Apologetics from an Anabaptist perspective
Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:9-11).
Here is the heart of stewardship. Whatever gifts, abilities and opportunities we have, they were not given to us for selfish use, to enhance our image before others. We are to take what we have received and use it to serve others, and by doing that to glorify God, the giver of those gifts.
Some folks have been taught that hospitality means having their home in perfect order so that their guests see how important they are by the effort expended on preparing for their visit. One time I went to visit a cousin who had just moved into a new house. I walked in the door and saw a spotless home with brand new furniture and wondered if I even dared set foot on the carpet. My cousin invited me into the living room, sat down on the couch, leaned back and put his sock-clad feet up on the coffee table. After that I was at ease.
Hospitality is putting people before things. It applies both ways, guests should not notice things that are not quite as they should be, and absolutely should not talk about such things to others.
If we speak (or write), let us do it boldly, but remember that we are just offering our words to others. We have no directive from the Lord to enforce our ideas upon others. That doesn’t work, anyway. A steward is a servant, not a lord.
In hospitality, as in speaking, writing and whatever we do that brings us into contact with others, our first responsibility as steward of the manifold grace of God, is to help others feel at ease. People are not apt to be receptive to truth when they feel intimidated.
The factory where I found work made engineered rubber parts for the automobile industry. I was started on the press line, where rows of hydraulic presses produced vast quantities of rubber parts. The moulds were maintained at tempertures above 300° F to cure the rubber. I started when the weather was already hot and humid and it was even hotter and more humid working over those moulds. It was a shock to the body of this prairie boy, but soon I was acclimatized.
While I was being trained I could not help but be aware of Howie. He was operating several presses and every once in a while parts would not release from the moulds as they should. There would be loud yells and banging sounds coming from Howie’s direction. I decided I would do well to keep my distance from him.
The second week I was given presses to run by myself. The first time I had parts stick to the underside of the top part of the mould and began trying awkwardly to get them down, Howie appeared beside me and took the bar from my hands. He got the parts down and then showed me once again how much mould release to spray on that part of the mould. Then he was back to his own work leaving me to meditate on how mistaken a first impression can be. Howie was a loudmouth, but turned out to be a good guy, easy to get alnog with.
Chris began making arrangements to move as soon as she knew I had work. It took me a couple more weeks to find a place to live but before the month was over we were together again.Chris packed everything that could be put in boxes, sold the rest and shipped the boxes by train. Then she and Michelle rode the train from Moose Jaw to Toronto where I picked them up.
It was the last Sunday in June when we drove into the St Marys churchyard as a family for the first time. As we got out of the car, a young lad, almost eight years old, walked up to us and said “Welcome to St Marys.” And we did feel welcomed by everybody.
In September Michelle started Grade One in the Mapleview Christian School. She enjoyed school and we felt assurance in knowing that her friends were the children of our friends.
At first we had invitations to the members’ homes every Sunday, but after several months that tapered off. One Sunday the brother whom I had first met asked me how things were going. I replied that life was working out well for us, but we weren’t getting invited out much anymore. He pondered that for a moment, then asked if we had invited anyone to our home. Bingo! Immediately I felt reproved and knew what we had to do. We started inviting others for meals, most often Sunday dinners, and that warmed and strengthened our fellowship with the congregation.
We had several visits with the ministers and deacons and were asked to tell our experiences to the congregation one Sunday evening. The congregation voted their acceptance that we had truly met the Lord, were born again and were living as Christians by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Sunday morning, February 11, 1979, we were baptized by minister Robert Toews.
The day after our baptism, a vivid memory of a time long ago flashed into my mind. Just after being confirmed in the Anglican Church as an eleven year old boy I had knelt and gone through the questions in the little red book of self-examination before communion. Now God was telling me: “That was when I first called you to come to me. During all your wanderings I have continued to call you and now you are part of my family.”
And I was finally a Mennonite who wore a beard.
The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster depicts a future age in which technology is able to supply all our needs. People live in individual underground compartments, all their needs are supplied by the all-encompassing machine at the push of a button. Direct person to person contact is unheard of, having been replaced by electronic means and that permit one to see and speak to any one of his or her thousands of contacts at will.
Wars, conflicts, and crime have ceased, weather on the surface of the planet is of no consequence, thus there is no news. New ideas are to be feared, but events of history and nature are discussed endlessly and third or fourth hand ideas about those events are deemed to be the most trustworthy. The population never changes. Births and deaths are by permission of the machine; permission to die is only given when there is a birth. A mother’s responsibility ends when a child is born.
One person finds a way to get outside the machine to the surface of the earth. Before he is dragged back below ground by the repair mechanism of the machine, he realizes there still are a few people living out there. His longing for freedom is unfulfilled and eventually the all powerful, self repairing machine breaks down and everyone living in their individual cell of underground paradise dies.
A chilling forecast of where our society is headed? Perhaps. The story was written in 1908 and is a short novella with three chapters.
There is a lot of hand-wringing in our day about the influence and effects of technology. After reading this book I began to wonder if we might have things backwards. Is technology dehumanizing us? Or are we willingly surrendering our birthright of being fully human? Is our desire for convenience and security just a camouflage for the repugnance we feel at the inconvenience of having to interact with other people?
What about those of us who call ourselves Christians? We all give verbal support to the goal of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world. At the same time, some of us are repelled by cities because of all the people. We would prefer to live in an isolated rural setting and be as self-sufficient as possible. Which of these conflicting ideas is the true expression of our heart’s deepest desire? What does that say about our faith?
The Jews of Jesus’ day despised the Samaritans, to the point of considering anything touched by a Samaritan to be defiled. Jesus used all sort of creative ways to try and jar people out of that rut.
For those of us who are members, or who attend, the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite, the Sunday School lesson for the coming Sunday looks helpful. It is based on Hebrews 13 and has a lot to say about hospitality, including to strangers. It says: “The love of Christ will move us to enlarge our circle of friends.”
The best way to avoid becoming dehumanized is by frequent face to face contact with other humans. Technology offers us a way to maintain an appearance of a wide circle of friends without really having to listen to them. It is that unwillingness to listen to others, the desire to avoid admitting there might be anything valid about their point of view, that is dehumanizing. Technology is the enabler, but not the real problem.
“As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as faithful stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10).
I don’t recall ever hearing much discussion of this topic. When we talk of stewardship, we are generally thinking of our possessions and financial affairs, and too often it comes out sounding like “what’s good for my pocketbook is good for God.”
I wonder if we don’t tend to look on the grace of God in the same individualistic, self-centred way. I am so thankful for what God has done for me in forgiving my sins and setting me free from condemnation. Is that enough? Isn’t the grace of God supposed to be shared?
In the verses immediately before and after the verse quoted, Peter admonishes us to have fervent charity among ourselves, to be hospitable and to speak and serve, all by using the gifts that God has given us.
“Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man” (Clossians 4:6). “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 4:29).
Paul tells us that whenever we speak, our words should be motivated by the gift of grace that we have received, in such a way that we share that grace with others.
Giving reproof is a special case of serving others by the grace of God. If I see a brother do something wrong and say nothing, I am doing him no service. If I call him up and blast him for the wicked and disgraceful thing he has done, what are the chances that he will detect some trace of grace in my tirade? There is a way that I can minister grace in such a setting, but I must see myself as merely a servant and trust that the Holy Spirit is also speaking.
The parable of the talents should be considered in the sense of being stewards of the grace of God. When we serve others with the grace that God has given us, that grace is multiplied many times over. When we dig a hole in the backyard to protect that gift of grace from prying eyes, it is as if we had never received the gift of grace from God.
The Delta flight was leaving on time. Three of us were strapped in, one next to the other, each finding it easy to make small talk. As the plane lifted off, so did our burdens of office work. We were off to Glorietta, New Mexico, for a week-long conference, and our minds were filled with thoughts of mountains and crisp air and a break from the Atlanta downtown routine.
“So, Sarah,” my aisle-seat colleague said in that chatty manner of a tourist on vacation, “tell me what it was like growing up in Israel.”
Of all conversation openers, this was my least favourite. I’d been hearing it ever since moving to the States to begin my university studies. But, being in the middle seat, I couldn’t escape.
My desire was to respond, “No, you first. Tell me what it was like growing up in a ranch-style house in suburbia.” What was there to say? And who cares anyway?
But I did answer . . . well, sort of. “It was great,” was the extent of my glib answer.
“No, I mean it, really,” she insisted. “What is the culture like over there?”
By the window sat Aida from Lebanon. She’d been in the States eight years and was much more of an expert on Middle Eastern culture than I was. But at the moment Aida seemed to be fascinated by the window. So I took up the challenge.
“Well, I grew up in a variety of cultures. The Jewish and Arab cultures are vastly different.”
“How so?” she asked.
“In the Jewish culture you say what you think. It’s direct, and you know where you stand with people.”
I glanced at her to see if she was still with me. She was, so I continued.
“The Arab culture, on the other hand, is much more indirect. It’s all about friendliness and politeness. If offered a cup of coffee, I say ‘No, thank you.’
“The host offers it again, and I decline again, with something like: ‘No, no, don’t bother yourself.’ He might offer a third time, and I’d reply, ‘No, I really don’t want any coffee, believe me.’
“Then my host serves the coffee, and I drink it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, incredulously.
“No, really,” I assured her. “You’re supposed to refuse the first few times. It’s the polite thing to do.”
“Then what if you really don’t want the coffee?” she asked.
“Well, there are idioms that you can use to say that you wouldn’t for any reason refuse their kind hospitality, and at some point in the future you’ll gladly join them in coffee, but at the moment you really can’t drink it.”
Now Aida got into the conversation. “Incredible! I didn’t know that!” she said, as our heads turned her way.
“Aida,” I replied, “what do you mean that you didn’t know that? You’re Lebanese, for heaven’s sake.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I mean that I didn’t know this was not normal. I’ve been in the United States eight years already, and did not know it was done differently here. That explains so much.
“I’ve been lonely since moving here, and now I know why. When people in the office would ask me if I wanted to go to lunch, I would say ‘no’ to be polite, fully expecting them to ask me again. When they didn’t and left without me, I thought they didn’t want me along and had asked only out of politeness. In my culture, it would have been too forward to say ‘yes’ the first time.
“For this reason, I’ve had few American friends. After all these years, now I know why.”
I sat there stunned. Pondering the sadness of her story, I said to myself, “No one should have to suffer like that simply because they don’t understand the culture of another.”
For the Aidas around the world, I have written this book.
Sarah A Lanier
This is the preface to Foreign to Familiar, which I referred to in a previous post. © 2000 by Sarah A Lanier. Used with permission.
The English book is published by McDougal Publishing of Hagerstown, Maryland. ISBN 1-58158-022-3
Editions in Arabic, French, German, Korean, Norwegian, Russian and Spanish are available from the writer at the following address:
Sarah A Lanier
P.O. Box 874Clarkesville GA 30523
USA
There is a line that is crossed when we come to the Lord. That line is the border between darkness and light, unbelief and faith, death and life. Glimmers of light and faith from the realm of life have helped us find the way to this line, but the new birth takes us across the threshold that separates spiritual death from spiritual life.
This is not the end of the journey, only the beginning of a new journey. We should not stop and rest as soon as we cross the line. Yet too many people do just that. They had to abandon some baggage on the other side that would be an unnecessary load on the new journey. Still, that baggage was precious in their former life, an essential part of the way they identified themselves. As they mill around, just across the line, the way ahead begins to seem difficult and the baggage once left behind grows in importance. All too soon, they are back on the wrong side of the line.
They give all kinds of reasons for this: people inside the line just did not understand them; they were never told what it was going to cost to leave that baggage behind; people inside the line are not as friendly as they first seemed; and on and on.
The true reason is that these people have stopped when the Lord said “Come.” He wants us to continually come closer to Him. If we obey that call, we will find that with each step of the way the light grows brighter and faith grows stronger.
Many of those who have gone back the way they came still claim to have a good relationship with the Lord. Let all such measure their claim of fellowship with God by their fellowship with God’s children. The teaching of the New Testament is that if our relationship with our neighbour is broken and our fellowship with our brethren is broken, our fellowship with God is also broken.
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).
“He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now” (1 John 2:9). “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” (1 John 3:14). “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20).
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Some folk profess a holy allegiance to this commandment to love their neighbour and all mankind. Yet it seems that this love is largely theoretical, for in observing their relationship to individual people, it appears they just cannot get along with many of them. May that never be said of a true child of God.
So how do we press deeper into the kingdom of light? I would suggest a very simple answer: spend time with God and with His people.
Read the Bible to understand how God worked in ages past and how He works today. Read the whole Bible. It is good to read the Bible from beginning to end at least once or twice in your life. It is not necessary to do that continually, but reading the Bible in context leads to a deeper understanding. Therefore it is best to read one complete book of the Bible at a time, breaking it up into bite-sized pieces for daily reading.
Thank God daily for salvation and all the blessings He has showered upon you. Take a little time to remember all He has done. Pray for grace for each day, pray for your family, pray for the ministers, pray for our governments, pray for those you have difficulty understanding.
Be present in every worship service of your congregation, as much as possible. We simply cannot worship God as fully when we are alone. Maybe there are some people in church who rub us the wrong way. This may be a question of the chicken or the egg — did we first rub them the wrong way? We have no doubt rubbed others the wrong way and they have chosen to ignore it and love us anyway. Try to emulate such people.
Practice hospitality. The apostle Peter gives this as a commandment: “Use hospitality one to another without grudging” (1 Peter 4:9). If you ever feel that the other members of the congregation have left you out of the loop and you do not feel a part of what is going on, ask yourself how long it has been since you had company in your home and sat around and talked of the things that really matter. If circumstances make it difficult to prepare a big Sunday meal, invite people for night lunch or afternoon coffee break. Such little things do make a big difference. Do not be too choosy whom you invite.
