Excerpt from Revelation 3:15-22 

"Listen!  I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

In The Rule of Benedict, the remarkable document that has ordered the life of Benedictine monks for 1500 years, there is a particular role delineated for the "porter" of the monastery.  Quite simply, the porter is the one who opens the door to the monastery when someone knocks.  Not much of a role, you say?  Ah, but there is so much to it.  Author Joan Chittister goes so far as to say, "The way we answer doors is the way we deal with the world."

So the porter is given very specific instructions.  As soon as anyone knocks, likely a poor person because they often sought refuge in monasteries, the porter is to reply, "Thanks be to God."  That's before he even knows who is on the other side of the door.  Isn't that remarkable? 

Dorothy Parker, the author who was famous for her dark wit, used to answer her telephone with this greeting:  "What fresh hell is this?" 

What do you think when someone knocks on your door?  Is it closer to "What fresh hell is this?" or is it closer to, "Thanks be to God?" 

And why is the porter in a Benedictine monastery so quick to respond when someone knocks on the door?  It is not just out of some general sense that it is the right thing to do.

Rather, the porter immediately gets up to respond because it might be Jesus knocking on the door.  Not Jesus as we have ever encountered him before, but Jesus just the same.  As an old Celtic saying has it, "Oft, oft, oft goes Christ in stranger's guise." 

So when a porter—or someone of a porter's spirit—hears a knock on the door, he doesn't delay in showing hospitality.  No, instead, he gets up and declares, "Thanks be to God," because it could be Jesus.  And often—oft, oft, oft—it is.

Prayer

Jesus, help me to receive a stranger in the manner I would receive you. Amen.

About the Author Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is the author, with Lillian Daniel, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

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