Open Home, Open Heart

The travelers walked in the front door, 
hot and dusty after hours on dirt roads. 
Mom always found room at the table, 
one built for her by Dad, big enough 
to welcome at least a dozen guests. 
She added another vegetable, salad, bread—
done! There was always enough.

Then, grown up, it was my turn.
I learned to serve the local friend
who showed up right at mealtime,
thirsty, hungry, startled that we knew
an open home was an essential virtue,
a demonstration of community,
a value held dearly: test of character.

Our village friends showed us more,
caring for us when we stayed all night.
A brother would move out of his hut
so that we could rest in that space.
Or a sister would open her hut to me
to stay the weekend, along with others.

They had little, but love overflowed.
We were each given names, accepted,
honored as one of them. Open hearts,
open homes—we kept on learning.
We opened our door to welcome them.
It became our way, too, as it should be:
“Love your neighbor as you love yourself!”

This past Sunday, Mothers’ Day, one of the men in our “Grow Group” (adult Sunday School class) asked each of us to share something we had learned from our mother. I wish I had remembered this one! Our family lived in a town that was on the main road between three countries and several major cities, so many other missionaries would be passing through. And many were coming for medical help or to have babies at this safe hospital. Mom’s open door to visitors made it easy for me to put that same practice into effect in my life.

Our Lord sent Glenn and me back to that same part of Africa, but with the charge to focus on the Nyarafolo people who lived all around that town where I had grown up, Ferkessédougou. Those people taught us even more.

Out in the villages, near their farmlands, they lived in simple mud-brick huts. We needed more immersion in the language, so our language helper eventually let us stay overnight with our toddler daughter in his man-hut; he moved out to live with other family. We brought a gift of fish, something they craved (and good protein). They shared their meals with us, and their time. They did not yet know Jesus, so by welcoming us they were not sharing with people in their faith community or their ethnic group. In fact, we were Whites, which automatically linked us to those colonist masters who had been so brutal. At first they were polite to us as we came to spend a few hours, waiting to see what kind of people we were. And friendships began to form in amazing ways when they at last accepted us as overnight visitors. They were planting seeds of love, and so were we.

Later, when I began asking questions to dig into cultural values, I learned that if anyone shows up at your door as you are ready to eat, the right response is to offer them a chair at the table. There it was: offer a sleeping space to the visitor, a place at the table to the person in front of you.

At the same time I dug into one of those books that was mentoring me: Open Heart, Open Home by Karen Mains. I was being shaped.

Living this way definitely makes me think of the command given to those following Yahweh:

“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD (Lev. 19:18 NIV)

So loving others definitely reaches beyond taking in a traveler that is a good friend. It includes “love your enemy,” that person who opposes you, otherwise why would the preface to the command include not seeking revenge or bearing a grudge? Jesus made sure that this was understood when he was preaching on the mountainside:

 ⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not reject the one who wants to borrow from you. ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matt. 5:42-45 NET)

People obviously had been reinterpreting God’s command to love their neighbor. They said it only applied to those who are lovable, who are like you and who are loving toward you. Jesus turned that upside down. Father God is not like that. The sunshine and rain, both necessary for the good of people, are not withheld from those who do wrong. Be like him! Show love to those who oppose you! Be merciful.

Someone recently told me that it is not possible to feel love for someone who has hurt you deeply. Yes, if love is defined just as that emotional bond that you feel for a spouse or parent or child, or even a best friend, that positive leap of your heart is not what you feel when you see that person who has criticized you unfairly or withheld what you deserved. No, when Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself, he was talking about a kind of love that is communicated to us in the New Testament through the Greek word agape. The various lexicons try hard to define it. The Friberg Analytical Greek Lexicon speaks clearly to this situation of loving the neighbor who is kind and the one who is not. Then agape means:

“especiallly . . . love as based on evaluation and choice, a matter of will and action.”

In other words, even if that person does not deserve that you show them acceptance or even help when they need it, you choose to do so. Why? Jesus told us why: we are to be like God, who values people for being people. Of course discernment is also necessary, knowing what is truly helpful for someone, and when a person is dangerous. That requires Spirit guidance.

Jesus was challenged for teaching this radical love, so to make it reach yet further he told the parable of the Good Samaritan. The shock of his choice of the “good guy” as a Samaritan is lost on many of us. That ethnic group was looked down on by the Jews that were his audience that day. The last thing they would expect would be to have a Samaritan show such kindness and generosity to an injured man from a different group, lying on the street. How would Jesus tell that parable to an American today? Which ethnicity would he make the “good guy” to show you that this command is not about loving only people who are like you? It is about disregarding class and ethnic barriers, reaching beyond them to show compassion. It is “a matter of will and action.”

When it is your decision to reach out to help someone, it is free choice—a different version of freedom than the world most often cites:

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment, namely, “You must love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal. 5:13 NET)

By serving one another, by loving a neighbor who is brought into our lives, by showing love through action, we live out the reality of God’s loving open arms. He loved us so much that he took on human form, a body so minute compare to his magnificent essence, and lived a simple life of barefoot travel and suffering, and died for us—wicked as we are (Romans 5:8). He showed us the ultimate form of self-sacrifice for the good of others. He himself is love, and we are on a life path to be like him:

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Eph. 5:1,2 NIV)

By walking in the way of love we are obeying our beloved Jesus. When we truly love someone, we long to delight them. And in his last evening with his disciples he underlined how key this is!

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love (Jn. 15:9,10 NIV