Better Together for Halloween

"Be friendly with everyone. Don't be proud and feel that you are smarter than others. Make friends with ordinary people." Romans 12:6 (CEV)

This is a nice verse for Halloween, don't you think?


The New Testament of the Bible has a strong emphasis on making friends. It is sometimes referred to as practicing hospitality. Interesting for us to think of Halloween as a time to offer hospitality. At our house, we get no visitors for halloween, because of our location, no one dares venture down that road. A friend of mine in New Hampshire, loves Halloween. Each year he and his son construct elaborate experiences for the kids in the neighborhood. One year they built a dragon that when you grabbed a piece of candy from the jar, the dragon roared and smoke poured out of its mouth and ears. Erik is practicing hospitality in our culture. He is making kids feel welcomed at his home.

But the Christian ideal of hospitality is really about something quite dramatic. Welcoming the stranger, the other, the one is different from ourselves. The best example of this is the story of the WOman at the well from John 4:4-26. Click here to read it.

This is a story about bridging a racial and ethnic division. An old but contemporary story. The woman in the story has two things against her. First she's a woman and second she's a Samaritan. What do I mean? In that society, women were not to speak to other men in public, much less be alone in public. Second, she is a Samaritan, a race of Jewish people that were considered inferior by the dominant class of Jews that lived in the southern region of Israel. Jesus is bridging cultural and racial gaps. He's building a network of diversity, and he'll do it often with the Samaritans, as in the story of the Good Samaritan. As our country becomes more and more diverse, we will have to learn to embrace people who are not like us. This is a challenge for us, especially for white people. Why do I say this? Because we have been the dominant race for many years. The best way to approach this new world we live in is to embrace it, rather than resist it.

I was glad our High School youth went and did an inner city Mission Camp this past summer. We all need more interactions with those who are not like us. It makes us better people, more faithful Christians, and in the long run, improves the quality of our world.


Do you have any meaningful relationships with people who are different than you? Think about cultivating one.





PS. Today is Day 12 of our 40 days of Community. And remember the clocks get set back one hour on Saturday night.