The theme the class of 2017 chose for the Baccalaureate service was, as Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Paul Sorrentino put it, a topic that “includes everyone: parents, grandparents, siblings, faculty, staff, peers—all of us.” Namely, hospitality.

Students “wanted to look at what helps people feel welcome in a community,” said Sorrentino, who is also the College’s Protestant religious adviser. “How can they be open and hospitable to people different from themselves, so that all feel appreciated and at home, such that everyone’s life is enriched by the other?” 

Baccalaureate, an annual multifaith celebration held on the Saturday of Commencement weekend, addressed the theme of hospitality in a series of readings, musical performances and talks. These included Christian, Jewish and Muslim prayers, a call to silence by Amherst’s Buddhist adviser, and performances by the Madrigal Singers, the Gospel Choir and the African and Caribbean Student Union.

In delivering her original spoken word poem, Scarlet Im '17 spoke of the fear of welcoming the unknown, coupled with the power of “perfect love,” before concluding, “You and I believe in different things / but we share a home, this world, / So could we not welcome each other wholeheartedly?”

Baccalaureate speaker Hussein Rashid also addressed the topic, noting that “the vision of hospitality in the Qur’an is one of empathy. It is not transactional, but one of shared dependence and responsibility to each other.”

“Hospitality is a manifestation of recognizing the Divine in each other, and the responsibility God gives us to care for all of creation, including each other,” he said, adding later, “You have made that human connection today. You have offered hospitality. You want the good, not just for yourself, but for all of us.”

Read Hussein Rashid’s full remarks below. 

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim
As-salaam alaykum wa rehmutallhi wa barakatahu 

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
May God’s Peace, Mercy, and Blessings be with you

Thank you for having me here today.

Yesterday was the 92nd born day of El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, Malcolm X, an American Muslim saint. I have to mention him, because he had loyalty and royalty inside his DNA. When we name things, we shape them. When I call Brother Malcolm a “saint,” it’s different than from how we may instinctively think of him. 

Words have power. So do actions. During the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), there was a slave named Bilal—, Bilal ibn Rabbah, Bilal Habshi, Bilal the Ethiopian. He was kept as a slave by non-Muslims, but Bilal was a Muslim. He was punished for being Muslim. He was laid out on the ground, and stones were placed on his chest. As he panted out, “I can’t breathe,” a companion of the Prophet came and bought his freedom for 10 gold coins. The slave owner called the companion a fool, because he would have sold Bilal for 1 coin. The companion said the owner was  fool, because he would have paid a 100 coins. The value of human life cannot be counted.

It would have been easy to treat Bilal as a second-class citizen. He was a former slave, so his life was guaranteed to be better. But that is not right. Actions mean something too. Slavery under another name is still slavery. There is either equality, or there is not. Bilal was told that he would be a servant to no human, but he would be a servant to God. And in being a servant to God, he was elevated. His voice is the one that Muslims seek to emulate in calling people to prayer.  

Words and actions matter. 

In 1857, there was an event in India. The British call it a mutiny, a rebellion, an uprising. But that means that the British won that struggle. The Indians are portrayed as resisting the good colonialism that was restraining them. For the Indians, it was a revolution, a call to return power and control to the people. It was a recognition that all was not right in the world. So be careful with names and words. An uprising does not always see results.

Words matter, and I want to talk about the world “hospitality” today.

The Qur’an (51:24-30) and the Bible (Genesis 18:1-10) share a story of the Prophet Abraham (Peace be upon him), which we just heard beautifully recited by two graduating seniors. In this story, he is seated by the entrance of his tent, and he spots three men. They are travelers, and he invites them into his home. In my imagination, these three men are like George Clooney, from the film Up In the Air. Well-heeled travelers, who could use a nice lemonade on a hot summer day;,  maybe even an iced Nespresso. 

This story is about welcoming the stranger, and is held up as a story of hospitality. It’s about welcoming someone when you do not know who they are, and giving them shelter and food. It’s an important message and important story. But I do not think that this is how we are supposed to read the story.

 In the Qur’an, there is a story of the Prophet Moses (Peace be upon him). He is following a figure we call Khidr, who is tasked with teaching Moses what it means to be a prophet. Khidr does three things that Moses finds counter-intuitive, and Moses learns from these stories. One of these moments is when Moses and Khidr enter a town as strangers. 

The Qur’an tells us:

So they went on. When they came to the people of a town, they asked its people for food, but they refused to extend them any hospitality. There they found a wall which was about to collapse, so he erected it. He said, ‘Had you wished, you could have taken a wage for it.’ (18:77) 

The two figures enter this town, and they are met with indifference. They are not offered food, and we presume not offered any water either. Yet, as they leave, Khidr repairs a portion of the town wall that is falling down. Moses asks why Khidr does it for free, when he could have demanded a wage for it.

We learn from Khidr that rationale for building the wall. In his explanation, we understand that hospitality is not about offering food, but it’s about an ethical culture. Khidr says that in the town are orphaned siblings, and their father had left their inheritance buried under the wall. If the wall collapsed, the townspeople would’ve taken the children’s inheritance and used it. Misappropriating the funds for orphans is considered a great sin in the Qur’an, and God constantly speaks against it in the text.

The story is comment about how we view each other and what hospitality means. 

Today, in the U.S., when we think of hospitality, we may think of the hospitality industry: hotels, resorts, and so on. This conception of hospitality is transactional: we offer money, and we get services in return. It is about being entertained for a fee.

The vision of hospitality in the Qur’an is one of empathy. It is not transactional, but one of shared dependence and responsibility to each other. As Mona Siddiqui observes, hospitality goes beyond charity and entertainment. 

The people of the town do not offer that basic level of hospitality to Khidr and Moses. They do not feed the guests, and that signals to Khidr that the basic human connection and reliance on others is broken. The townspeople have lost their basic sense of humanity, and so will gladly take from the young orphans. They do not have a sense of shared responsibility 

In this worldview, hospitality is a manifestation of recognizing the Divine in each other, and the responsibility God gives us to care for all of creation, including each other. It is only through fulfilling this obligation that we humble ourselves enough to accept the Divine and bring our ourselves closer to It.

During the mission of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and his family), he migrated from Mecca to Medina. When he arrived with his contingent of Muslims, he did not ask that his Meccan companions be treated as guests, the industrial hospitality. He paired Meccans with Medinans, and made them responsible for each other. They tilled the land together. They gifted clothes and blankets to each other, with no ulterior motive. Hospitality was made manifest by assuming roles in the community that cared for one another. There were no guests and no hosts, but, to paraphrase Martin Buber, and “us and them,” driving us towards a “we,” in awe of the Lord.

Hospitality, then, is not about making good fences to make good neighbors, but as Robert Frost suggests, making good community. The German phrase doppelgänger suggests that we have a physical double with whom we have an unknown relationship. Hospitality says that we are each other’s doppelgänger, and we have a known relationship, to care for each other. It is a sign of gratitude to God, it is a way of approaching the Divine, it is a way for us to remain humble. Muhammad Ali once said, “Sservice to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” I would interpret that to mean that God has given to us, so who are we to hoard the Divine bounty.

Let us return to the story of Abraham. I think we would all be willing to invite in three George Clooney’s for a nice glass of lemonade. But think for a second. Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent. It is hot in the dessert. Abraham is not causally sitting in a warm part of the house, but is actively looking for the traveler, for the stranger, who is not welcome anywhere. He is in the doorway, looking to bring the margins to the center. 

He does not want to find George Clooney. Clooney will have a villa waiting for him wherever he goes. Abraham is looking for three men, whose hair is wild, whose beards are unkempt, whose shirts are dirty and torn, who have broken sandals. These are men who are fleeing war, who have no homes, who had families, before they were killed. Abraham is looking to build human connection with people who have none anymore. He does not give them charity, he does not entertain them. He gives them dignity. He lifts up their humanity.

In the modern world, we have to understand that we cannot sit in our doorways looking for refugees. I am a New Yorker. If I sat in my doorway, all I’d see is a hallway wall. I lock my door. I’m watching my bag from the pulpit right now. Hospitality is about recognizing our shared humanity and our shared commitment to one another. It is not about being reckless. 

Here is the challenge for hospitality, and perhaps for all of us. We can see the world as inherently bad, and some of us struggle to do good, and we have to protect that good. If we share it, or if we try to do good for other people, it will be taken away from us. You can go Hobbesian and say life is nasty, brutish, and short, and get ready for the Purge. 

The other way to see the world is that people are inherently good, and they sometimes fall and fail. And there are people who reject the common good, for a personal good, and will sell you snake oil that if you hurt others, you help yourself. Those people are not with us today. I remember graduating from college, and that warm feeling of comradeship, of shared struggle, and thinking we can do great things. 

So I have one eye on my bag, but I also have one eye on you. And the reason I can see both is because of the light. That light is a reminder that there is goodness everywhere. When we have a shadow, it’s proof that the light is there, and we need to find it again. 

You have shown me hospitality here today. You have fed me, and you have put me in a nice bed. But, and this is the more important part, you have brought a Muslim, a brown man, to speak to you in an era when everyone is telling you that I should not be trusted, and I should have no voice. You have invited me to share my voice in your most joyous moment,; to share in your accomplishment. You have made that human connection today. You have offered hospitality. You want the good, not just for yourself, but for all of us. 

As you leave Amherst College, remember how you sat by the entrance to your tent, and invited one non-George Clooney man into your lives, and know that he is thankful. That is the way you should be in the world. And when you have struggles, as you’ve all had struggles so far, look for the person in the entrance of the tent waiting for you. Let us build community. 

As we end, know that I will pray for you. I will pray for your success, and your contentment, and for you to change the world for the better. I pray that when you walk, the earth will tremble in pride to carry you, that the skies give you light when you need it, and shade when you need it. I pray that the fruits of the world will replenish ten 10 times what you spend in service to others.

Be the Abrahams, the Moseses, the Khidrs, the Sarahs, and the Hagars we need you to be for this time. Open the doors, light the lamps, fill the trays. More importantly, be ready with your ears and heart. We are human. Be human.

Thank you.