Written April 1, 2011 in Washington DC.
“When hostility is converted into hospitality then fearful strangers can become guests revealing to their hosts the promise they are carrying with them. Then, in fact, the distinction between host and guest proves to be artificial and evaporates in the recognition of the new found unity.” Henri Nouwen
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| All different colored ducks, and even those frogs, need Jesus' unconditional love |
Understanding the "other"
I have recently been feeling a need to repent on behalf of the Church where we have judged and treated the "others" like lepers. Moving beyond the harsh judgment that separates us from the other, it is important that we begin seeking to understand and embrace those who are different from us with the love of Jesus even if they will never conform to our understanding of Christianity. When we run away from issues or fail to dialogue with others about differences, that reveals ignorance, fear, and sometimes an element of power it has in our lives. However, when we openly enter into constructive conversations about areas that are challenges within the Church today, it sharpens our own faith. When we seek to deeply understand why a person has chosen a particular lifestyle or a set of beliefs or why they have become an alcoholic and are never able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when we actually take the time to listen and embrace them just as they are, with the love and acceptance of Jesus, we give them the same gift that Jesus gave, the gift of belonging before they believe.
People are Projects
Further, if the stranger never believes like we do, are we going to terminate our friendship with them? One of my friends from China said that exact thing happened to him when he was befriended by Christians doing outreach on campus. He attended meetings a few times and built friendships but unfortunately, the Christians only saw him as a project and were focused on converting him. When he said he did not want to become a Christian, they stopped calling and stopped engaging in his life. When I had coffee with him and he told me this, I apologized on their behalf and told him that no matter what he chooses to believe, he will always be my friend. He was earlier afraid that when he told me these things that I too would abandon him like the other Christians had. Unfortunate and more common stories like this break my heart. It makes me wonder where have we gone wrong.
“Indeed, the stranger has to be received in a free and friendly space where he can reveal his gifts and become our friend. Reaching out to others without being receptive to them is more harmful than helpful and easily leads to manipulation…Really honest receptivity means inviting the stranger into our world on his or her terms, not ours. When we say, ‘You can be my guest if you believe what I believe, think the way I think and behave as I do,’ we offer love under a condition or for a price. This leads easily to exploitation...In our world in which so many religious convictions, ideologies and life styles come into increasing contact with each other, it is more important than ever to realize that it belongs to the essence of a Christian spirituality to receive our fellow human beings into the world without imposing our religious viewpoint, ideology or way of doing things on them as a condition for love, friendship and care.” Henri Nouwen
Friendships with the "others"
I have a confession to make. In England, I have several good friends who are not Christians. Of course at my heart of hearts I want them to know and experience how amazing Jesus is as I have, but if that never happens am I going to dump them as my friends? Is my only purpose in being their friend to convert them? At the end of the day, I need them as much as they need me. I also need Jesus just as much as the next person whether that person is a Christian or not. I know myself and the nearness of my depravity without Him. These friends have helped to broaden my view, understand their set of beliefs, which in turn has strengthened my own. I have not hidden my faith and have even had the amazing privilege to pray for a few of them in special moments. They have also offered me sound advice aligning with strong values in moments when I needed it. They have truly been gifts of God to me in that place and I am truly blessed by our friendships.
“But it is exactly in this willingness to know the other fully that we can really reach out to him or her and become healers. Therefore, healing means, first of all, the creation of an empty but friendly space where those who suffer can tell their story to someone who can listen with real attention...We have to receive the story of our fellow human beings with a compassionate heart, a heart that does not judge or condemn but recognizes how the stranger’s story connects with our own. We have to offer safe boundaries within which the often painful past can be revealed and the search for a new life can find a start.” Henri Nouwen
I think we as Christians limit ourselves when we chose to live only in our Christian bubbles. While I think it is imperative to have a good core of strong Christian friends in our lives, I also believe that inviting others who will be a good influence, even if they have a different belief system, can enrich and deepen our own faith in ways that we would not be challenged otherwise. Befriending others who we grew up seeing as “lepers” because they were different than us, can be liberating in understanding real human issues.
Breaking the Cycle
“We are so afraid of open spaces and empty places that we occupy them with our minds even before we are there. Our worries and concerns are expressions of our inability to leave unresolved questions unresolved and open-ended situations open-ended…They reveal our intolerance of the incomprehensibility of people and events and make us look for labels or classifications to fill the emptiness with self-created illusions.” Henri Nouwen
There is a huge need for us to ask God to break us out of the judgment cycle many of us have grown up under and instead seek to understand the other. Inviting the other into conversation and into our lives, not so that we can thump them with the Bible and try to prove them wrong, but simply so that we can receive them as they are and seek to understand them will not only break down the walls of judgment that we as Christians are so good at putting up between ourselves and the people we see as “lepers,” but it can also deepen our own understanding of what it is like to be a Christian. We have been good at erecting walls and barriers, and labeling people and then walking on the other side of the street. One of our biggest faults is that we have out of fear and/or ignorance, avoided any contact or conversation with the other and failed to be the Good Samaritan. How are we ever going to introduce others to our very best friend (implying Jesus here) if we never take the time to get to know and understand others? It is only in humbling ourselves, not seeing people who are different as the “other” but seeing them as people who also have something beautiful to offer, that we are given any place to share how His love has transformed our own lives in hopes of it cascading into their lives as well.
Hidden Agendas
This generation immediately recognizes hidden agendas. Our agenda should not be conversion or nothing; it should be friendship and everything. Regardless of if one comes to our side of the faith, embracing people without an agenda, simply to give and receive from them, will eliminate religious and other barriers. It will also make us more like Jesus who gave people a sense of belonging before they believed.
“We indeed have become very preoccupied people, afraid of unnameable emptiness and silent solitude. In fact, our preoccupations prevent our having new experiences and keep us hanging on to the familiar ways…Our preoccupations help us to maintain the personal world we have created over the years and block the way to revolutionary change. Our fears, uncertainties and hostilities make us fill our inner world with ideas, opinions, judgments and values to which we cling as to a precious property. Instead of facing the challenge of new worlds opening themselves for us, and struggling in the open field, we hide behind the walls of our concerns holding on to the familiar life items we have collected in the past.” Henri Nouwen
Moving Forward
Let us no longer fear conversation. Some churches do this well, while others have never let their walls down. Creating spaces and opening our minds and hearts to others is a great way that any sort of possible bridge can be created. Once this bridge of understanding has been created, whether or not one decides to cross over, a deeper invitation into the love of Jesus has emerged. This at least, provides the opportunity for different colored ducks, and even frogs, to journey together towards understanding more fully the immense love of Jesus. Thanks for listening to my musings and I look forward to listening to yours. See this as an open invitation to all to dialogue on this subject even further.
All quotes by Henri Nouwen taken from his Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company Inc., 1975), 47, 53, 67-69.
