You ever have those moments where this particular idea or concept just keeps coming up in conversations with people from different circles in your life? Usually when something like this happens in my life and I keep having these similar conversations, I know I need to pay attention. I need to pay attention because I believe that is one way that God is trying to move me somewhere.
Lately the theme has been hospitality. I read a story a while back that I believe
that fits with our call as someone trying to follow after Jesus. “Going to town one day to sell some items, a
man met a crippled man on the roadside, paralyzed in his legs, who asked him
where he was going. The man replied that
he was going to town to sell some items.
The crippled man asked, ‘Do me the favor of carrying me there.’ So he carried the crippled man to town. The crippled man said to him, ‘Put me down
where you sell your items.’ He did
so. When he had sold one item, the
crippled man asked him what he sold it for and the man told him the price he
had sold it for. The crippled man then
said, ‘Buy me a cake,’ and so he did.
When the man sold his second item, the crippled man asked again how much
he sold it for and he replied with the price again. Then the crippled man said, ‘Buy me this,’
and he bought it. Having now sold all of
his items, the man was ready to leave.
The crippled man asked him ‘Are you going back?’ and he replied ‘yes.’ Then the crippled man said, ‘Do me the favor
of carrying me back to the place where you found me.’ Once more picking up the crippled man, he
carried him back to that place. Then the
crippled man said, ‘Sir, you are filled with divine blessings, in heaven and on
earth.’ Raising his eyes up to see the
crippled man, he saw no man; it was an angel of the Lord.”
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews encourages us to
practice hospitality to strangers, “Do not forget to show hospitality to
strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without
knowing it.” Often times it is difficult
to love and include those who do not seem to fit our opinions of the righteous
or do not meet our expectations of what we think good behavior is. The man in the story who was on his way to
town to sell some items, did what he was asked to do. He did it without judging the crippled man
and without expectations of something in return. He simply made himself available to the man
and is led, or some would say misled, to a place, maybe even a place he didn’t
want to go. He was making himself
available. Bob Goff often says that
people follow availability not vision.
How available are we to people, and not just to the people in our lives
that it is easy and beneficial for us to be available too?
What I have found is that often when my heart is filled with prejudices, worries and fears, there is often very little room for a stranger or for someone that doesn’t think or act like me. Henri Nouwen says that “Real hospitality is not exclusive but inclusive, requires a radical openness, and creates a space for a wide range of human experience.” It can be a scary thing when boundaries that had been there for a long time are pushed out and walls that we had in place for a long time begin to break down.
I understand this to be very true for those of us involved with Safe Families. We often enter into some relationships with families that live differently than how we may live and make decisions that we may not agree with. It is often way to easy to simply throw out our opinions and thoughts on how they should live and the decisions they should make without first entering into their story a little bit and learning who they are and how they got to the spot that they are in when we cross paths with them. Henri Nouwen again says that it gets real when we decide to first enter into this place to “suffer with another in a community of equals in the solidarity of powerlessness.” Often times the best thing we can offer anyone is to offer the gifts of availability and hospitality. We get to address our brokenness, live in and from our brokenness because of who Jesus is and the love and grace that he offers us. And if we have been given anything it’s so that we can give it away.
One of the many things that I am learning, is that I don’t
have to wear the hat of judgment or sit on the seat of being a judge. And neither do you. We get to offer hospitality to others. We get to be available to others. We get to love others well. Jesus tells us not to judge in Matthew
7:1. We get to include and invite and
love others into this new way of living.
We get to put on display this new life that Jesus offers. And I believe that one of the more powerful
ways we can put that on display is by our hospitality and availability to one
another; not only to those who think and act like we do. As Shane Claiborne said, “unity doesn’t mean
uniformity. God’s unity is about
harmonizing, not homogenizing.”
Jesus tells us that the world will know that we belong to
him by how we love.
If you are ready to join the movement and would like to become a host family or approved volunteer, please tell us! Click Here to fill out our online form, or if you'd like to get your church involved, you can find out how Here.
Contact ejohnson@safefamilies.net for more information about Safe Families in Madison County.
How we found Tim:
Tim Fair is on staff at Bethany Christian Church, as Adult Ministry-Discipleship. After bumping into at least 3 people who said something to the effect of, "You should try reaching out to Tim Fair at Bethany…" I finally picked up the phone and called. That was in September 2014. Since then, Tim and his wife Courtney have become a host family, along with 3 other families at Bethany. Bob Bell at Bethany Christian Church has seen God's hand on the this ministry, and chosen to allow their staff members to volunteer their time with Safe Families in a variety of roles. God is certainly lifting up his people, and his Church, to answer the call and care for families and children in crisis. 