DURHAM, N.C. (ABP) — A radical encounter with a homeless beggar huddled in the shadow of power confronted Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove with the Matthew 25 claims of Jesus and a realization he could never change the world being “president for Jesus.”
Rather, he and his wife, Leah, are changing their chosen world in a poor, racially diverse community in Durham, N.C., by practicing radical hospitality as part of a new monasticism movement through Rutba House.
They are joined by their two young children and 10 others, as well as a steady stream of interns, visitors, guests, inquirers and travelers. All find in Rutba House genuine Christian hospitality practiced in a selfless, giving, stable, “as unto Jesus” way that belies the potential chaos of such an arrangement.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and his wife, Leah, founded a new monastic community Rutba House after being arrested in Iraq while protesting the war during at the same time America was bombing the country. He is a familiar sight walking the 700-home neighborhood in Durham, NC. (ABP photos by Norman Jameson)
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Rutba House is actually two houses near each other in the Walltown neighborhood, named for the man who built the first house there more than 100 years ago. It still stands, a couple doors down from Rutba House.
“Rutba” is the name of an Iraq village where members of a peace contingent the Wilson-Hartgroves were traveling with in the first days of the “shock and awe” bombing of Iraq received medical care from an Iraqi doctor.
They had been evicted from the country, where they were bearing witness that “Christians” were not bombing their Muslim nation. Everything on the lone road from Baghdad to the Jordanian border was being bombed as they drove out in three taxis.
The last taxi wrecked and its occupants were rescued by Iraqis and carried into the town of Rutba to a doctor working in a makeshift clinic after the hospital had been bombed.
“Three days ago your country bombed our hospital, but we’ll help you,” the Iraqi doctor told the injured peace advocates. When Wilson-Hartgrove asked what he owed the doctor for his service, he said, “Please just go and tell people outside of here what’s really happening in our country.”
“We got commissioned to tell the Rutba story by the doctor who saved our friends,” Wilson-Hartgrove said. “The more we told it the more we realized this is the Good Samaritan’s story and this is what God’s love looked like — the surprise of being loved by your enemies.”
Living in community at Rutba House in Durham, NC, Daniel Chang, left, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove help watch Naomi and Faye, the daughters of Sarah Jobe, right, and her husband Dan Schwankl (not pictured).
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Wilson-Hartgrove walked past the beggar in Washington, D.C. while he was interning in a U.S. senator’s office. The encounter changed his direction, in large part because he never actually engaged the man. He walked past.
Now, Rutba House is a concrete reality to living out the hospitality he received in Iraq, and the radical hospitality he sees in the life of Jesus.
He lives an unhurried life, spending his mornings writing and afternoons managing a neighborhood non-profit he’s started. He’s published several books and is a frequent speaker nationally on topics related to Rutba House and the new monasticism.
“We’re trying to be a community that learns the way of Jesus by sharing life together across all the lines that divide us in society,” Wilson-Hartgrove said. “To receive strangers as gifts; to trust that what God is doing in the small work of gathering broken people is really the good news for the world.”
Matt Gates, 28, lives in Rutba House. A single man, he is a graduate of Duke Divinity School and works in computer systems maintenance at Duke University.
He explains that residents are financially interdependent, contributing to a joint account from which comes the mortgage, cars, groceries, maintenance, shared expenses and contributions.
Eight to nine adults make due with two cars. Bicycles and buses are adequate for most trips.
Members are committed to the long term and see themselves growing old together. A “vibrant community opens possibilities” for incorporating the “wisdom and practical knowledge” of people in their post working life, Gates said.
“We’re not a program, we’re a household,” Gates said. “We’re inviting folks into our lives. We’re not a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen.”
“Offering hospitality to people in need is offering hospitality to Christ,” he said. “We sometimes refer to our guest rooms as Christ rooms.”
As a Christian community, Rutba House residents participate in common devotion and structure, “both for our sanity and our guests’ welfare,” Gates said. They fast together weekly, share Bible study, accountability and establish a mutual weekly rhythm. All attend local churches, which their presence diversifies racially, and they reserve nights for family, dates and business meetings.
Their houses are solid, but worn from heavy use, the traffic of a large family and 30-50 neighbors sharing a pot luck dinner each week.
Children in the house find many helpers and sitters. They roam freely and confidently in an atmosphere of consistent, loving discipline. Their presence opens avenues of connection with neighbors and church.
Gates wonders why a "nuclear family in a suburban life should be the Christian default" when many biblical injunctions on how to live emphasize community beyond the nuclear family.
“I feel I’m able to follow and be like Jesus in ways here that I couldn’t as a single guy by myself or even in an apartment with friends,” he said.
Norman Jameson is reporting and coordinating special projects for ABP on an interim basis and is a contributing writer for the Religious Herald.