Dear Readers and Listeners, Friends in Jesus Christ,
Our watchword for today is taken from the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 19 verse 34, “And you shall love the stranger as yourself,” (Amplified Bible). The Book of Leviticus is devoted to giving instruction on living in response to God’s love for the people he created. In our response to God’s love, humans are encouraged, through God’s example, to answer God’s love with word, deed and thought, with their whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and their neighbour as themselves. God’s love changes people so that they are able to love their nearest and dearest and the strangers and foreigners sojourning with them. God reminded the Israelites that in the time of Jacob and the great drought in Israel, they were kindly received in Egypt and were given food and shelter in times of trouble. Therefore, they should also extend kindness to strangers. God’s instructions regarding holy living seem foreign in a world revolving on interest and loans, stock exchanges and taxes. These laws were given in order to bring about maximum harmony and possibilities for all to live a peaceful and productive life, “eating from their own vines,” after a season of work and harvest. The instruction to love the stranger, the new-comer and the outsider, comes with a risk, the risk of being changed. Change is challenging; however, it brings renewal and the possibility of reassessing our thinking patterns and adjusting our practices. Having Christ’s love towards the strangers, even those who announce themselves as enemies, will allow for opportunities to show hospitality, respect and understanding to people who are aching and misunderstood. When we are sensitive to the needs of strangers and try to translate their situation by walking with them, even trying to wear their shoes, proverbially, we will be amazed to discover that we all need the same things from life: love and understanding.
Jesus exercised the most profound hospitality to all those that he encountered. He was keenly aware of the needs of the people around him. Their needs manifested in many forms: need of healing, need of acceptance, need of feeding, need of freedom, but most of all; the deepest need of all, the need to feel loved, reconciled and forgiven. This is a deep spiritual hunger that people wrongly interpret as a need that can be filled with more of the same earthly things. Jesus announced that the need of things that life can provide to make it pleasant will not satisfy completely. People will never be saturated and will always need more. However, when we are spiritually fed and nourished, we are able to share the little that we have, with strangers, and we are all fulfilled. All are in spiritual need of daily soul nourishment, no earthly gift will satisfy that hunger and thirst. Jesus has become for us the I-am-the-Lord who fulfils your needs. He has become the broken bread as to restore us back in the Body of Christ. He is the poured out wine, the blood that has broken the bonds of death and sin for us. He is the Light that shines in our darkness, the bright morning Star, the Shepherd that leads us on our journey and the One who reveals Truth and Life everlasting to kin and strangers.
The Apostle Paul reminded the congregation in his Letter to the Romans, Chapter 12 verse 13, “Pursue the practice of hospitality,” (Amplified Bible). Hospitality has many expressions, the greatest expression being that whatever the hospitable act, it is done with great joy and compassion. Sharing joyously at the little banquet table, the Table of the Lord, is such an expression. The Gift of Bread and Wine, is the greatest hospitality that we can afford the stranger, for we share God’s love with them and point them to our Lord’s love on the Cross for all. Christ saved us while we were “strangers.”
Father, you called us friends and welcomed us warmly, we who did not know you, Amen.