Preach magazine, Issue 30: Welcome the Stranger

Preach magazine issue 30 explores the idea of hospitality towards those who are different from us. Perhaps they’re a different colour, or come from a different country or continent or culture or religion. They might, for all sorts of reasons, be migrants or refugees.

This edition went to print as the UK was welcoming people from Hong Kong and evacuating thousands from Afghanistan but before the outbreak of the horrific war in Ukraine, with millions of Ukrainians driven to become refugees. Perhaps there will be more strangers in our towns and cities. How should we respond? What can we learn? What does the Bible say?

CONTEXT: Word of God

Ian Paul (page 58) tells us that the Bible is challengingly positive about the idea of hospitality. It roots it in our common spiritual origin in Adam and Eve. Leviticus says Israel must love the stranger ‘as yourself’. The New Testament shows walls being broken down, and in Revelation, a multicultural worship service. Each stranger is made in the image of God, and Christ died for them.

APPLICATION

The UK, like most European countries and many others throughout the world, is steadily becoming less monocultural. We live alongside people from many different cultures and with many different skin tones. It’s easy for a majority population to think of itself as ‘normal’, if normal means ‘the majority’. But the Bible makes us ask questions around power (are we prepared to let strangers change us?), economics (hospitality can be expensive) and identity (can we expand our definition of ‘we’?).

SUB-THEMES

A powerful theme in this issue is what we can learn from each other. Tobi Olujinmi’s column (page 9), reflects on Moses and the Cushite woman, and the fate of Miriam; afraid of difference, she’s given leprosy as a symbol of her spiritual distancing. An interview with Harvey Kwiyani (page 10) brings out the need for African and European Christians to listen to one another. Mark Nam (page 20) reflects on the story of the Magi: it is through strangers that God reveals Christ to God’s own people, and not at the centre of religious power but at the margins.

CASE STUDIES

How should we welcome strangers? Dave Bookless (page 44) suggests that preachers might focus on hospitality and a simpler lifestyle. Joanna Mwansa (page 48) writes about the Welcome Churches network, which trains and equips churches to offer a good cross-cultural welcome to their new neighbours.

PREACHING POINTS

·       Begin at the Beginning – there’s one human race

·       End at the End – there’s a vision of unity

·       There’s a golden thread of hospitality and inclusion running through scripture. How can we make that real today?

·       British missionaries went out to the world – now the world is coming back. The world heard us – now will we hear the world?

READING: by Krish Kandiah (page 35)

·       Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, Christine D Pohl (Eerdmans, 1999)

·       Welcoming the Stranger, Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang (IVP, 2018)

·       Asylum and Immigration: A Christian Perspective on a Polarised Debate, Nick Spencer (Authentic Media/Paternoster, 2004)

·       You Welcomed Me: Loving Refugees and Migrants Because God First Loved Us, Kent Annan (IVP, 2018)

© Preach magazine Welcome the Stranger preaching crib sheet produced by Mark Woods for LWPT.

Please email editor@lwpt.org.uk if you would like a pdf version of the sermon tips.