The Friend at Midnight

This parable, like the one about the widow and the judge, is also not about prayer.

It is midnight. Everyone, humans and animals, are indoors and asleep. A neighbor, a friend, gets a surprise visitor on a journey. Since everyone in the peasant village shared an outdoor oven, your friend knows you still have fresh barley loaves. He bangs on your door. Everyone in your house wakes up. Humans and animals. Probably everyone else in the village as well. He asks for bread. The bread you saved for your family. He imposes on your friendship in order to feed his visitor. A complete stranger to you. He shamelessly takes advantage of your friendship in order to fulfill everyone's obligation to welcome strangers. With a simple meal.

You respond. Giving him the three loaves he asked for and, actually, more than he asked for. And you don't do it because of your friendship. You do it because you would have done the same thing.

This is not a parable about prayer. It is the story behind a simple meal prepared to welcome a stranger in a peasant village. To this day, each and every meal that is offered to welcome a stranger in villages, in barrios, in far-flung sitios has a story to tell.