spiritual gifts

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Hospitality: More Than Teacups and Tablecloths

Spain San FerminI’d rather run with the bulls in Pamplona than host a dinner party. Cooking for groups totally flusters me – an otherwise capable, confident woman – because it means I have to manage prepping and cooking multiple dishes on different surfaces at different heats for varying lengths of time. The goal of this madness is to get each dish to the table at the same time, hot and at optimal consistency. You might as well ask me to conduct the New York Philharmonic or control the air-traffic at Chicago O’Hare. I may have a Master’s Degree in Divinity but my superpowers melt in the kitchen.

My friend Sheri is the ultimate hostess. Seriously, get this woman a cape. Sheri thrives on large dinner parties. An invitation to the Cross house is like a golden ticket to food paradise: bowls of snappy mixed nuts on every side table, trays of crisp veggies with tangy dip, a selection of fine crackers with your choice of gourmet spreads that are an explosion of flavor in your mouth, the sumptuous smell of slow-roasting meat. It doesn’t matter if the house is bustling with ten or more people; Sheri has a way of making each person feel like the guest of honor.

the-goring-hotel-london-celebrating-National-Afternoon-Tea-week-on-our-terrace-with-some-tasty-treats-and-a-glass-of-BollingerSheri especially loves having women over for tea. She makes those delicate tea sandwiches the likes of which you’ve only seen in ritzy hotels or in the well-manicured hands of women wearing derby hats. Even if you are the only guest, she’ll put out a three-tiered tray and fill it with a buffet of sweet and savory goodness. She has at least twenty kinds of tea to choose from – delicate white teas from Asia, robust black teas from England, spicy teas from India, tangy teas from South America. Sheri has fine teas for the connoisseur and supermarket teas for the novice but she never judges an unrefined palate. When you have tea with Sheri you feel like a queen, even when you’re wearing jeans and running shoes.

I’ve heard mutual friends say that Sheri has the gift of hospitality. I agree, but I don’t think her ability to set a beautiful table or serve a delicious meal is proof of this gift. In fact, I think we completely miss the richness of the gift of hospitality when we equate it with the ability to dress a table or a salad.

I spent last Saturday morning teaching a group of women. I asked them to call out the first image or word that comes to mind when they hear hospitality. This is what they said:

family, friends, food, the dining table, holidays, cleaning, my mother, the good china, making up the guest bed, tablecloths, casseroles, wine, cooking, perfect presentation, washing dishes, a lot of work.

I think this is what most North Americans, and most Christians, believe hospitality to be. But if hospitality is about elaborate dinner parties with bountiful food and sophisticated presentation, then is it only the privilege of the first world and an offering of the rich? Is hospitality more the domain of women than men, and specifically women who enjoy cooking and who care about matching stemware? If so, then why did Jesus praise Mary over Martha when Mary was the one neglecting the table?inigo-montoya

I’ve been suspicious of this brand of hospitality for years. I have a deeply rooted conviction that there is more to hospitality than tea cups and tablecloths. So I followed an inner hunch and did a scriptural survey of hospitality, looking for its meaning, context and expression among the people of God.

In the New Testament, the concept of hospitality centers on the word philozenia. Philo means friend, friendly, or companion. Zenos means foreigner or stranger. So when Luke, Paul and Peter write about hospitality, it’s grounded in the idea of befriending someone new, someone different from you. Paul ups the ante on hospitality, making it critical to the life of the church. He writes that overseers and elders are to be “blameless” and “above reproach” and then lists several indicators of these. Hospitality makes both lists along with things like fidelity in marriage, self-control and gentleness (1 Tim 3:1-3; Titus 1:6-9). In these passages, hospitality takes shape as an outward expression of inner holiness.

In several other passages, the instruction to practice hospitality comes seconds after these phrases: “be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:10-13), “love each other deeply” (1 Peter 4:8-9), and “love one another as brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 13:1-2). To me, the call to love strangers like siblings eclipses any brand of hospitality focused solely on feeding and entertaining friends!

woman_at_the_well2The early church’s call to hospitality flows easily out of the heart of Jesus and reflects his instruction to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We see him practice hospitality countless times, but in my opinion no example could be greater than when he spoke with a Samaritan woman at a well in the midday sun. Without condemnation for her public sin, Jesus shows her not only his compassion, but her offers her the living water of eternal life. While it might be as surprising to us as it was to his disciples, Jesus’ hospitality was nothing new. He simply embodied and enacted the hospitality that God commanded of the people of Israel in the time of Moses.

Israel had very explicit instructions about how they were to treat strangers and foreigners living among them. God told Israel that they must not mistreat or oppress the foreigners because the Israelites were once foreigners and slaves in Egypt. This bit of historical empathy was to motivate Israel to treat foreigners justly. Israel was also to be generous; gleanings from the fields and grapevines were purposefully left to feed the foreigners. Both Israel and the foreigners were subject to, and protected by, the same law. They had access to the altar of God and were even given an inheritance of the land! And just when we think hospitality can’t get any more radical, God says something completely wild and wonderful:

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34)

When we get our definition of hospitality from the whole of scripture, we see anew that it’s about making a stranger a friend. But it’s an expression of friendship so radical that it initiates a foreigner into your tribe. Through hospitality, the “chosen” people and the outsiders become one people, equal in God’s law and God’s love.

Biblical hospitality is a outworking of inner holiness. Every time we show hospitality to a stranger we grow more and more like our God who made space in the Kingdom of Heaven not just for Jews, but for Gentiles, Samaritans, women, children, lepers, prostitutes, adulterers, and sinners of every kind like you and me. If you think that you don’t have what it takes to be hospitable, remember that God has made a place for you in his kingdom. Do you deserve this? No! But by the grace, mercy and love of God, you are welcome.

How can you extend this welcome to others?

Hospitality is rooted in empathy. We may not know what it feels like to be slaves in Egypt, but some of us daily feel the repercussions of slavery in the American south. Others of us are immigrants or the children of immigrants and our sense of identity is shaped and reshaped by the diverse cultures we embody. Maybe it’s not race or ethnicity that makes you feel like a foreigner or outsider. Maybe it’s a disability, something about your physical appearance, an event in your life, or a way in which you live counter-culturally. All of us, at some point and in some way, have felt like an outsider or a stranger. Reconnect with those feelings for a minute – those turbulent emotions can help us cultivate empathy for the foreigners among us. As our empathy expands, so should our compassion. Hospitality is empathy and compassion put into action.

I said earlier that my friend Sheri has the gift of hospitality. Sheri is a great example of hospitality not because of how she sets her table, but because of who she invites to her table and how she treats them. It seems like every new person that enters her church ends up at Sheri’s table. And as she honors them with a beautiful tea service or an overflowing buffet, her first question is usually, “So Jane, what’s your story?” Sheri’s real gift is in making space in her world and her heart for someone else’s story.

She invites more than friends or people she likes and understands to her table. Sheri – a former nanny, a pastor’s wife, a mother of two grown children, a doting grandma, a domestic diva with a drawer full of floral aprons and tea cozies – has broken bread and swapped life stories with bikers in studded leather, heavy metal drummers, tatted sailors, undocumented immigrants, former felons, addicts and many more. Even though it’s impressive, it’s not her food or table settings that make Sheri’s guests feel like they are at home with family, it’s her spiritual posture of welcome.

This is God’s brand of hospitality. It starts with empathy for outsiders and compassion for those unlike us. It asks us to share physical provisions with them, but that is only the first course of action. The ultimate goal is not to meet someone’s physical needs, but to meet their spiritual needs. The human soul craves to be known, to connect, to belong — to others and to God. Biblical hospitality shows us how to love strangers so well that they become not just friends, but siblings, members of the same tribe. If you think about it long enough, you realize that this hospitality is excellent soil for the gospel. What a better way to gently open a soul to the good news of Jesus than through a sincere and generous welcome and the offer of true friendship?

Hospitality is a spiritual gift. It’s a gift of love that all of God’s redeemed children have the capacity to give the world. With God’s help, we will.

As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;
once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
(1 Peter 2:4-5, 9-10)

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When Someone You Love – A New Series

Advice is not my calling. Even though I’m a pastor and people often come to me for guidance, I resist the pressure to whittle down my role into what I like to call, “advicer.” Being a pastor is so much bigger! Plus, I’ve discovered that when people come to me for help in a tough situation, many of them already have a plan they want to execute. What they’re really looking for is permission from a spiritual authority to take a route that’s easier, but not necessarily better, for all involved. This is a dangerous game, one that subtly deals in manipulating a pastor’s pride and power. It’s a game I refuse to play.

Instead, when people come to me, I like to ask a lot of questions. My goal is try to uncover motivations, help articulate emotions, and generally to explore perspectives and options. As a pastor, it’s vital that I spend far more time asking questions than I do giving my opinion. That keeps me in the proper place as a caring companion and God in the proper place as Healer and Guide. It’s inescapable though – as a pastor people will always expect me to give advice.

I resist the same pressure as a blogger. I read a lot of blogs and articles. The trend these days is to write pieces that critique how Mr. X gets it wrong, tell how to do something in ___ easy steps, or list the top ___ reasons to do or be ______. (If I read one more blog title that starts with, “Five Ways To…” my fingers may fall off and my eyes start shooting jalapeno juice!) In other words, it’s all advice and opinions.

I want this blog to be more. I want more exploration, more creativity, more room to stretch, more questions, more compassion for difference and failure. I hope that by writing from my deep places with my unique voice, I’ll reach someone, somewhere in need of my spirit.

Though I’m cautious about dealing in advice, I realize that I do have some wisdom to offer, especially when it concerns caring for others. Fourteen years ago, God revealed that my calling was to care for the suffering. It’s a calling grounded in the spiritual gifts of compassion and mercy. With more than a decade of pastoral care in the trenches, after extensive training in crisis response and stumbling my way through the gauntlet of clinical chaplaincy, I have valuable skills and informed perspective to offer.

As you know from my last post, several of my friends are in crisis. I was debriefing with a friend, talking through what I was doing in response, how I’m able to help and my limitations. My friend said, “You know Corrie, not everyone knows how to do what you do. It’s a gift.” Well, yes. What I do as a pastor starts with a calling and gifting, but that I’m able to care well relies very much on the fact that I want to care. That I’ve tried to care and failed. That I’ve forgiven my failures and spring-board from them into fresh attempts.

My high school choir director Mr. Griffin used to say, “Everyone can sing, but not everyone can sing well. I can always teach someone to sing better.” I believe that everyone has the capacity care for others, they just might need some lessons. The raw materials we need are love and the desire to put love into action.

You all have people who you dearly love. Your loved ones will experience pain from time to time and you’ll want to reach out and show you care, but you may not know how. That’s where I can help.

Today I begin a new series called “When Someone You Love.” It will address situations that are common to relationships, but ones in which we may not be comfortable or well-equipped to respond. Future posts include: when someone you love loses someone they love, when someone you love is being abused, when someone you love is dying. I’m going to share what I’ve learned, tell stories of failures and successes, confront unhelpful tendencies, and chart out some ways we can show that we care.

And yes, this means I’ll give advice, but you can trust that it won’t be trite or untested and it will always be open to feedback. Feel free to email me with topics you’d like to tackle – corriegus@gmail.com.

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Seeking the Shepherd’s Heart: A Call for Empathy to Men in Ministry

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Not long ago my father talked to a prominent pastor who also leads a seminary. The seminary’s branding is all about having a shepherd’s heart, encouraging students to emulate the Good Shepherd, Jesus. Somehow my father and this pastor came to the topic of women in ministry and the theology that separates egalitarians and complementarians. Dad shared some of the struggles I’ve encountered being a woman in ministry. The pastor responded with, “I don’t mind when people have [egalitarian] views, I just don’t like it when they get angry about it.”

When my father relayed the conversation, I asked him to repeat it several times. A few days later, I questioned him for exact wording. I didn’t want to make assumptions or emotional responses based upon them. When it was clear that this was the pastor’s actual statement, I let myself feel fully the disappointment and frustration that I had been holding back.

One of the most difficult things about being a female pastor is the lack of compassion I see among Christian men, especially pastors. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard men give these responses to the topic of women in ministry:

“This isn’t my issue.”

“This isn’t a primary theological issue.”

“This isn’t a salvation issue.”

“I don’t know why they get emotional about it.”

“I just don’t like it when they get angry about it.”

These sentences are usually followed by one of two responses. The speakers either shrug, frown slightly and politely turn the conversation to a different subject or they begin quoting isolated verses from scripture and very pointedly ask, “Well, what do you do with this verse?” The tone that is used unmistakably implies that a female pastor’s vocation can be nullified by theology that hinges on a single sentence from 1 Corinthians or Timothy.

This post is not a theological foundation for women in ministry. Instead, this is a plea to influential men in the church, to elders and leaders and pastors who believe women are NOT called to ministry in the same way as men. Will you please take three minutes to read this post in its entirety?

My plea begins with a question. As shepherds of God’s flock — as called, gifted and appointed leaders of the church — do you believe that empathy should be a part of your leadership?

We all probably know or have served under excellent leaders. In my opinion, the best leaders are those who are quick to listen and slow to offer their own opinion. Excellent leaders never use their opinion or beliefs as a weapon against another person.

The pastors I admire the most are those who solicit the stories and experiences of people different from themselves. They earn my respect because their actions reflect that of the Good Shepherd. Jesus was a leader who ushered angry, frustrated, misunderstood and hurting people — even his enemies — not onto the stage for a debate or between the ropes of a boxing ring but to a table where they could share a meal. Sitting face to face, breaking bread and sharing wine and stories, Jesus had ample space and time to listen well. Across a table he could watch their faces, the theater of human emotions. The ministry of Jesus was fearless engagement, patient listening and compassionate conversation.

Return with me to the topic of women in ministry and consider a few more questions. To disregard, to show apathy, to minimize or to go on the verbal offensive when one (or many) of your flock holds a different theological viewpoint from your own — are these the actions of a good shepherd? Is this showing empathy like Jesus? Unfortunately, what I have encountered, first as a faithful church-goer and later as a woman in ministry, very often falls far short of Jesus’ example.

From childhood until age 26, every pastor I encountered was male. I grew up in a wide-spread evangelical denomination whose global missionary work is noted in church history books. I went to a non-denominational Christian college and a trans-denominational Christian graduate school, both evangelical and highly respected by people across the theological spectrum. I earned a B.A. in Biblical Studies and a Master of Divinity. In these programs men were the majority among both students and professors. I now serve in a denomination that has been ordaining women since the 1970s but the local churches rarely hire pastors from the large pool of licensed and ordained female candidates. All that to say, I know what I’m talking about. I have a testimony about women in ministry and my testimony is true. My story and experiences parallel those of so many evangelical women in ministry, so I invite you to read the following as a trustworthy generalization.

Since childhood, I have seen and heard of the great work God is doing through female missionaries the world over. They are giving voice to the oppressed, rescuing women and children from sexual slavery, planting and strengthening churches and preaching the gospel. But when these women come home on furlough, many of them are not called pastor by the churches that support them financially. They can “share their testimony” on Sunday morning but they are not permitted to “preach.” They may lead a church in Africa or Asia or South America where the gospel is spreading like only good news can, but many denominations would never allow them to do so in the United States.

During seminary I interned at a small church. The leadership of this church gave me complete freedom to develop and lead a ministry to our young adults, a demographic which made up 70% of our congregation. During my second year, I was joined by another female and two males interns. On our orientation day, the pastor announced secondary responsibilities for each of us. The male interns were expected to preach once a semester. We females were expected to oversee the hospitality ministry, which meant preparing coffee and cinnamon buns, passing out welcome bags on Sundays, and organizing monthly potlucks. I assure you that these responsibilities had nothing to do with the spiritual gifts of the four individuals.

“Women in ministry” is a hot topic in colleges, seminaries and churches around the country, in many denominations. We’ve labeled this a controversy, a debate or an issue but it is much more significant than these labels. It’s more significant because it concerns flesh and blood people, women who, like you, are created in the image of God. These women make up half the church.

I imagine that you believe that women have vital spiritual gifts, given by God. You probably even believe that women are your co-heralds and co-agents of God’s mercy, love, justice and peace on earth. Have you ever considered what would happen if you told all the women in your congregation that because of their gender, they cannot use their gifts (no matter the gift) in or for the church? What would happen to the spirit of your congregation? The vibrancy of your mission? Your ability to impact your community? Your numbers?

Have you ever had someone walk up to you and tell you are sinning because you, a man, have preached from the Word of God?

Have you ever considered what it would feel like to have people in a church whisper about you and the scandal you have created by asking to preach the good news to a congregation you know and love and have faithfully served? Have you ever been made to feel like a Jezebel when you asked to share the message of hope to the depressed, to pass real peace to the world-weary, and speak truth to the thirsty? I have.

Men, you are absolutely right when you say that women in ministry is not your issue. It is our issue. It is not exclusively a male issue or a female issue, it is a church issue. This is an important topic for all people of God because once we were all sinners. At the same moment and by the same blood men and women were cleansed and wholly forgiven of their sin. We were adopted by God and now we are a family. We are one body, the body of Christ, and as members of this body we are all fully redeemed and equally essential to carry out God’s mission on earth.

Brothers in ministry, when you fail to engage in this conversation or you only want to debate egalitarians into a rhetorical corner, you make us feel like opponents or enemies rather than siblings, friends or even welcomed strangers. Facing either dismissiveness or aggressiveness, why should people be surprised when we get defensive or emotional in response?

When men say they don’t understand why we get emotional about this “issue” or don’t like it when we get angry, they shame us for our emotions. (This may not be the intention, but it is the effect.) But aren’t we all — women and men — emotional beings, created as such by God?

A wise man taught me that emotions are the windows of the soul. As a counselor I’ve learned that heightened emotions like anger and tears are flags that mark deeper fields to be mined. That is why I was discouraged and frustrated by the response of the prominent pastor from my initial story. Here again is another man who, though he is called pastor and respected as the shepherd of thousands of believers, fails to realize that his way of leading causes pain to so many.

I promise you brothers, that if you ask an angry or otherwise emotional woman about her emotions, if you patiently and gently dig a little deeper, you’ll inevitably unearth red-hot pain. For women in the church, pain is the natural result of being told or shown a hundred different ways since childhood that you are untrustworthy because you are female. Anger is an understandable and justified emotional response to being treated like the second-class saved.

The second-class saved. That is who we feel like when you affirm our gifts and our important role in the church and with the same mouth you say that because we are women we cannot preach, teach men or be pastors. It hurts. It’s confusing and contradictory. Theology which restricts women from any pro-gospel actions and the force with which you defend such theology sends a strong message that women are not really fully redeemed. There are few messages that are as painful to receive as this one.

Brothers, you may never believe what I believe about the calling of women to lead the church. You may never verbally affirm the excellent leadership of women in your congregation but will you listen to us?

Will you try to comprehend that your theology, how you present your theology and how you lead your church may cause pain to women in your congregation?

Will you consider life and theology from a perspective not your own?

Will you take the time to imagine what it is like to receive the gospel as one of the persecuted or oppressed rather than the privileged?

Will you sit at tables with us and ask us to share our stories?

Will you shepherd as Jesus did, with empathy?