeless men entered the fellowship hall to spend the night. She said, "Now you take fifty-five homeless men off the streets and put them into a Methodist fellowship hall, you've got problems. First of all, we found out that there's a reason why many of them are homeless. Nobody wants them. Crazy, sick, offensive, malnourished, addicted. We had never actually met any homeless people. It was rough at first. Fights. A robbery. Somebody came down to distribute food one night and got roughed up. It was a mess. All we wanted to do was to be nice to some homeless men."

"So what happened?" I asked.

"So what happened was — we actually became a church. We had two choices. Either throw them out or else do what was necessary to be the sort of place that could show hospitality to fifty-five homeless people. By the grace of God, we chose the latter. Medical care, food, counseling, support hand-holding, and listening were developed. Our congregation was converted from a friendly, ordinary, religious club — protecting its club house — to a committed, bold church, 'cause when we opened our doors to fifty-five homeless men, guess who else got in with them?"

"The One who said, ‘inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these (surprise!) you've done it to me'?" I asked.

"Right," she said.

I wonder if, in your life right now, there is a knock at your door. I wonder (I'm just asking) if where you are now living, there's a stranger outside waiting for you to open up. That tug at the heart, that tap upon the door, it could be you-know-who. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," He said.

Let's go ahead and let Him in. You want to ask Him in? What harm could He do? 

Interview with Orley Herron
Interviewed by William Willimon

Orley Herron: Will, that was a great message. Mark Hatfield, the United States Senator from Oregon said, "If each church and each temple in America would adopt one family unit who is homeless, or one homeless person, we would not have any more homeless people." What do you think about that?

William Willimon: It is a creative, peculiarly Christian idea from Senator Hatfield. Personally, I don't have much faith in government solving this issue because I don't think government has the resources, intellectually or spiritually, to really reach out to troubled people who are homeless. I guess in light of my sermon, I also think it would be an excellent idea for us to meet the strangers. As Christians we have long felt we were received as strangers by Jesus, the Stranger, and that means that we should look upon this as a grand opportunity. Unfortunately, I think a lot of us Christians have gotten into the habit of thinking that certain things are the government's problem. I really think the church has better resources for truly dealing with these issues in a way that is beyond the economic.

Herron: Well, we need to do something about it. As Mark said, if as a church or temple we can get involved, we can make a difference. Tell me what does a Dean of a Chapel of a university really do?

Willimon: I sort of preside at Duke University Chapel, which is in the middle of the Duke campus. We have services every Sunday of the year and most of the campus ministry offices are located there. We have a full range of campus ministry functions. Hillel, the Jewish student organization, Catholics and various kinds of Protestants are located there. So, it is exciting being part of an ecumenical ministry on a university campus.

Herron: When you were a pastor, I am sure you had some perceptions about college and university students. Now that you are full-time on a university campus, is there any difference in your perceptions?

Willimon: I was a student in the sixties and I feel very old sometimes when I am talking to students, because in the sixties I think we, as students, were very idealistic, altruistic. We had a lot of faith. I think we felt that our parents had sort of messed up the system. We felt there would be nothing wrong with the system once we started running it. I find students today rather cynical about politics. We had great optimism and confidence that we could solve it.

When I talk like that to today's students, they sort of smile as if that is a very old-fashioned idea. People seem much more interested in getting their own lives together. However, I notice there is a great deal of quiet altruism and interest in one-to-one volunteerism. At first I thought our students were markedly more conservative than we were. That is part of it, but they are impressed that the problems of the world are immensely complicated, that political solutions have their limits. It is a very different student mood.

Herron: You teach preaching and practical ministry in the seminary?

Willimon: Yes.

Herron: Are you encouraged by the quality of the student who plans to go into the ministry today?

Willimon: Some and some not. Some days I grieve for the church and the future. I think ministry has always attracted certain young people. The age of our seminarians seems to be rising. We have more second career people in seminary. I am at a United Methodist seminary. The Protestant mainline in America is having a struggle finding its own identity and what it is to be in the future. We have suffered great losses in most of the mainline Protestant denominations. I think that affects the ethos of the seminary. The good news is that a lot of our students are grappling creatively with what the church of the future will be. There seems to be a great interest in
preaching and recovering the Biblical witness and the integrity of the church in ways that are positive to the church of the future.

Herron: Will, as a college president myself, I relate to my deans and listen to them as we plan the future of our university. Do you have a great influence on the future of Duke University as the Dean of the University Chapel?

Willimon: I don't know. I am thankful the University gives me space and a beautiful chapel to preach the gospel and articulate the Christian faith as best I can. I think about the best you can say about the modern university is that it is mirror of modern society at its best and its worst. Every time I criticize our students, I think that they are probably a lot like us, their parents. It's about the worst you can say about them. I think that as a clergyman there I have a responsibility to do the best job I can, articulating a peculiarly Christian witness. Sometimes I succeed at that and sometimes I fail. To the degree that I succeed, I think I do have ability to influence the university. In the university, like our society in general, we are not too sure what to do with religion — what role it will play in the formulation of policy within a pluralistic society. I think Christians have their hands full just trying to decide who we are and staying Christian before we start charting the course of modern society or modern institutions. The university is an exciting place to be.

Herron: I taught as a graduate professor of higher education. It is amazing when you look back, Will, on the founding of our institutions of higher learning. They had a spiritual root. It was not uncommon for ministers and clergy people to be the presidents of those institutions. You have attended schools that had great moorings religiously but they have kind of veered from that today.

Willimon: This morning I was preaching at the University of Chicago. There is a tablet out on their chapel which said that it was expected that the Christian faith would be the dominant influence at this institution. It is quite a different world today. In a way I think that a lot of that was based on some erroneous assumptions that somehow Christians could dominate their culture and determine policy. Now Christians feel very much like we are more on the fringe of this culture. At its best, I think that gives us an opportunity to look at ourselves and wonder what is the distinctively Christian witness.

One of my problems is when Christians speak out on political matters or public policy issues today. I don't know that we are saying anything different than anybody else is saying. I think the best thing we can do for the world is to talk like Christians, so that when we are asked to speak up at the university, we are not saying just more secular philosophy with a little religious veneer but are saying something the world could not hear if it weren't for us being there. That interests me.

Herron: What is the difference from the religious point of view and the secular point of view?

Willimon: For one thing, just apropos of my talk today, we Christians are accountable to scripture. We are those people who attempt to live and look at the world and come up with solutions on the basis of this strange account of the world called the Bible. We must take that seriously.

Herron: What would you say as the Dean of a Chapel to college or university presidents today?

Willimon: I am always giving my President advice! But, he is a psychiatrist, so he is always giving me advice. I am really impressed by the workings of a modern university. It is tough, particularly in an age when there is no real consensus about what we should ask from the intellectual life. What does a wise person look like? I went to a small church-related college and I think that when I went there, there was a kind of confidence on the part of the administration and the faculty. We knew, more or less, what an educated person ought to resemble. It exposed us to certain things and formed us in certain ways. I don't find the university today working on that kind of consensus. I think that makes it tough for administrators.

We are in a time of arguing about what an educated person looks like. I applaud the university when it struggles with that. For instance, this past year we had a program for our freshmen on ethics on campus, relating to their fellow students and relating to other cultures. That has not been done on our campus, I bet, in fifteen or twenty years. I thought that was an interesting new move to again say, "We really have a responsibility for the sort of moral development of the people who come to our university." I thought that was positive.

Herron: Do you find the students on your university campus open to discuss religious values?

Willimon: To some degree. To another degree, they are almost as frightened as their parents. "What do we do once we get these religious questions on the table? Are we going to start fighting with each other? What is going to happen?" I find students on our campus resemble the larger society. I think our larger society hopes that we can defer a lot of questions and just go on and become doctors, lawyers, business people, and professors. I exist to raise the issue and I am glad to discuss it with anybody who will talk to me about it on our campus.

Herron: You have a big role and we are delighted you have been here. We hope to see you again.

Willimon: It's good to be here again.