Abstract
This chapter looks at temporary migrant farm workers in Canada (specifically, in southern Québec) and how they are received by farm owners, as well as by faith-based volunteers ministering to them. The overarching theme is to see how the dynamic of hospitality operates in light of the Book of Ruth of the Hebrew Scriptures. The first section presents a brief overview of the workers’ situation and assesses attitudes of employers and volunteers. The second section examines the Book of Ruth to discover criteria to serve as a basis for trustworthy hospitality. What sets Boaz’s hospitality apart, in the Book of Ruth, is mainly its socio-economic scope based on faith precepts. One of the main tasks of this section is to catalogue Boaz’s principles of hospitality and to analyse them in order to figure out how to apply them. Parallels are drawn between the Book of Ruth and the reality that Latin American farm workers experience to see what such a “Boazian” perspective of hospitality can mean for a receiving society today.
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Notes
- 1.
Carmen Nanko-Fernández says this about pastoral and theology “in conjunto” in the context of a Hispanic theology in the United States: “As a U.S. Hispanic theologian and pastoral minister, my praxis – which includes my teaching and scholarship – is influenced by the necessary interrelationship between teología en conjunto and pastoral en conjunto. The premise is that theology and pastoral activity are communal endeavors that require mutual engagement and accountability.” She adds, “From the perspective of en conjunto, pastoral theology emerges as the primordial contextual theology whose analysis cannot be divorced from daily lived experience. Or from conscientious involvement in pastoral practice.” In Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández, “¡Cuidado! The Church Who Cares and Pastoral Hostility,” New Theology Review 19/1 (February 2006): 31, 32.
- 2.
Table de réflexion interdiocésaine de Pastorale avec les Travailleurs Migrants Agricoles.
- 3.
All scripture quotes are from the English Standard Version of the Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001).
- 4.
We could say Jewish-Christian hospitality, but because we are doing Christian theology here, we mention only Christian hospitality from this paragraph onward. The narrative is found in Gen. 18:1–15.
- 5.
Pierre-François de Béthune, La hospitalidad sagrada entre las religiones (Barcelona: Herder, 2009), 146.
- 6.
On this topic, see Claudio Monge, Dieu hôte (Bucharest: Zeta, 2008), 438ff.
- 7.
Not all Latin Americans have Spanish as their mother tongue. Many of them, especially Guatemalans, speak an Indigenous language. It is helpful to take this into account.
- 8.
Encyclicals like Rerum novarum (Pope Leo XIII, 1891) and Laborem exercens (Pope John Paul II, 1981) speak explicitly of workers’ rights and the duty of Christians to advocate on their behalf.
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Bellerose, M. (2021). Boaz’s Hospitality Towards Ruth: Inspiring Our Hospitality Towards Latin American Temporary Farm Workers. In: Dias, D.J., Skira, J.Z., Attridge, M.S., Mannion, G. (eds) The Church, Migration, and Global (In)Difference. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54226-9_2
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