Episode Six: Reconciling, pt 2
Reconciling is about welcoming others into relationship. Certainly there are many other facets to reconciliation that can be addressed, but in the absence of “conflict”, reconciliation is simply about finding commonality, developing relationship, and building unity.
I got a little tripped up on my definition of hospitality in the New Testament. I had the right Greek words, I just had them in the wrong order. Xenophilia is the word translated as hospitality. You might notice it is similar to another familiar word, xenophobia, when means fear of others. Xenophobia usually leads to isolation and self-protection. While xenophilia moves the other direction – to the stranger.
Scripture Highlighted
11 So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision’—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— 12remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body.
A Sixteenth Century Anabaptist Mystic
A Poem by Hans Denck:
Oh, who will give me a voice that I may cry aloud to the whole world
that God, the all highest,
is in the deepest abyss within us
and is waiting for us to return to him.
Oh, my God, how does it happen in this poor old world,
that You are so great and yet nobody finds You,
that You call so loudly and nobody hears You,
that You are so near and nobody feels You,
that You give Yourself to everybody and nobody knows Your name!
Men flee from You and say they cannot find You;
they turn their backs and say they cannot see You;
they stop their ears and say they cannot hear You!
A helpful overview of Denck’s life and legacy can be found here.
Again, Calvin Wasn’t All Wrong:
“We should not regard what a man is and what he deserves: but we should go higher - that it is God who has placed us in the world for such a purpose that we be united and joined together. He has impressed and pressed his image in us and has given us a common nature, which should incite us to providing one for the other. The man who wishes to exempt himself from providing for his neighbors should deface himself and declare that he no longer wishes to be a man, for as long as we are human creatures we must contemplate as in a mirror our face in those who are poor, despised, exhausted, who groan under their burdens.... If there come some Moor or barbarian, since he is a man, he brings a mirror in which we are able to contemplate that he is our brother and our neighbor: for we cannot abolish the order of nature which God has established as inviolable.” (Christine D. Pohl. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality As a Christian Tradition (Kindle Locations 733-738). Kindle Edition.)
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. . . . If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. —THOMAS MERTON, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” (Quoted in, A House That Love Built, Sarah Jackson)
A Fellowship of Differents
THERE ARE THREE WAYS TO EAT A SALAD: the American Way, the Weird Way, and the Right Way. The American Way of eating a salad is to fill your bowl with some iceberg lettuce or some spinach leaves, some tomato slices and olives, and maybe some carrots, then smother it with salad dressing — Ranch or Thousand Island or Italian or, for special occasions, Caesar. The Weird Way is to separate each item in your salad around on your plate, then eat them as separate items. People who do this often do not even use dressing. As I said, weird. Now the Right Way to make and eat a salad is to gather all your ingredients — some spinach, kale, chard, arugula, iceberg lettuce (if you must) — and chop them into smaller bits. Then cut up some tomatoes, carrots, onions, red pepper, and purple cabbage. Add some nuts and dried berries, sprinkle some pecorino romano cheese, and finally drizzle over the salad some good olive oil, which somehow brings the taste of each item to its fullest. Surely this is what God intended when he created “mixed salad.”
and…
CHURCH LIFE SHOULD MODEL THE CHRISTIAN LIFE My claim is also that local churches shape how its people understand the Christian life, so let’s think about this briefly. If the church is a mixed salad, or a fellowship of differents, then. . . We should see different genders at church. Do we? We should see different socioeconomic groups at church. Do we? We should see different races at church. Do we? We should see different cultures at church. Do we? We should see different music styles at church. Do we? We should see different artistic styles at church. Do we? We should see different moral histories at church. Do we? We should see different forms of communication at church. Do we? We should see different ages involved at church. Do we? We should see different marital statuses at church. Do we? Even more, if the church is a mixed salad in a bowl. . . We should understand the Christian life as a fellowship. Do we? (McKnight, Scot. A Fellowship of Differents (pp. 14, 16-17). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.)