By Lynne Baab —
Two people meet a stranger on a road. As they walk together, the stranger gives them a new perspective on the Hebrew Scriptures. When they arrive at their home, they invite the stranger in for a meal.
At the meal, the stranger picks up bread, breaks it and hands it to the other two. In that moment, the stranger is revealed to be Jesus.
In the Road to Emmaus story (Luke 24:13-35), a guest at the meal – a stranger – briefly becomes the host, the Lord Jesus Christ. People who write and teach about hospitality call this the guest-host shift, and this shift changes the power dynamics in hospitality interactions.
Mother Teresa brought this shift to the world’s attention when she talked about meeting Jesus in the poor, sick and dying to whom she ministered. I can remember, back in the 1990s, feeling befuddled the first time I heard someone quote Mother Teresa about this. Meeting Jesus in someone we are helping seemed like such a strange idea. When we help people in need, aren’t we – the helpers – the ones who are acting like Jesus and representing him? How can the opposite be true?
Later, in the early 2000s when Christians began writing about the theological significance of hospitality, Mother Teresa’s ideas began to make more sense to me. I began to see the connections with Matthew 25. In verses 31 to 34, Jesus describes a scene where the Son of Man separates people into two categories, and the ones who are placed at Jesus’ right hand hear these words:
“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (verses 34-36).
The people at Jesus’ right hand ask when they gave food, drink or a welcome to him. Jesus replies: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (verse 40).
Illustration: Buskers at the Dunedin Farmers Market by Dave Baab
When we host people in our homes for meals or extend a welcome of any kind to another person, we can expect that we might meet Jesus in that person. And if we are meeting Jesus in someone else, then that person in effect becomes the host because Jesus is the King and Lord of all.
Why does this matter? Extending care to another person has the tendency to promote the carer to a position of prominence. After all, we often say, “It’s better to give than to receive.” If I’m doing the giving, caring or welcoming, then I’m the generous one. I’m the one whose life is together enough that I have the resources to extend a helping hand. I’m not needy or vulnerable or weak. Look at me, I’m strong! Look at how wonderful I am!
Jesus turns this upside down. The person receiving care gives to the one who appears to be strong. In fact, the person receiving care takes the form of Jesus, revealing unexpected truth.
This Jesus, a man of humility, calls us to be humble in the same way. He calls us to watch for the ways he is revealed to us through unexpected people.
As other writers in this series have noted, hospitality can be fun, enriching, frustrating, and even painful. In the variety of ways we extend hospitality to others, Jesus is there, turning things upside down.
By Elizabeth Turman —
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Great Commission- Therefore go and make disciples…
As a child of Southern Baptist missionaries, I grew up with the charge of the Great Commission ringing in my ears. This was my family’s mission statement and the raison d’etre for the missionary community in which I was raised. Each annual missionary gathering–“mission meeting”–we would hear heart-felt vibrato renditions of “People Need the Lord.” Our coffee tables were graced with copies of “Operation World” where we could pray specifically for unreached people groups (UPG–people groups with less than 2% of Christian converts) who still needed to hear the good news of the gospel.
Heroes within evangelical missionary circles were often the missionaries that went into “closed” countries where missionaries were not legally permitted, usually predominantly Muslim countries. To me growing up, these courageous individuals had the intrigue and sexiness of a mission-minded 007s. They were in Muslim countries with work visas to provide a skill like teaching english or business classes, but they had a secret life….english teacher by day, church planter by night! They witnessed, had spiritual conversations, and offered furtive Bible studies, all with the threat of being thrown out of the country or even jailed. When they wrote to their home churches in the US, they used special code to talk about God, converts, and church gatherings. It was all very exciting. My family was not of this elite variety, but since we served in Africa, we had our fair share of elephant adventures and malaria survival that was almost as good.
Like any other person raised in an imperfect family, I’ve had my own journey working through my family and faith heritage. In my twenties I struggled deeply with my faith but realized much of my angst was with church and culture than with God. My childhood love of Jesus endured. As I reach middle age, I find myself in another expression of the church–the new monastic movement. This part of the church is in the justice stream and uses language such as solidarity, reconciliation and peacemaking to describe missional living.
While I am thankful to have a more holistic view of salvation that addresses systemic forces in our world as well as the individual, I still hold dear the challenge of the Great Commission which sometimes isn’t emphasized as much in social justice circles. As I seek to be a good neighbor, a person of peace and work towards reconciliation in my city, I long for the struggling, the lonely, and the restless that I meet in my neighborhood to experience the goodness of Jesus, his healing and redemptive love. In a world of growing polarization, I long for Christ to reconcile the extremism, violence, and isolation that increasingly characterize our country and communities. I find myself yearning along side those in my Southern Baptist childhood for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven as the gospel is shared to the ends of the earth.
But what happens when the ends of the earth come to you?
We live in a time of great change. There is a sense that the old order is crumbling and something new is emerging but it is not clear what that new thing is.
One of the changes is the current global refugee crisis. There is a historically unprecedented amount of displaced people in the world right now, some 65 million according to the UN Refugee Agency. I find it interesting that millions of the people in formerly “closed” Muslim nations such as Afghanistan and Syria are standing and knocking at the doors of predominantly Christian nations hoping to find welcome and refuge.
Yet will they find refuge? Will they find welcome?
With every terrorist attack around the globe, there is a growing fear of Muslims both inside and outside the church even though the chances of an American dying from a terrorist attack by a foreigners is one in 3.6 billion. This fear has led to a national debate in the US about whether or not to open our country’s doors to refugees from Muslim countries. One glaring problem in closing our nation’s doors to people from Muslim countries, Americans (and the American Church) are turning our backs on some of the most vulnerable and desperate people in the world. We are shunning those who have already suffered greatly- punishing the victims of ISIS for the sins of ISIS. As Ed Stetzer, chairman of the Billy Graham Institute at Wheaton College writes: “Fear is a real emotion, and it can cause us to make decisions we wouldn’t have otherwise made. Fear leads us to fix our eyes inward instead of on the “other.” …But at the core of who we are as followers of Christ is a commitment to care for the vulnerable, the marginalized, the abused and the wanderer.” In Matthew 25 and throughout the Biblical story, the call is clear. God’s people are called to welcome the stranger and the least of these as they would welcome Jesus himself. Will the American church live faithful to this call?
Stories I have read from England and Germany tell of how there is a growing movement of Muslim migrants and refugees who are converting to Christianity. Diverse news sources from Fox News, Christian Broadcasting News (CBN) to the British Guardian, report how immigrants are giving new life to dying European churches. These conversions are complicated and controversial because baptized refugees are more likely to be given asylum in their host country, so the churches are having to create rigorous discipleship to prove the authenticity of conversion before providing baptism. Yet despite the messiness of these stories, it is clear that God’s Spirit is at work calling the “lost”, those desperate for good news and salvation (in a spiritual and literal physical sense) to Himself.
Jesus’ Great Commission is clear that we need to “go and make disciples of all nations.” When I read this verse growing up, I often pictured getting on a plane and traveling to foreign lands to share Jesus with others. This has been the predominant paradigm for American Evangelicals. But what if this paradigm needs to be upgraded?
What if instead of sending out missionary 007s, God is calling his people to seek out the unreached nations that are represented in our own cities? Instead of spending thousands of dollars to fly across the globe to bear witness to Christ’s love, youth groups could show up at the airports to welcome weary and worn-out refugees with balloons and hugs as they arrive to the US for the first time. What if mission was redefined to look like befriending and supporting the Muslim family at the end of our block? Could it be that evangelism can be as simple as welcoming others as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God?
This could be the moment where God is answering the prayers of His people. Perhaps God is responding to the countless Sunday mornings and Wednesday night prayer meetings where earnest intercession was offered up for lost souls in “closed” countries, prayers that people in Muslim countries could encounter the gospel and experience the love of God. Could it be that God is giving His Church an unique opportunity to live into the Great Commission that we’ve been praying for? But here’s the twist, true to form, God ways are not our ways. This answer to prayer would not be by heroic missionaries in foreign lands but by us, ordinary Christians in our own backyards.
Just like undercover missionaries who risk their lives for gospel, living out the Great Commission in our neighborhoods will require courage and the willingness to be uncomfortable. It is a risk, there are no guarantees of conversions to Christianity though I can almost guaranteed that these cross cultural relationships would change us and break down our stereotypes. There are no guarantees of national security however reaching out to the outsider to where they feel welcomed and a part of society could be argued to be one of the best security measures.
As we engage these questions, it takes us to the center of the struggle for the minds and hearts of God’s people. How will the Church view these tumultuous and rapidly changing times in which we live? Will our lens be one of fear or faith? Fear keeps us in place of self-protection whereas viewing our world through eyes of faith helps us see the surprising ways God is at work bringing about redemption and His Kingdom. We get to join in with what God is doing.
May we, ordinary Christians, ask God for eyes of faith to see what the Spirit is doing and for courage to live as the Body of Christ in this world, welcoming and embracing the stranger in our midst!
Elizabeth is a mom of young children, a wife, a lover of theology, a good cup of coffee and the outdoors. You can learn more about her work at www.radicalhospitalityfortherestofus.com
by Christine Sine
Tom and I are on the final week of our 25th anniversary trip and I find myself reflecting a lot on whom we have met and what we have experienced. So much to process, and I know that the first couple of weeks at home will be a rich time of looking back with gratitude and appreciation.
I am particularly grateful for the gift of friendship and the richness it has brought to our trip and to us. So many have invited us into their lives in generous gifts of hospitality both given and received. Friends old and new have offered hospitality and opened their homes and their lives to us as we travelled.
Some have hosted us in their homes. We have reconnected to old friends in Durham, Edinburgh, Chichester and Hove and renewed friendships. The gaps have melted away as we pick up where we left off 10 or more years ago. There is nothing like a good friendship revived after many years. Ii is a little like enjoying an expensive vintage wine that has been bottled and kept in the dark until it is at its best.
Strangers too have offered of hospitality and have become friends in the process. Communities in London and Prague in particular where the generous offer of hospitality has brought us together with likeminded people and cemented our friendship in ways we never anticipated.
There is the gift of good friends met along the way too. In Passau Germany we renewed friendship with Tom’s best man from our wedding after 10 years apart and in London a chance comment on Facebook led to a meeting with a long term friend from San Diego. Such special blessings to reconnect and make new memories together.
There is the gift of strangers who have become friends. Chance met companions along the way like a couple from Canada we kept running into on Iona and then heading back to Oban on the ferry. And on our Viking cruise, fellow travellers from Australia, Canada and the U.S. have given us cherished memories and new friendships to enjoy. Even the staff offered the friendship of celbrating our 25th anniversary with us. Strangers are friends waiting to happen.
In the midst of these generous gifts we have been able to offer a small measure of hospitality too. Both guests and hosts as the Celtic Christians taught us. We have cooked meals and issued invitations for extending hospitality in Seattle hoping that the bonds already formed will continue to be strengthened.
As I reflect back on these encounters and the specialness of friendship hospitality, Ecclesiastes 4:12 comes to mind A cord of three strands is not easily broken. Every friendship is like a threefold cord. It may only involve two people but always in the background there is that third strand of God’s presence that weaves together the other strands in love and companionship.
God does not intend any of us to travel alone. Friendship is one of the most precious gifts of hospitality. It is all around us waiting to be given and received, waiting to bless and to be a blessing.
What is Your Response?
You may not have travelled as much as we have in the last month, but God has still offered you the hospitality of friends. Sit for a moment and think about your own encounters over the last few weeks:
Who are the friends you have shared hospitality with that have enriched your life and provided special memories? Sit in the stillness of the moment and savour those memories. Write about them in your journal. Offer prayers of gratitude to God for them. Is there a special response that God might ask you to make towards them?
Who are the strangers you have encountered that have enriched your life? In what ways did they provide hospitality for you? In what ways were you able to be their hosts? Savour these memories too. Journal about them. Offer prayers of gratitude to God. Is there a special response God is asking you to make?
Now read this prayer which I wrote as I considered the encounters I have had that have provided hospitality for me:
Unite us God Almighty,
Unite us with the threefold cord of friendship.
Unite us with the threefold cord of love.
In the name of the Creator,
In the name of the Son,
In the name of the Spirit,
Unite us with the Three,
Unite us with the One,
Unite us with the strands
That can never be broken.
Is there a prayer that bubbles up from within your heart too? Write it down and if you feel prompted share it with us as a comment on this post.
This week I’ve been thinking about God’s welcome for me.
I’m not sure I’m very good at experiencing God’s welcome. I think I feel the responsibility of providing welcome and hosptiality to and for others, but I don’t always know how to experience it for myself. I think I need practice. I need to start watching and paying attention to the welcome and invitations of God.
What do we know about the welcome and hospitallity of God?
We talk a lot about how we are invited by Jesus to welcome the stranger, the least, the lost and the lonely. But what about how Jesus welcomes each of us? What does the welcome of Jesus, or the welcome of God look like in my life or in your life?
Would you recognize it?
How have you felt welcomed by God? Just talking about it feels a little awkward, right? Me, really? I don’t know what that is supposed to feel like.
Or how about this: God is in your life welcoming you right now. I have a history with God, as you do too. So, how have you seen or experienced the Welcome of God in the past?
Or better yet, how do you need Jesus to welcome you right now? These questions seem simple, but we so rarely ask them or even think about them. Does God really want to welcome me or you? It seems that we need to re-understand God’s love for us, right now, concretely. But I normally move on, and accomplish something instead of taking the time to connect. And I’ll bet you do too. It’s the same as having house guests. You actually need to look them in the eye, connect with them and show interest in them. So…imagine God doing that for you. God stopping, caring, asking, connecting with you. God breaks through shame and sin, and walks up to hug us.
I started thinking about what I know about the welcome and hospitallity of God…
God throws parties in honor of finding lost sheep
God gives us the best robe and a ring and kills the fatted calf in our honor even after we’ve squandered everything. Even in my/ your shame and disgrace,
God runs to welcome me and you!
What else?
Jesus invites us out of trees. Jesus invites himself over for dinner.
Jesus invites us to leave familiar territory and familiar tasks and follow him, and not just follow, but become his partner in living out the kingdom.
Jesus invites us to dine with him. Jesus washes our feet. Jesus surprises us when we aren’t expecting him. He just shows up and breaks bread and reminds us of his love. Jesus welcomes us with breakfast, he’s already prepared for us, when we didn’t catch anything all night. And Jesus reinstates our purpose even after we’ve betrayed him!
I’d say that’s real welcome and hospitalty!
It’s God’s gift to me and you.
Can I receive it from God?
How do I receive the hospitaliy of Jesus? How do I receive his hosptiality and the welcome he gives through other people? Do I , do you, miss the Welcome of God because we are too busy to notice?
So what do we do about this?
Just Start. Like always, right? Take Baby steps.
Give yourself permission to receive the gifts, receive the invitiations of welcome and hosptiality of God. Begin to practice receiving the welcome mats God puts out for you in the midst of your every day life. They are there if we’ll see them.
What if we began to practice sitting on the front porch with God? Or picking a spot of beauty where we can just be with Jesus on a regular basis. I actually have a picture I’ve cut out of a magazine that is my place to hang out and experience the welcome of God when I travel and cannot be in an actual space of beauty or on my porch.
Jesus says that he has gone to prepare a place for us, but what places has Jesus prepared for you and me right now? What place and people of welcome are in your life right now?
How can we experience more of God’s welcome?
The Welcome in the sunset or in a rainbow or in the calm after the storm.
The Welcome in the laugter of children.
The Welcome in the hug of a friend, or the kiss of a dog when you arrive home.
What if we begin to imagine Jesus preparing places of welcome for us everyday?
How would we view the world differently?
Let’s start paying more attention and being intentional about watching for God’s welcome mats for us!
——————–
- Draw a picture or look through magazines or photos on line, for a place that reminds you of the Welcome of God. Cut it out or print it out and use it as a reminder of God’s welcome and invitation for you to be with God!
Maybe it’s more than one place!
- What does it look like, feel like, smell like?
- What are the things that make you feel welcomed?
- Take some time today to talk to God about this!
By Elizabeth Turman —
This past year, she set out to find local churches and everyday Christians who were welcoming the stranger in their own communities…take a look at some of her discoveries.
Elizabeth is a mom of young children, a wife, a lover of theology, a good cup of coffee and the outdoors. You can learn more about her work at www.radicalhospitalityfortherestofus.com
A short story about becoming hospitable to others and ourselves by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt —
There once was an old stone wall. Its lot felt difficult and its burdens heavy. It guarded the inside and it patrolled the outside, and felt the pushing of both on either flank. In places, because it was old, and softened by the wind and the rains, it had begun to crumble. Nuggets of sandstone would fall off into the soil and pebble dash the flower beds below. Trellises were nailed into him here and there, and roses trailed across his body, tickling his bricks and scratching his skin with their blasted thorns, though he did have to admit the flowers were rather beautiful. Birds came and nested in the roses and the wisteria, and the ivy, and all his length seemed given over to some life or other. There was hardly a crumb of himself left bare to call his own. He felt very weary and sad, and quite honestly, put upon.
He had not complained once, out loud, but some things you can only hold in for so long, and one day he started to tell his troubles to a swallow that was passing by on its way to other, more exciting continents that the wall would never see, but the bird was already gone before the wall had spoken a sentence. How rude, thought the wall.
He kept his pain locked inside even longer, and then one day, when a friendly looking squirrel was burying things in the raised beds inside his perimeter, he dared to open up again, but the small creature was far too busy counting her hoard of acorns to really pay much attention, and only nodded here and there, and said, “Quite,” once or twice, albeit sympathetically. This wasn’t really the listening ear that the wall needed. He sighed and locked his sadness down once more.
A few weeks later, he felt the sticky irritation of a snail which was sliming its way up him, and began his tale of woe, since he figured the unidexter would not be able to skate away from him before he’d finished speaking, and he was right. The snail seemed indeed to be listening, its tentacles waved in all the right places, and there even appeared to be a nod once or twice. The wall told his new friend all about the roses, and the duty, and the birds’ nests, and the gardeners who came and nailed things to him, and the grass that grew at his feet, and the strain of keeping everything in and everything out both at the same time. He told it about the tickling and the scratching and the digging, about his crumbling and his holes and his having to be still and never going anywhere at all ever, about his desires to see the world and make something of himself, and his despair over his great age.
At length, he ran out of misery to tell the snail, and stopped talking. The snail, who had stopped in its tracks, then said something rather surprising. It said, “Wow.”
“Wow?” answered the wall, not sure he had heard right.
“Wow, just wow.” Said the snail. The wall was a bit annoyed.
“What do you mean by that? Do you think I have a lot of troubles?”
“Troubles!!” exclaimed the snail, “Is that what you call them?” and most aggravatingly, he laughed, a great big belly laugh, too, which sounded very odd coming from such a tiny creature.
“Yes. Indeed, heaps of troubles! What would you call them then?”
“Well my friend,” said the snail, and the wall warmed to it, as no-one had ever called him friend before. “I call them blessings.”
“Blessings!”
“For sure! To be a guardian, and a protector, to hold space for so many lives. To rock sparrows to sleep and provide shelter to house martins, to be a safe place for so many creatures to grow and thrive. To be covered in beautiful flowers, to have reached such a great age and been a help to so many lives, large and small. Certainly, I call those blessings! And as for travel, you have already gone so much further in your great length than I will wander in a lifetime, and try as we might, even my children’s children may not manage to finish exploring all your magnificence. You are very great, wall, and mightily blessed. It’s an honour to know you, and to walk upon you with my one foot.” The snail bowed.
If the wall had had a head, it would have been spinning. Blessings? Greatness? Protector? Were all these things true? Had he been so ungrateful and so blind all his life not to see himself and his lot this way?
“Dear snail, thank you. I… I don’t know what to say. It has been wonderful to be listened to, and to hear your gastropodic perspective. I wonder why I have made such hard work of my life.”
“Well, if you ask me,” said the snail, cocking its head to one side, as it always did when thinking deep thoughts, “You need to breathe more deeply, and maybe instead of thinking that your insides are trying to get out and your outsides are trying to get in, look at it that you are simply a frame, a border, like a ..” it stopped to find a suitable analogy from its little life. “Like a raindrop is water on the inside and air on the outside, else it doesn’t have a shape, and both are happy where they are.”
“Well,” said the wall in wonder, “What a wise snail you are! I have been a fool. I shall be my shape. Breathing is what I shall do, and the more porous I get the deeper I shall do it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said the snail, yawning, for all this listening and thinking and talking had quite worn it out. And a few moments later, the snail fell into a deep, relaxing sleep, curled up in its shell, stuck to the wall. And the wall felt it there and felt the blessing of the tiny coiled creature, its microscopic breathing (did you know a snail could snore?) and the loveliness of the sticky curtain it had drawn across its doorway. He felt proud to know it, and all its friends and relations, and it was not very long before the wall was counting his blessings and feeling quite dizzy with the amount of them. He then remembered to breathe deeply, and looked about himself with a grateful heart, a very different wall from an hour ago, and yet to all appearances, exactly the same.
By Hilary Horn —
One of my all time favorite things to do is to have people gathered around our table. Preparing big batches of food, prized even more if most of its from our garden, glasses of wine and cheerful friends – bring a deep sense of joy and gratitude to my heart. I love feeding people. I love laughter and community. Each week we intentionally have at least three to five meals with people – friends, family or strangers we just met. Partially because we are pastors and that’s our thing, but even more so because it’s the way I see Jesus interacting with people the most too – around a meal.
I love this quote from Tim Chester, taken from his book A Meal With Jesus. He says, “People often complain that they lack time for mission. But we all have to eat. Three meals a day, seven days a week. That’s twenty one opportunities for mission and community without adding anything to your schedule.”
Sometimes we make mission too complicated or negate mission out of our lives completely. Saving it for the missionary or pastor we know. But we cannot separate our faith from mission. For me, hospitality has grown into such a rich way to do mission. Hospitality brings out things in people you can’t just see over a cup of coffee or a a third space. When you invite people in your home, giving them a taste of your life and culture, it unlocks a deeper sense of being known. Conversations and your connections are deeper. Mission becomes easier because it’s natural. People know you love them and conversations about God flow because that is the rhythm of your life.
I realize this can be scary for many. Your house may not be up to par the way you want it, you may not be the best cook or you’re afraid of what people may think of you. Maybe because I grew up with huge family gatherings, this type of thing doesn’t stress me out. I learned from a small age what it means to cook for 5-30 people in a pinch and put on welcoming ambiances from some of the pro’s (my mom, grandma and aunts). But I realize that isn’t the case for everyone. It can seem like a huge task. But remember, we all have to eat. Somehow you get it done.
One of the biggest things I have learned though is that you don’t need to be perfect. Boxed frozen pizza and cheap beer or tap water can do the trick. Messy houses and imperfect lives are okay. We live in a “Pinterest perfect” generation which can often lead to lots of unhealthy expectations that cripple us in the process of hospitality. I have found that most people don’t even care about perfect place settings, prestige houses and themed events. What they do care about is being known, heard, welcomed and loved. You throw food in the mix and it’s even better.
My challenge to you this week is to invite some people over to dinner. Just start with one meal. Don’t stress out about it. Make something simple or even order take out. If your house is a mess, don’t clean it. Seriously. No one comes with inspection gloves to see that layer of dust on your shelf or care if your toddler just rampaged through the house. Spend more energy in thinking about thoughtful questions to ask your guests to truly deepen relationship. Hospitality is a process, but it doesn’t have to be a complicated one. All you need is a simple invitation over and the rest will figure itself out.
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