Lessons In Hospitality Humilty: Hosting Without A Couch, Chairs, or Table

Posted on June 5, 2015 by tdillmuth

2015-04-08 UU visitation-01We just spent the last month of our lives being hosted in a home with little to no furniture.  There were no couches to sit on and at times there was barely enough seats around the kitchen table–er, I mean folding table at which we ate dinner.  But it was one of the best experiences that we’ve had being hosted.

I would have been surprised, but I’ve experienced this before.  Every week we visit the homes of North Korean defectors in South Korea.  They will often cook for us and gladly share their lives with us.  At times, they will even host us overnight.  But it’s often very strange for American visitors (me included) because they have no beds, no kitchen table, no couches . . . and might I add, very small apartments! I often think that if a North Korean knew how strange it was for Americans they might actually refrain from having me over, but I would miss out on one of the most enriching experiences I’ve ever had.

At times I’ve had the mindset that I can’t have anyone over unless my house is spotless and the meal is perfect.  And I certainly wouldn’t have anyone over without a couch, dinner table, or at least a chair to sit on. Pastor Jack King makes the observation that the mindset I’m describing has more to do with pride than with good hospitality.  He says,

Hospitality is not a house inspection, it’s friendship. In an age of ever-increasing loneliness, in a time when Americans eat 40% of their meals by themselves, can I allow myself to value tidiness over community? Sadly, I’m sensing there’s pride lurking across the threshold of my welcoming mat. So here’s the way of repentance for us. For me and my house, we’re trying to eliminate complications, not add to them. We aren’t going to host people every night of the week (after all, I’m still an introvert), but I want more memories with friends new and old than I’ve had over the past 7 years.

This isn’t about never growing in Christ on the grounds that Jesus accepts us as we are.  Even in arena of hospitality we are hopefully growing and becoming better hosts, by and through the grace of God.  But we don’t wait until we’ve become perfect hosts. We all know the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), but have you taken time to consider what the story might have been like if Zacchaeus refused Jesus visit to his home?  What if Zacchaeus had tried to reschedule for the following week?  What if Zacchaeus had asked Jesus to come back another time because his house was dirty?  What if Zacchaeus refused because he had to get his life in order first, perhaps first getting rid of all the treasures he had wrongfully accumulated before Jesus crossed the threshold?

The Bible says,

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt:  I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 19:34).

Hospitality isn’t necessarily an opportunity to impress with a spotless house, fine China and a gourmet meal (although there is a time for that). It’s an opportunity to treat others like one of our own, and it’s an opportunity to repent of the pride that has kept us from hosting. Practically speaking, that means we don’t wait to show hospitality until the time when we get a proper couch or when we have enough money to prepare a steak dinner.  We host others even if that means sitting on the dusty floor with a bowl of ramen noodles!

Posted in North Korea, Opening Your Home | Tagged , | 4 Comments

God’s Response to Christian Genocide? He Sends a Bible Book

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Pastor Foley

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“…barbaric atrocities committed against Christian minorities”…”blood…splashed everywhere“…”Christian communities being brutalized and extinguished“…”Is there not a stage when violent reciprocation becomes the only effective alternative?”

These are the recent news reports and opinions about what is more and more frequently being called “the year of the Christian genocide.” One commentator writes that the situation “can only be compared to the first centuries when Christians were hunted down as criminals in the Roman Empire.”

Amidst warnings that the situation will worsen “unless world leaders take more concrete actions to safeguard the religious and human rights of people,” and amidst claims that Jesus’ teachings don’t mean what they sound like they mean or  don’t apply in this case of large-scale barbarity, it’s worth asking:

How did God respond in that comparable situation of Christian genocide in the first centuries of the church’s existence?

He sent a book. Or, more accurately, he sent a revelation that was to be written up in a book–The Book of Revelation.

In that book, amidst scenes that could easily be drawn from the last few months, victims of religious violence cry out, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”

Jesus does not respond by chiding government inaction or by limiting the applicability of his teachings to the interpersonal, non-geopolitical realm. Instead, he reveals.

And what he reveals above all else is that God is not only aware of what is happening but is in fact the one most intimately, compassionately, and victoriously involved on behalf of his children, no matter how bloodily bleak things may appear to the . Far from being passive or counseling passivity, he personally fights with the sword of his mouth, dispatches supernatural and natural forces, offers specific words of encouragement and correction for each local congregation, and generally calls the hearer to understand that what is at stake is too vast, too cosmic for mere geopolitical players to implement, let alone comprehend.

We give thanks to you,
Lord God Almighty,
who is and was,
for you have taken your great power
and enforced your rule.

Brandon O’Brien describes it in a passage that is worth quoting at length:

When the biblical writers call us to faith, they are calling us to reject this view of the world and, instead, foster an active imagination that can see what God sees. When the prophets looked around them, they too saw injustice, sin, and unrighteousness. The rational response to this sort of experience is despair. But the prophets called the people—and us—to hope. A constant refrain of the prophets is a summons to imagine a godly future. “The day is coming,” they said again and again, a day when injustice will be judged, when evil will be put right, when exploitation will cease, when God’s faithful people will experience the deliverance they have hoped for—hoped against experience. This is a radical message. It requires a godly imagination that can form “images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses,” an imagination shaped by the truth that God is a loving Creator who is deeply connected to his people and works tirelessly for their good. The prophets call us to share this vision, and they do so by painting landscapes of a world that contradicts our experience because it exists only in the mind of God until that “day” comes.

Jesus calls us to an even more demanding act of imagination. He stood in the line of the prophets, but he radicalized their message. “The day is coming,” they had said. He changed the tense. He says, “The day has come.” The world the prophets had envisioned is no longer a future reality. It is happening here and now. Jesus invites his followers to imagine that the kingdom of God is at hand, and with it have come all those promised reversals. If I may be so bold, it appears that the imagination was Jesus’ main target. With his parables about the kingdom of God, Jesus helps us peek behind the veil and see the truth beneath the appearances of our experience.

The name of our organization, VOM, stands for Voice of the Martyrs, not Victims of the Muslims. There is a reason for this. Christian martyrs are first and foremost witnesses not to their own suffering but rather to the revelation that the day has come–the kingdom of God is at hand. If those martyrs cry out How long?, it is always followed by the recognition that Christ is their Sovereign Lord, provision, and hope of salvation. He has not left them orphaned nor consigned their care or revenge to earthly suzerains.

As Rev. Darrell Johnson puts it in his incomparable commentary on the Book of Revelation, things are not as they seem (nor as the commentators and reporters describe it).

A setting that appears to call into question the fundamental truths of the gospel. Indeed, the setting appears to negate the truths of the gospel. “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near.” Where? Where is the kingdom? “Jesus is Lord”–but where is the evidence? The church was having to operate behind closed doors. Immorality was gaining footholds in some of the congregations. John, the beloved pastor and bishop, is hauled off by the police into exile. Where is Jesus in all of this?

So in response to that first Christian genocide God sends a Bible book to reveal the answer, set the strategy, and call for obedience, discipleship, and patient endurance.

It is likely not the response that analysts, commentators, activists, or martyrs in the present “year of the Christian genocide” are looking for. A book? It hardly seems like a response at all.

Perhaps that’s what the book’s first recipients thought as well.

Posted in Brandon O'Brien, Christian genocide, Darrell Johnson, persecution, Revelation | Tagged | 2 Comments

What Did Rev. Wurmbrand And Lee Su Jung Have In Common? God Transformed Them Through Their Righteous Desires

Posted on May 29, 2015 by tdillmuth

A Ransom For WurmbrandAs I was reading the four-part series on Lee Su Jung, it occurred to me that Missionary Lee deeply loved his home country of Korea.  After rescuing the princess, he was granted a wish and his wish ended up being a visit to Japan for the benefit of Korea.  Rev. Kim Sung Chul said of Missionary Lee, He was eager to be a driving force for development in his homeland.

Lee Su Jung had expected to bring some specialized agricultural knowledge back to Korea from Japan, but he brought Christianity instead. And this Christian faith was exactly that “driving force” that he originally desired.

Lee Su Jung’s story reminded me what Anutza Moise recounted about Rev. Richard Wurmbrand early on in his ministry, before his days of persecution.  Some of the sisters involved with Rev. Wurmbrand’s ministry had begun to minister in the prison.  There were some prisoners who had even come to faith.  Moise said,

When Richard heard about this new opportunity for witness, he exhorted us to pray that the Lord would open ways to start a greater work in the prisons; he himself was the keenest in praying for this.  Of course, he was thinking that he might go to the prisons as a ministering pastor, but the Lord had His own way of answering this prayer.  During Richard’s fourteen years in prison, he was such a blessing to most of those he came into contact with that it cannot be measured in human terms (A Ransom For Wurmbrand, 66).

In both cases God granted the desires of their hearts in an unexpected way–one that may not have accorded with the desires of their minds.  And yet, years later when Rev. Wurmbrand looked back at own suffering he had a different reaction than you or I might expect.  Hieromonk Damascene recounted a conversation he had with Wurmbrand in 1998. He said,

I asked him how to face persecution, if and when it comes. He told us not to be fearful of persecution. “Persecution must come to all Christians,” he said, “but do not be afraid.”

Mother Nina asked him how to bear suffering. He said that he had always been afraid of suffering, but then he began to be joyful in suffering. “Be joyful!” he exclaimed, “leap for joy!” As Mother Nina remarked later, as he said this his eyes seemed like a sea of light opening into eternity.

In both of these cases, God answered the righteous prayers and desires, but He did it in an unexpected–and personally costly–way.  Instead of answering in a way that left the pray-er unchanged and untouched, he answered in a way that cost the pray-er everything. One might describe this as a very earthy and practical answer rather than just a “spiritual” one. The pray-er became the answer to the prayer in God’s hand, in God’s way, in God’s time.

Neither Missionary Lee nor Rev. Wurmbrand probably expected God to transform them when they were praying, since their prayers were focused on the transformation of something external. But that transformation through prayer is why Rev. Wurmbrand could have joy in the face of such terrible suffering.  Wurmbrand knew that God had a greater purpose and that God had not simply utilized him but also completely changed him in the process.

Anutza Moise said it best when she said,

Whenever I agree with some of my friends to pray for something special, I always warn them – it is dangerous to pray if you are not willing to take the consequences.  The Lord might answer your prayers in a way you least expect (A Ransom For Wurmbrand, 66)!

Posted in Korean Christianity, martyr, persecution, Sanctification | Tagged , , | 1 Comment