When a message runs through the whole of scripture, it’s worth taking notice. The ancient imperative of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures — to welcome the stranger — is one of note for its insistence, its timelessness, and timeliness, too.

First found in several of the early books of both the Jewish Torah and Christian Testament, my favorite phrasing is “You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23.9) The Israelites’ enslavement in Egypt, living as aliens in a foreign land, creates the memory of dislocation carried within, and establishes the basic theme: you, too, were strangers, so you know how it feels. Do it differently for others.

Jesus raises the theme in the gospels, with another twist: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35) The vision Jesus offers is to treat the stranger with the love accorded to one’s own family, found in the text as the Greek word philoxenia.

The writer of Hebrews opens more possibilities for the strangers we encounter: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13.2) Abraham and Sarah did, and indeed revealed angels in their midst.

There are more … but you see where this is going. By invitation or injunction, there is a clarion call to welcome the stranger, the “other,” and offer our care, acceptance, even our love as if they were cherished new members of our towns, our very families.

What I can’t find in the scripture is any recognition of how challenging this really is for most of us to do. From an early age I was taught not to interact with those not known to my family. The word “stranger” covered a lot of territory. Hard to admit, but when I hear “welcome the stranger,” I feel wary, even suspicious.

We may all agree: we are far more comfortable with those who are familiar to us. Father Dan Homan and Lonni Pratt, in their book “Radical Hospitality,” write “What we notice most about the ‘other’ is how much [they are] not like me ... we all tend to surround ourselves with people who agree with us on the vital issues, people who look like us, smell like us, have similar backgrounds, and hold similar convictions. It is natural to do this ... we don’t go looking to be made uncomfortable.”

This is the difficult truth of offering hospitality to strangers: it’s not about comfort. Religious hospitality is about love. It was the 7th century monk Benedict who first saw hospitality as a spiritual discipline. “Benedict,” according to Homan and Pratt, “understood the importance of encountering those who are different from ourselves because it stretches us; it dislocates stiffness and opens us up to new possibilities ... The stranger helps us locate our favorite lies. The stranger helps us see the absurd in our culture and ourselves. The stranger opens our eyes ... If we consider the possibility that others do not feel and think the same as we do, we suddenly feel very small in a mysterious, expansive universe. There is a security in a world where all the others are like me. It’s a false security, but we prefer it to no security at all.”

I know well this challenge, and I admit to falling short — not once, but over and over. The choice to be hospitable, or not, is made so quickly. Walk into a gathering of people, many unknown. Here is a choice: a new path, or make a beeline for the familiar face, slip into a conversation had a hundred times before? The well-worn leads to comfort, and from a place of safety, the chance to scan the crowd, relieved of anxiety.

The gathering might be a church coffee hour, an office party, a public meeting. It might not even be a literal gathering of people, but instead the political views of neighbors. It matters not. In each case, we have a choice — to reach out to the other, or not. To keep our worlds small, or not. To risk change, or not.

And the key to making the choice to welcome the other? It starts in remembering our own Egypts, our own experiences of being the other, the alien in a strange land. Those times when we have looked around and seen nothing familiar, felt nothing comfortable, when we have been the “other” to everyone else. We all feel it, over and over again. Often on the streets in a new-to-us community, and sometimes within our own families.

Each and every one of us has the power to make a choice, to begin the walk towards a more welcoming way of being in the world. May we choose to take a risk — and possibly, in so doing, entertain angels.

The Rev. Alison Cornish is a Unitarian Universalist minister, lives in Shelburne Falls, and currently serves as the Chaplaincy Initiative Coordinator for The BTS Center. Find out more and connect, thebtscenter.org.