Christian Hospitality

When my mother went down it was a stiff arm from hades
Life surprises and tears you like the southerly
She always welcomed the spring always welcomed the stranger
I don't see too many around like this
Oh no, thats what I'm looking for, yeah, what we're looking for
- from Midnight Oil's "In the Valley"

I thought of these lines tonight when my friend Dylan, who always does this on these kinds of days, texted me the words "Its spring tomorrow!" And I thought of the lyrics earlier today, when I listened to theologian Amy Oden lecture about welcoming the stranger.

"Is Christianity a welcoming faith?" she asked. "Who are our strangers? Is God a welcoming God?"

Yes, she said, God is a welcoming God, and it is because God has welcomed us into his life, into his family, that we Christians welcome others. The early Christians based their hospitality on the passage in Matthew 25 where Jesus says, "I was a stranger, and you welcomed me." The Christians welcomed the stranger because in the stranger, they found Jesus.

I've found myself welcoming different strangers these days. Today in Children's Literature we discussed our most recent book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I began reading the book about a month ago and have enjoyed it, looking forward to each time I would read it. But also each time, I would hesitate, sometimes for seconds, sometimes for minutes.

Growing up, I didn't hear supportive things about Harry Potter from loved ones, websites, and talk show hosts. Harry Potter was a threat to our faith because it dealt with magic and casting spells, which "God detests," I think someone said. (There are passages in the Bible that show God's disapproval of those actions.)

Today, Oden encouraged us to think of "new ideas as strangers, as guests--not necessarily to [let them] take up residence, but to invite them in for a conversation," and then to make a decision about them. Now that I've read Harry Potter, I see that while there are some questionable and objectionable elements, I also find good themes in the captivating story.

I wonder if it is possible to welcome Harry Potter like welcoming the stranger, the guest; just as we do not adopt every custom and belief from a guest, we should not necessarily model our lives on the students at Hogwarts. But we also should not shut our ears from their stories. We welcome them, we listen, the same way I think we should listen to people in conversation, even if they are not our brothers and sisters in the faith and even if they speak things we consider untruthful or contrary to our way of life. Would Jesus listen to the stranger, to J.K. Rowling? And could God speak to us through the stranger, even Rowling?

Oden also said that sometimes it's easier to love strangers who are very different from us--Muslims, for instance--than it is to love strangers who are close to us, such as members of our own family.

VIP Gospel Choir was asked to sing at Loma United's SOS event tonight. I went, and found myself in a situation similar to reading Harry Potter. There were things about the worship, the prayer, and the preaching that I welcomed and even agreed with, there were many things that I questioned, and there were some things that I inwardly shook my head at. Although the folks at SOS are my family in Christ, whereas Rowling (to my knowledge) is not, I found it more difficult to stay at the event than to complete Harry Potter.

Is that what it means to welcome the stranger? Is that in part what it means to love one another, to hear each other out, to dialogue and reason with each other--especially when we do not agree? What are the boundaries? Is there a time when we should walk away because the conversation is harming our faith? Would it have been better for my faith had I not stayed at SOS the entire night? Is it different for each person, like how some Christians in Corinth had a clean conscience when eating food offered to idols, and some Christians did not? Should some Christians enjoy the freedom they have to read Harry Potter, while other Christians abstain because reading the book will be a sin to them?

One of the speakers at SOS tonight argued against a certain theology. I think some of his passion came out of being hurt by others saying his own theology was wrong. I think it's important for Christians on both sides of this theological border (maybe it should be a gate, instead) to begin welcoming each other, talking to and listening to each other, reasoning with each other over the Scriptures, as Paul so often does in his epistles. I think in this case, welcoming each other begins the process of reconciling with each other. And we do this because we are ambassadors of reconciliation, participating in God's work of reconciling all things to himself through Jesus--including members of Christ's own body.

And here's a poem I wrote last year about waiting for spring.


"The Eve of Spring"

On the eve of Spring the forest quakes.
From heights the yellow flower buds are dropped,
the final rain before the world awakes.

The brow of winter now already breaks;
the song of baby birds cannot be stopped
on the eve of Spring. The forest quakes

like the sound the empty chapel makes
when the lofty lights have been shut off,
their final reign before the world awakes;

in Spring the light, warm and right, will rake
the nightly gathering of shadows caught
on the eve of Spring. The forest quakes

in hope that life has everything it takes
to make it to the promised dawn. If not,
the final reign before the world awakes

would drown us all into the deepest lake.
But hope knows that which fear cannot.
On the eve of Spring the forest quakes,
the final rain before the world awakes.