When we ‘go the distance’ that separates us from others, they may be suspicious and ask themselves, “What does he/she want?” But if we have an interior hospitality within us for that person and their story they will be glad we have come. If we are full of ourselves, however, we will be continually matching and topping their story with our own. If we do this they will see us coming and say, “Oh no! Not him/her again!”
- Grow a relationship with those to whom God sends you
Haji Ali, village chief in the Karakoram mountains of Pakistan explained to a foreigner how relationships grow.
Here in Pakistan we drink three cups of tea to do business. The first (cup), you are a stranger, the second, you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything—even die.
Each time we ‘show up’, the relationship moves to a deeper level.
- When you see a stranger drive up your driveway you say to yourself, ‘What does he want?’
- When that person returns you say, ‘You’re back’.
- On the third visit (if this person has a genuine interior hospitality for you) you say, ‘Its good to see you again’.
- On the fourth visit you welcome him as a valued friend.
The start of a whole new life
In mid-life my late mother discovered a whole new expression of her life. It started off when she obeyed the Spirit’s leading to go. I shared the incident in her eulogy:
One day she felt prompted to go and visit a young couple who were having marriage problems. After sitting and talking with them for a while she felt led to pray with them. This was an initiative that she had never undertaken in her life before. By daring to follow these leadings she was ushered into a new world of ministering to people in the name of Christ.
“How can I not go?”
Recently I was talking with a Christian brother who had volunteered to go on a work party to the bushfire area in Victoria. He offered a simple account of why he was going. He said, “How can I not go?” What a wonderful disposition to find within your own heart!
‘The Holy Spirit has prompted me; God has given me an interior hospitality in my heart for these people; God wants to build a relationship of love across that dividing distance. How can I not go?’
Go! You will be so glad you did!
Rod James
May 2009
Permission is given to copy in this form. Quotations are from the English Standard Version.
Going and Gathering
After nine years of traveling ministry all over Australia I find that my motto is ‘There is nothing like showing up’. We might say of Jesus that ‘the word became flesh and showed up among us’ (John 1:14).
Jesus, the sent one
Jesus understood himself as ‘he whom God has sent’ (John 3:34). Very often he referred to his Father as ‘him who sent me’.
"Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. John 12:44-45
It is the sending love of God, and the visitation or coming of God that is so surprisingly wonderful. Jesus’ disciples joyfully proclaimed,
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 1 John 4:14
The church as a sent community
Jesus called his disciples ‘apostles’. ‘Apostle’means ‘one who is sent’.
He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach.Mark 3:14
"Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”Matthew 10:16
After his resurrection Jesus said to them,
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." John 20:21
And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Mark 16:15
We note thatJesus did not say, ‘Go into all the world and build churches’. Buildings are useful, but they can distract and even imprison you. Christians are a going people. In the so called great commission Jesus says,
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, …” Matthew 28:18-20
The word ‘go’ here is not an imperative, i.e. a command. It is rather a participle—‘going’—‘Going, therefore…” or “As you go…”Christiansthen are a sent people and ‘going’ is our way of life. We are a bunch of ‘goers’!
Unseen distances
When hearing Jesus’ command to go we think of it as applying to those Christians who are called to leave their place of abode and travel to a distant place in the world and minister to a group of people there. However going is intended for all Christians as a way of life, even when we continue to live at home. To understand this we need to realize that there are distances between people which are not measured in kilometres. Here are five such distances:
Racial distance
While living in Port Augusta I came to realize that none of the non-Aboriginal church folk had been in the home of an Aboriginal family. Two communities inhabited the same geographical space and yet a great distance separated them unless someone was willing to ‘go the distance’.
Social distance
We tend not to have the old class barriers that existed in parts of Australia 100 years ago. But people still congregate in social groupings,and between these groups there may be a considerable distance. E.g. the church folk and the pub crowd.
Economic distance
There is an instinct to avoid those who are poorer than we are, because of the demands they may make on our more abundant resources. We tend, therefore, to relate to those whose financial circumstances are at least as good as ours. By contrast Jesus instructs us,
"When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you." Luke 14:12-14
Moral distance
Again we stay away from those who are regarded as morally inferior (or superior). We keep our distance from those who have been sent to prison, and those with a bad reputation. Certain groups are identified as ‘undesirables’ and are treated as moral lepers. E.g. prisoners, bikies, street kids, sexual offenders. Jesus travelled the distance that separated the righteous and the unrighteous.
And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:16-17
Religious distance
Catholic, Protestant, Moslem, Jew, Hindu. There is a very real distance between people of different religious communities.
To the above we could add distances of age, language, politics, and so on. These distances are real and separate people. It is in this climate of ‘the tyranny of distance’ that Christians hear Christ’s command to go.
Going and gathering
In balance with their going lifestyle Christians are also a gathering people as the biblical words church, assembly and congregation indicate.
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers…attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes…. Acts 2:42,46,47
We need to notice that the going and the gathering belong together and, like the coming in and going out of the tide, derive their meaning and power from each other. Our worship together derives its significance from our going in the name of Christ. And our going in the name of Christ is empowered by what we do when we gather together.
When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God… And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:23,24,31
A faith community that just gathers and then gathers again will lose its awe and excitement and be dead like a dodge tide. Someone has observed that Christians are like cow pats. If they are piled up in one place they will create a big stink, but if they are spread across the earth they will do a lot of good. Perhaps much of the hassles in churches comes from gathering and gathering instead of going and gathering.
Three things to remember when going
- Go, only as you are led by the Holy Spirit.
When we think about it, it is not that we are not led to go, but rather that we experience leadings from God and tend to befrightened to obey them.When the Lord commanded Ananias to go and lay hands on Saul he was afraid and answered,
"Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name." But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." Acts 9:13-16
We notice from the Lord’s answer to Ananias that when God commands us to go, He has always gone ahead of us. Imagine the church service in Damascus on the Sunday after Ananias went and laid hands on his former enemy Saul!
- Make room in you heart for those to whom you go.
We human beings are spacial within our person. We say of someone, “He is full of himself”. By contrast, someone who has the love of God in him/her has an interior hospitality for others within themselves, i.e. a welcoming space for another person, their stuff and their story. St Paulhad an interior hospitality for those he visited in his apostolic ministry. He wrote to the Corinthian Christians,
you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together. 2 Corinthians 7:2-3