BLOG 12/27/16. HOSPITALITY TO MUSLIMS A MANDATE FOR CHRISTIAN FOLK

I may sound like something of a scold here, but I am a bit undone by those persons who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ who are engaged in the anti-immigrant protest, especially as it pertains to those of the Islamic community. Many of such protesters are a part of those churches that, ostensibly, put a high priority on global missions. It’s something of an oxymoron, don’t you think? I always assumed that when our gospel says that “God so loved the world,” that that world included the huge number of its population who are part of the Islamic faith—right? Many of those persons and churches even send missionaries to Islamic countries, at great risk to the missionaries themselves, … but when large numbers of Islamic folk seek escape from their own countries, and seek refuge in ours, … many of these same, ostensibly Christian, folk raise their voice in protest. Such a contradiction.

Jesus had a way of destroying ethnic caricatures in his own ministry. When asked by an inquirer about who might be his neighbor, Jesus told his parable of the Good Samaritan. Now, one has to realize that the Jewish folk were more than a bit mildly hateful toward the Samaritans. The Samaritans were half-breeds, enemies of Israel, unclean, and anything else bad you can say about such an ethnic group. So, in the parable a chap is beaten up and robbed by bandits and left in the ditch. Jesus “goes for the jugular vein” of Jewish prejudice, and makes those who see the wounded man, but don’t want to get involved—a priest and a temple lawyer (maybe a theology professor and an evangelical pastor)—or to defile themselves religiously, as they hasten on their way to church meetings in Jerusalem. But then, who comes along but a despised Samaritan, who acts compassionately, at personal inconvenience and expense, binds up the man’s wounds, pours in oil and wine, put him on his donkey, and takes him to an inn where he pays the bill for the man’s care. Who is the neighbor? The despised Samaritan, of course.

So, I live in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. We now have Hindu temples spotted around the metropolitan area, and a handsome Islamic mosque right behind Georgia Tech in mid-town Atlanta. These are our neighbors. And God has reconciled the world to himself in Jesus Christ, and has given to each of us the ministry of reconciliation. Those un-reached Islamic folk, who lived in nations hostile to the Christian faith, have now come here, and if there is anyone who should become their neighbors and offer to them the hospitality the so deserve from us, it is the Christian community. How else will they discover God’s recreating grace and love?

Our gospel says that while we were enemies to God, he loved us and gave us his Son, so that we ought also not to be too rough on others. Jesus taught his followers that they are blessed when they do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us. We are to love as God loves us, and that includes those who are new and strange to us, and who are the adherents of other religions. But it just may be one of the great missionary moments of the church’s history, when God brings migrants into our neighborhood, and within the scope of our hospitality and love, and makes of us the incarnation of his love for all humankind. The Great Commission sends the church to make disciples of every nation/ethnic group, and that includes those who are followers of Islam. Truth be told, I don’t have many Muslim folk in my circle of neighbors and contacts, but when I do meet such at check-out counters, I can, and do, look for opportunities to inquire if they are finding their relocation satisfactory, and to wish them well—I as a follower of their Prophet Isa (Jesus), of which the Quran has good things to say. In this new 2017, I can pray that the Christian community will be at the forefront of advocacy for hospitality to our Islamic neighbors, and that when we encounter anti-Muslim diatribes, that we will be quick to rebuke such. This present global context of our 2017 lives is very, very multi-ethnic. This is the world that God so loved that he gave his Son … “who moved into the neighborhood.”