CELEBRATE THE SEASON: WELCOME THE STRANGER

Luke 2:6-7 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

As I reflect upon this text, I am struck by the lack of hospitality the innkeeper demonstrated toward a weary pregnant traveler. Granted the census was being taken, and there were travelers in every corner of the city. All the inns were probably booked solid.

Could it be possible that if the innkeeper knew that the Messiah was to be born on his property, he would have made room for them or let them stay in his own room? Can you imagine what future business could be like for the innkeeper if the Messiah was born on his property?

The greatest opportunities are often missed because we are too busy doing our own “important” activities rather than partnering with God to accomplish God’s ministry and God’s redemptive agenda to the world. The Christmas season is filled with many opportunities to intentionally look where we can participate with God in welcoming a stranger. Everybody entertains, goes to Christmas parties, and takes time to shop. What would it look like if every Presbyterian seized the festivities of the season with the intent to share hospitality with someone who does not normally go to church?

When Jesus sent out the seventy-two in Luke 10, they were instructed that their ministry of peace was to be pursued only if they had received hospitality from the home where they had visited. Whenever hospitality is present, we can see where God is already at work and our opportunity to bring the message of peace. But if we are too busy pursuing hospitality for our own financial and political gain, we will miss opportunities to see where God could be at work and how God could use us in a specific way.

Hospitality is an essential step to evangelism. In terms of outreach, the most effective evangelism occurs within the context of relationships. Presbyterians typically spend too much time at church and do not make the effort to connect in deep and meaningful ways with those on the outside of our church. Through meaningful relationships, we earn the trust of people before we are able to share with them our story of God’s transforming love.

What would our denomination look like if Presbyterians became more aggressive hospitality seekers during the Christmas season? In cities all over America, we could host Christmas gatherings in our homes where Christians and people outside the church were together for a meal, a Christmas sing-a-long, or a warm drink? What if the church decided to not offer the annual Christmas Eve service at church and hold Christmas Eve services in neighbor’s homes, convalescent centers, or town halls? What would it look like if the church did not expect others to come to our doors at Christmas, and we intentionally went out into the community to demonstrate the love of Christ by volunteering at a homeless shelter, nursing home, hospital, retirement community, or at a shopping mall? If loneliness is prevalent during the Christmas season, why couldn’t we provide some kind of way to befriend people who are lonely? When was the last time we invited an international student to our Christmas dinner?

I have heard hospitality stories of Christian couples who invited non-Christian friends to a local movie theater. They watched a movie that had thought-provoking themes. Afterwards they gathered over coffee and talked into the night about Christian perspectives on life and faith. The key is the availability to be used by God in a hospitality setting. Seasonal hospitality opportunities are perfect ways we can tangibly be the hands, feet, and good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope this Christmas season is filled with numerous opportunities to demonstrate and proclaim the love of Christ.

Comments

[Robert DeFazio]

I come from a background in which evangelism was understood to be a declamatory action directed toward sinners in need of salvation. While the need was technically true, the method was off putting and did more to discourage genuine seeking than it did to bring people to an awareness of their spiritual state. Now 40 years later, it is painfully obvious to me when I look back at the history of confrontational Christianity that what is needed is not necessarily conciliatory Christianity but rather a befriending Christianity that does not exhibit spiritual xenophobia when a woman with a headscarf approaches or when a one encounters a person with a thick foreign accent. The church in which I was raised was very big, very well off, and very white. I don't mean to say that it was racist because it wasn't. It was, however, not friendly to the surrounding neighborhoods which were largely filled with people of color. Each Sunday the congregation sang hymns like "Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus" and "Onward Christian Soldiers," but when 12 o'clock came, everyone went directly home. They did not pass GO, and they did not collect $200. They bypassed entire blocks of people who would have welcomed friendships, and perhaps they could have taught us a thing or two about faith and commitment.

Being a friend has to come first. I realize that there are some whose sense of urgency with regard to the state of others' souls makes them feel that the touchy-feely aspects of friendship require too much time, especially when one's soul is at stake, but often the offer of friendship can fill a massive void in a person's life and create a receptive environment for a Christian to articulate his faith in a meaningful way.

I don't believe that friendship leads to conversion any more than taking a deep breath in a pine forest leads to having good breath. I have friends who are avowed atheists, and my friendship has done nothing to change their minds, but there seems to be a confluence of friendship and conversion throughout history. So I take the path shown to be most successful in history with respect to persuasion, and I leave it to the theologians argue over whether salvation is purely a work of God's grace or whether a person can cooperate in his salvation.

What I think is most important is that people discuss their beliefs and their faith with others who do not share the same perspective. Perfect candor and the vulnerabillity of exposing one's private thoughts about God and life and consequences of actions assist not only those to whom we speak. They also assist us, the speakers, in examining our own beliefs; when we have to say out loud what we think in our minds, it sometimes can become an occasion to become more honest with ourselves.

At the heart of the question of evangelism (and I do believe it is a real question in today's world) are two competing ideas in the Christian church. One is that the object of faith is to yield a peaceful life; the other is that faith should be a disruptive element in human history that provokes mankind to come face to face with the living God. For those who are advocates of the peace agenda, evangelism that creates lines of demarcation can be and is often construed as a threat to that objective. For those who adhere to the disruption agenda, such evangelism is highly desirable. As a result, the definition of "evangelism" is itself a matter of debate because the underlying rationale for its existence in the vocabulary of the church is very much undecided. In the wake of having chosen not to decide the question for fear that the decision making process itself may cause "division" in the church, many denominations look to other areas to engage in activities that can be said by others to be the fulfillment of the church's mission. Feeding the hungry, pursuing social justice, and so forth, frankly, are much softer targets since they don't really involve changing someone else's mind. Delivering meals or marching in a protest are things that can be quantified and analyzed. The results can be displayed in a PowerPoint presentation, and everyone can agree on the success or lack thereof of meeting stated goals. Evangelism's results are not as easy to measure, and to be honest, we are probably not equipped to measure its success. That we have to leave in the hands of God.