Welcoming the Other

What do you do when someone comes in who seems totally out of place?  For example, if you see someone come into church for the first time and his hair is a mess or she is wearing a low-cut top, how do you respond?  I can tell you my response.  I embarrassed to say that I would make a snap judgment that this person doesn’t respect God, much less this place where we are gathered.  However, when I consider how Jesus spent so much time with sinners, outcasts, prostitutes, tax-collecters, etc., that his critics called him “a friend of sinners,” I can’t help but feeling convicted.  There’s no way these people would have wanted to spend time with Jesus if he immediately confronted each person he came in contact with about their sin.  Recently, I came across this story that really helped me solidify my perspective on this issue.

Rebecca Pippert

When I first came to Portland, Oregon, I met a student on one of the campuses where I worked. He was brilliant and looked like he was always pondering the esoteric. His hair was always mussy, and in the entire time I knew him, I never once saw him wear a pair of shoes. Rain, sleet or snow, Bill was always barefoot. While he was attending college, he had become a Christian.

At this time a well-dressed, middle-class church across the street from the campus wanted to develop more of a ministry to the students. They were not sure how to go about it, but they tried to make them feel welcome. One day Bill decided to worship there. He walked into this church, wearing his blue jeans, T-shirt and of course no shoes. People looked a bit uncomfortable, but no one said anything. So Bill began walking down the aisle looking for a seat. The church was quite crowded that Sunday, so as he got down to the front pew and realized that there were no seats, he just squatted on the carpet–perfectly acceptable behavior at a college fellowship, but perhaps unnerving for a church congregation. The tension in the air became so thick one could slice it.

Suddenly an elderly man began walking down the aisle toward the boy. Was he going to scold Bill? My friends who saw him approaching said they thought, You can’t blame him. He’d never guess Bill is a Christian. And his world is too distant from Bill’s to understand. You can’t blame him for what he’s going to do.

As the man kept walking slowly down the aisle, the church became utterly silent, all eyes were focused on him, you could not hear anyone breathe. When the man reached Bill, with some difficulty he lowered himself and sat down next to him on the carpet. He and Bill worshiped together on the floor that Sunday. I was told there was not a dry eye in the congregation.

The irony is that probably the only one who failed to see how great the giving had been that Sunday was Bill. But grace is always that way. It gives without the receiver realizing how great the gift really is.

As this man walked alongside of his brother and loved him with all that he had received from Christ’s love, so must we. This man was the good Samaritan. He made Bill feel welcome, feel as if he had a home. So he also knew the secret of the parable of the prodigal son: there finally is a homecoming, because we really have a home to come to.

Rebecca Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker & into the World, 2nd edition, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p. 260.

I so love this example.  This old man was able to put himself in the student’s shoes.  He didn’t say, “What kind of disrespectful twerp do you think you are?”  Instead, he thought, “I bet he’s going to be lonely up there.”  That’s how I want to be too.