Radical Hospitality

Two weeks ago, my family and I went to Washington DC to celebrate my grandmother’s 90th birthday party. My grandmother is an amazing woman. She lives alone, drives, has no physical problems, and doesn’t take one prescription pill! (I hope I have her genes). Since this was a big occasion in her life, we decided to kill the fattened calf if you will.

Those of our family who were out of town booked a hotel downtown, and it was really quite amazing…once we got there that is. We rolled into town on a Thursday afternoon around 6:00 pm, and as it turns out, you can’t make a left turn until 7 pm! Mapquest was useless, so I turned to Samquest. My wife, who lived in DC for a short period of time, managed to get us to the hotel by only taking right turns through a maze of one-way streets and 5 street intersections. Needless to say, I was a little frazzled after 30 minutes of driving around the hotel, but unable to get to the front door!

Once we pulled in front of the hotel, we were greeted by two men who gave us non-stop service. One man rolled a cart out of the door and began unpacking our luggage from our car, and the other took my keys and parked our car in their underground garage. Now, I was really uptight. They didn’t jump to our service out of good will. They were expecting a little financial remuneration in return for their service. Now their service was exceptional, still all weekend it cost me to enter the hotel and leave the hotel. I felt like just handing them my wallet, and saying, “Just give it back to me when I leave on Sunday.”

Yet as I left to travel back home, I began to think about their service as a parable for our call to offer radical hospitality to our world. As we read in Gen. 12 in last Sunday’s class, Abraham’s call was not only to be blessed, but to be a blessing to others…the whole world even! So when we read in Gen. 24 of Rebekah’s extreme hospitality, I catch a glimpse of how we can bless the world.

Abraham’s servant goes to his brother’s house to secure a wife for his son Isaac (I know, but it was ok back then). There at a well in Abraham’s brother’s land, the servant prays for a woman who will show hospitality to him. Next thing we read is that Rebekah shows up and is fully prepared to not only give Abraham’s servant a drink, but also give a drink to his camels! Now for those of you counting at home, the servant brought 10 camels with him. Each camel could drink more than 25 gallons of water. Rebekah lugged 250 gallons of water out of the well to water the servant’s camels – and this with no prospect of anything in return!!!

What is more, the author tells us that she did this “quickly” and she “ran back to the well to draw more water” for the camels “until they [had] finished drinking” (Gen. 24:19-20). This is extreme hospitality, and it demonstrates the character of the future matriarch who is more than capable to carry on the mission with Isaac to be a blessing to the nations.

Pray with me that we would be a community who takes hospitality seriously as an act of blessing the nations. In a season where many new people will be looking for a church home this fall, may we take on the character of Rebekah, and radically serve those who come into our life no matter how inconvenient it may be for us.

You Got What It Takes!

My wife and I were doing routine errands in Target, when my oldest daughter spied the action figures of the Jungle Book on the bottom shelf of the toy section. To be honest, I have not bought many toys for my kids. Most of the toys that they have are gifts from grandparents. Yet, this day was different.

The Jungle Book was the first full length feature film that they had seen, and we just let them watch it two weeks earlier on our vacation. As a result of that movie, my kids have been pretending to be the various characters in the Jungle Book. They sing the “Bare Necessities” constantly, and they pretend to be part of Colonel Hatti’s elephant brigade as they march around on all fours through the house saying, “1, 2, 3, 4, keep it up, 2, 3, 4…” Their love for the Jungle Book has even gone so far as Lydia, my 3 and ½ year old, asking to me to introduce her as “Baloo” when young adults or college students come over! They are really into this movie. With this history, let’s go back to Target.

I bought the action figures thinking that I was being the good father. It was an instant hit with the kids…and an instant headache for the parents!

There are 7 characters included, Bigera (panther), Kha (snake), Mogli (man-cub),), Shir Khan (the dreaded tiger), King Louie (the orangutan), the wolf dad (the surrogate father whom I am blanking on his name), and finally Baloo (the bear). Needless to say, Baloo is the overwhelming favorite, and they instantly burst into tears if they can’t play with Baloo. After 3 days of constant fighting (and crying) over who gets to play with Baloo, my wife decided that Claire gets to play with Baloo in the morning till lunch, and Lydia gets to play with Baloo after lunch till dinner. Yet, this still didn’t solve the issue. Each morning for the past week, we start with our kids in tears over who gets to play with Baloo. Instead of blessing, these characters have brought nothing but chaos to my life. Last Saturday, was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back for me.

My wife and I took the kids to go see David Wilcox at the American Tobacco amphitheater in Durham, and my kids took some of their prized possessions (Baloo, Bigera, Kha, & Shir Kahn). It was hot, crowded, but filled with many familiar faces. We thought we would be able to sit on the lawn, listen to some good music, and relax with friends and family. Instead, we felt both like McDonald cheeseburgers under the heat lamp of the sun, and sardines in a can pressed up against everyone on the lawn. Needless to say it wasn’t relaxing. Since the kids were not able to sit still in such confined quarters, I took them for a walk around the lawn of the American Tobacco amphitheater.

They loved the running water that flows through the park. I let them bend down to see the water, but safely enough not to fall in. Not so, thought a police officer that publicly reprimanded me and asked me not to let my kids near the running water. (Easy for him to say, as the water had no fence or barrier around it.) So we walked a bit, but their interest returned to the water. As I leaned over to scoop them up from the waters’ edge, Lydia screams at the top of her lungs as if she had just been pierced in the heart by a rusty dagger. I asked her what happened, but she couldn’t conjure up any intelligible words. She just screamed…and screamed…and screamed some more. It was then that I looked into her hand. She held only Bigera…Baloo was gone! She dropped him in the drink.

There was no consoling Lydia, so I hunted down Samantha in the crowd holding both daughters in my arms trying not to make a scene; however, both girls were now crying now at the top of their lungs, so my efforts were failed. I gave Samantha one look (the look that has nothing but longing affection and endearment attached to it for the joy of creating two precious children together;-), and we were outta there after the 4th song that just happened to be entitled, “The Eye of the Hurricane.”

As I stood there with my daughters in my arms trying to explain what happened (Samantha thought Lydia was A) tortured, B) had an emergency appendectomy without pain killers, or C) got her foot caught in a bear trap), the thought occurred to me to curse The Jungle Book and all its characters and creators. To be honest, everything in my being wanted to get out of there as fast as I possible. Then, after I explaining the episode to Samantha, Lydia was in no better shape. She refused to be comforted. At that moment, I realized I couldn’t leave without Baloo. “But how was that going to happen?” I thought. “The waters flow continually into waterfalls over 100 yards, under the concrete walkway and down 40 feet into the large collection pool. Where could he be in this maze of churning water?”

My only hope was that he didn’t go over the first waterfall. At the place where Lydia dropped Baloo there was a 1 ft. lip that created the first waterfall. If Baloo went over, then he was a goner for sure, but if he got stuck on the lip then there was a chance I could search for him and find him. As I plunged my arm into the murky waters to search for Baloo, I canvassed about 10 feet without any sign of him. Then, when I reached the 1 ft. wall, my hand brushed over something. I scooped it up, and sure enough there was Baloo! I raised my arm so Lydia could see that Baloo had been rescued from the deep. Her face, still red and swollen from grief, now displayed a smile from ear to ear…and there was relief written all over my face as I returned Baloo to her safekeeping.

This week in Sunday class, I shared with you in Genesis, that the Spirit hovered over the chaos
of the waters of the earth. All this, chaos (tohu wbohu) was hostile to life. Yet, the Spirit was hovering over it, anticipating God’s command to order it and bring life from it. On the last day of God’s creating life out of the chaos, he makes humanity – male and female – and he puts his image in them. The implication of our bearing God’s image is that I am also able to create life out of the chaos. As the Spirit leads me into the chaos of my life (in this case, all things Jungle Book), I have a choice to enter the chaos or run from it. Remembering that I have the image of God in me, gives me courage that I have what it takes to create life where hostility and despair currently operate. So every time I face chaos in my life, it is a decision to either to take up my created image to bring forth life, or run from it and let chaos rule.

Pray with me that we would be a community that fosters the image of God in each of us, so that we can remember that God gave us what it takes to enter the chaos of our lives (the tohu wbohu) in order to bring about life. This week, may we not shrink back from the chaos we face, but plunge ourselves into it knowing that God will use us to bring forth life.

A Sweet Aroma

ENCOURAGEMENT: A Sweet Aroma
My wife says that I have super sensitive olfactory system. Basically, she tells me that I smell. Not smell badly; rather, I have a nose for picking up smells. I am beginning to agree with her. If I were a super hero, my ability would be to smell things from great distances. I guess that makes diaper changing my kryptonite…not that I am protected from that duty which makes me less than a mere mortal.

This week I have been enlivened by the smell of honeysuckle as I drive my motorcycle through Durham and Chapel Hill. It is a sweet aroma that fills my helmet, and tickles my nostril hairs with good feelings all around. As I ride, I have noticed a childlike smile occurs from beneath my helmet. The honeysuckle is simply the perfect aroma…sweet, but not overbearing enough to set off my allergic reaction to the nectar of the follower. My olfactory system judges the plant’s flowering aroma to be a perfect 10 out of 10 on the positive smell-o-meter. After using my super powers of smell to judge this flower to be the best smelling flower in our world, I began to wonder if there was some nemesis, yet un-named, out there who couldn’t stand the smell of honeysuckle. The mere casual jaunt outside to retrieve the mail would send his/her nostril hairs aflame with indignation over the positively sweet aroma that encompassed him/her. It is hard for me to imagine that person, but what if there was an opposite me out there. What if there was someone living in some altered universe sensed the same smells but opposite of how I perceived them?

This week in Sunday class, I shared about St. Francis of Assisi. He was a person of wealth who gave up all that he had (even the clothes on his back), in order to live a life of poverty with the poor. He was compelled to preach the good news to the poor, the sick, and the outcast and to serve them as he begged alongside them. As a result of his compassionate life, a movement started in the 12th and 13th centuries that awoke the social consciousness of those living in his time and it eventually swept across western Europe as well as into the colonies of the new world. Yet, not all who saw his compassion on the “least of these” interpreted his ministry as something good. Typically, it was the wealthy and highly educated within the church that perceived his ministry as an eyesore and a nuisance. The Franciscan friars were not always well received wherever they went, but their ministry among the commoners was a fragrant aroma to God

Paul wrote about this strange phenomenon of perception about his own ministry in his 2nd letter to the Corinthian church:

In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. 15 Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. 16 But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.
Message, 2Cor. 2:14-16

Pray with me that we would become a community that no matter how we are perceived by those around us, their perception would not stop us from living lives of compassion toward others. May our lives lived compassionately toward those in need would together give off the sweet, perfect fragrance of honeysuckle to God’s nostrils.