Living Sanctuaries

Note: A version of this Midweek Message was originally published in the “Faith” section of The Eagle, June 21, 2025.

Thorncrown Chapel is an architectural marvel. Sitting at the top of a hill in the woods of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, the small structure of wood and windows gives visitors a secure feeling of being inside a sacred space while never having left the outdoors. The brochure about the chapel explains, “It softly proclaims all of creation is a cathedral, and every moment of your life is holy. Nothing is ordinary or forsaken.”

When I visited Thorncrown last week, what struck me as much as its physical design was its origin story. The initial plan was for it to be a retirement home for Pine Bluff, Arkansas, native Jim Reed. In 1971, Reed bought the land where the chapel now resides. People admired the location, often stopping at his property to gain a better view of the majestic Ozark hills. Reed noticed and was moved. Instead of fencing those folks out, he wanted to invite them in. So, his wife and he decided to build a glass chapel in the woods to inspire their guests.

The Dutch Catholic priest Henri Nouwen might refer to Reed’s shift from desiring a house for himself to a chapel for everyone as a spiritual movement from hostility to hospitality. Hospitality is a religious imperative practiced throughout scripture where vulnerable strangers are welcomed into someone’s space, and through that faithful act of compassionate care, both the guest and the host are blessed by God. In his book Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, Nouwen explains the mutual blessing that hospitality makes possible: “If we expect any salvation, redemption, healing and new life, the first thing we need is an open receptive place where something can happen to us. Hospitality, therefore, is such an important attitude. We cannot change the world by a new plan, project or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, to lay aside their occupations and preoccupations and to listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own centre.”

In Genesis 18, Abraham and Sarah show hospitality to three strangers, offering them water, food, and a shady spot to rest. Blessed by their kindness, one of the strangers voices God’s blessing: a promise that Sarah and Abraham will have a child together despite their old age, and that Abraham will become the father of many nations. Resisting fearful hostility in favor of the spiritual practice of hospitality is the very foundation of a life of faith. It is at the heart of every relationship’s potential and every community’s possibility of receiving blessings.

We need to be reminded of this “important attitude,” as Nouwen calls it, and of the power hospitality has to transform the world one act of love at a time. Today, we seem to be convinced that hostility will save us. With so many hearts hardened toward the starvation of children, women, and men in Gaza; toward veterans in need of healthcare and housing; toward so many of God’s children the world over, we find it more acceptable to fence people out of our literal and figurative spaces than to invite people in, which is the opposite of living hospitably—the opposite of living a faithful life.

Consider that, currently, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has a quota of deporting 3,000 people a day from the United States, with the goal of removing one million of our neighbors in a year. This should not assure us, but alarm us. As people of God, made in the image of hospitable love, we are not called to meet quotas. We are called to create places where something can happen to us, where blessings can breathe, and where God can do a new thing for all our sakes.

That visit to Thorncrown put a familiar praise song in my head: “Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary…pure and holy, tried and true…with thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary…for you.” That little chapel has me meditating on the idea that the Christ I follow calls me to be so inspired by hospitable spaces that I would live out what they inspire in me for my benefit, for God, and for the sake of all of God’s children. The Thorncrown brochure says that it “is a place where we retreat to truth and open the eyes of our heart.” My hope is that our retreats to truth will not tempt us to fence ourselves into our own assurance of salvation, redemption, healing, and new life, but that those retreats would soften our hearts, move us away from hostility, and equip us to make that truth a blessing accessible to all, no matter who we are or where we come from. O God, prepare us to be sanctuaries, pure and holy, tried and true; with thanksgiving, we’ll be living sanctuaries for you.