Entertaining angels

The Rev Dr Richard Frazer explains how Christ can come to us in the guise of strangers.

WHAT do we mean by mission?

Many of us will say that our congregation is friendly and mission orientated. There will be a warm welcome at the door and a cup of tea on offer after the service and between that, our worship. It is all rather wonderful.

I have come to feel, however, that there is a difference between friendliness and hospitality, and Scripture invites us to offer hospitality. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 13:2 says: ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’

Sometimes we can inadvertently make strangers feel quite uncomfortable in our churches. Someone told me recently of two congregations that united. A couple from the church that closed took their seats just before the service and someone said: ‘You are in Mrs Jones’s pew. She won’t like new people sitting there.’

The Bible stories about offering hospitality to strangers, and there are many of them scattered throughout, is that the welcoming of the stranger will change us. Offering hospitality suggests that the missionary boot is often on the other foot. It is not so much that the purpose of mission is to change the newcomer into people like us. It is to allow the stranger to bear Christ to us and transform us.

It often feels that our strategies for mission suggest that we in the church have all the answers, and are there to give people the good news of salvation and help them to become Christians, just like us. I do not think that is the full picture of the nature of mission. Our knowledge is partial and ‘we see in a mirror dimly’. The transformation we should be looking for is not just in those who come to us in our missionary outreach. We ought also to seek transformation in ourselves and in the life of our congregations, as strangers bear Christ to us.

“ We ought also to seek transformation in ourselves and in the life of our congregations, as strangers bear Christ to us.

In these deeply unsettled times for the church, it is important to realise that the church’s decline does not correspond to any decline in the life of the Spirit, who is at loose and at work in the life of the world. It is maybe time for us to be a little humbler in our missionary strategies, recognising that, as our institutions and congregations struggle, we need to welcome the transforming Spirit into our midst. We should perhaps think less of transforming strangers into people like us and instead allow the strangers we encounter to help us re-imagine our church.

Many years ago, I knew a man called Frank. He had been in trouble with drugs and crime for years. His father had died not long before and he kept coming to our church asking if I could bring his dad back.

He was an unsettling person and made many people feel uneasy. One day, he took an overdose and I had to get him to hospital double quick. He returned a week later. He was sitting calmly in the church, ‘in his right mind’. He asked me: ‘Do you not know why I am here?’ I replied: ‘You want your dad back. I cannot do that for you’. ‘Yes, but you can ask for forgiveness for me,’ he replied adding, ‘it is my crazy life that I am sure caused his early death.’ So we prayed together and it was a transforming moment for me and for Frank. The unsettling stranger taught me the power of forgiveness. ‘Often, Christ comes to us in the strangers’ guise.’ 

The Rev Dr Richard Frazer is minister at Edinburgh: Greyfriars.