In his books on the beliefs of the first Christians, David W. Bercot relates a recurring theme: every time the Church gains worldly legitimacy, it gets in trouble. He writes about how the early Christians astonished others with their disdain for material comforts and personal safety. These attitudes were not artifacts of apocalyptic over-stimulation; they were purposely constructed by the apostles. In his teaching on the matter, for example, James puts it quite baldly: “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?” So the first Christians became totally incomprehensible to the people around them. They may as well have been aliens from another galaxy.
It turns out that this was not something new. God called an Aramean named Abram from his comfortable home to wander about in others’ lands. An exiled cultural half-caste named Moses even called his first son “Stranger,” because he lived his whole life as a stranger in strange lands. As if this weren’t enough, whenever God’s people became a little too comfortable living at home in the world, he uprooted them and scattered them among the other nations of the earth. One could fairly say our religion is characterized by nomadism.
But the really odd thing is that the earth has always been the Lord’s (Deut. 10:14) and, by his extension, his people’s. This is true even more so now that Jesus has overcome the prince of this realm (1Cor. 3:22, Heb. 2:5). In other words, the spirits and the nations of the “world” are in fact but unruly tenants on the earth, in constant danger of being condemned and turned out with a word, while the true heirs wander about it furtively like illegal aliens. So how should the true heirs treat these upstart unbelievers when they come into their own? What should our position be in the current debates with the heathen in what we could consider “our” land?
No need to guess, the Lord having modeled it long ago. “Love the stranger, because you have been strangers,” he tells his people upon his appropriation of Palestine for them. “Show hospitality to strangers,” echo the apostles. Rather than dispossess the worldly of the divine treasures they help themselves to, we who own everything are asked to add to their abundance out of our riches in Christ. We are challenged to become strangers in our own land in hopes of building the homeless a home. The earthly tent we would have wished to keep for ourselves we pray to expand in expectation of occupation by those who have so far refused to be brought near.
©2005 M Richter