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Devotional - Real Hospitality
And Christ the King will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of one of these who are members of my family you did it to me.
Luke 25:40 (NRSV)If you re like me caring just for the people who are your family and friends can be a great struggle. It is hard to find time to love them, care for them, visit them adequately. Then on top of that we are asked to take care of the strangers in our midst. What is God thinking by asking us to love so many people and does God not understand our limitations of time and resources. Yet in the Scriptures how we greet the stranger is often connected with meeting God. There is no better living example of this in the contrast between how Abraham "greets God" and how Sodom and Gomorrah do so. In Genesis Chapter 18 we have Abraham having an encounter with God and that encounter happens in the form of three strangers coming to his door. He greets them in humility, even though it is on his land and invites them into his life by offering them a meal. In Genesis 19 we encounter Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, while Lot receives the strangers with love the other people see the opportunity to mistreat these strangers. So here you have the one who is a "father of faith" contrasted with the "poster child cities of sin" and connecting the two is how they respond to strangers. Then to top it off we have Jesus saying in Luke 25 that when we meet the stranger and those who are down we are literally meeting
God and how we respond to them is equated with how we meet the risen Christ. Why, does God go there - there is quite a difference from saying be nice to all people-then to saying you are meeting me in those who are troubled, treat them as me. Perhaps, it is because of the way God desires us to recognize the embrace that God is giving to us. We are walking on God's territory, God is in control and we are those strangers. Yet, God embraces us as children and heirs to live within the household of God. We are greeted as such not by what we have done, but by what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We are invited in, and cleaned by God's baptism and fed by the communion meal that asks us to be one with God and each other. So if this is the way God meets us, perhaps God is asking us to live as people who are family. To take the name of Christ upon our lives and share love how God shared it to us. By being part of this love in faith, we testify not to our own fears and limitation, but opening up our lives to be vessels of God's kingdom being shown here on earth. Loving the stranger, opens us up to not only give, but recieve and live in the boldness of our faith. God's love is bold and boldly breaks down walls to recieve people in grace, we can be thankful that God calls us to live in that love and share that love. Perhaps that is why God equates who he is with the stranger, to invite us to join in that journey of faith to love as grace would call us to. As you listen to this song by Tenth Avenue North may it make you feel the open hands of God and may it call you into the faith of not only recieveing that embrace but giving it to others.
