Who do you share Christmas Dinner with? For most of us, it is a day for our closest family. We gather to enjoy our most cherished traditions, carried across the generations. It is often a joyful time of connection and comfort, with those who know us best.

In her article Eating with Jesus, Courtney Saldivar notes the importance of having a Christmas dinner with recovering addicts. She notes that the acceptance they felt was deepened because they were gathered at a time that was usually reserved for family. By inviting members of the recovery program to a Christmas Dinner, they were being afforded a family privilege.

It is only natural as Christians that we consider widening our practices of community to inviting “non-family” into the spaces reserved for family. It is natural because we call all followers of Jesus our brothers and sisters. By Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are adopted into God family together. We are all family through Christ. Kristina and I have reflected on this principle during our time in Abbotsford. Having left all of our biological family behind in Ontario, we no longer have our expected gatherings and celebrations during the holidays. It has been a great joy for us, to be invited to someone’s house for Thanksgiving and Easter; it is an even greater honor when there is family there that does not belong to our immediate church community, showing that we are truly stepping into a time for family; being honored with the privilege reserved for family. It is a wonderful thing to be invited over after church for soup and buns; it is truly spectacular to be invited over for Christmas dinner.

Now, Kristina and I are familiar in the context of Living Hope CRC. I think that the risk of inviting us to your most intimate familial gatherings is low. You know who you are receiving and what type of visit to expect from us. I want to invite you to reflect on the quote from Dr. Christine Pohl on hospitality for the stranger:

“If we are genuinely concerned about the needs of strangers, offering hospitality requires courage. It involves not only a willingness to take some risks in welcoming others, but it also requires the kind of courage that lives close to our limits, continually pressing against the possible, yet always aware of the incompleteness and the inadequacy of our own responses. At the same time, living so close to the edge of sufficient resources increases our dependence on, and our awareness of, God’s interventions and provision.” (Pohl, Christine. “Offering Hospitality”, plough.com)  

To be truly hospitable to the stranger, it requires us to stretch ourselves. It stretches us in our feeling of comfort, but also in our resources (remember the Old Testament practice of Gleaning?). It pushes us to remember that all we have comes from God and is meant to be shared with others; not just those who we know and love, but with everyone who bears the Image of God. John Calvin is especially helpful in articulating who we must extend the hand of love and fellowship to:

The Lord commands all men without exception “to do good” [Heb. 13:16]. Yet the great part of them are most unworthy if they be judged by their own merit. But here Scripture helps in the best way when it teaches that we are not to consider that men merit of themselves but to look upon the image of God in all men, to which we owe all honor and love. (Institutes III.7.6) 

We do not welcome the stranger into our closest community because of who they are, what they are able to provide for the community, nor their ability to be good Christians. We welcome the stranger based on who God is as the creator of the people that we consider strangers. They are not strangers to God; they bear his image the same as we do. In this way, something more significant ties us together with the stranger than separates us.

Throughout Scripture and all Christian history, followers of Jesus have been thinking deeply about the practices of community and how to welcome in the stranger. Jesus lays out a very compelling case for the extension of community and practices of hospitality:

⁴⁰ “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”  (Matthew 10:40)

What is shocking about this verse is that Jesus takes this and then demonstrates that he is in the stranger, the person who was hungry or thirsty.  

³⁷“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  (Matthew 25:37-40)

The practice of hospitality is deeper than welcoming in the stranger, it is about welcoming Jesus into our midst. Our practice of hospitality, of bringing the stranger in our closest community should be stimulated by our desire to welcome Christ. This is not optional in the Christian life. We can have important discussion about how we welcome the stranger but should never be caught up asking if we should welcome the stranger.

To close, read the Celtic Rune of Hospitality below, which I believe is a good summary of Jesus’ teaching and call to action on hospitality to the stranger.

We saw a stranger yesterday,  

We put food in the eating place, drink in the drinking place, music in the listening place.  

And, with the sacred name of the triune God,  

He blessed us and our house, our cattle and our dear ones.  

As the lark says in her song:  

Often, often, often, goes Christ in the stranger’s guise.  

Often, often, often, goes Christ in the stranger’s guise.