Welcome One Another

Passage: Romans 15:1-7

Hamid Mohsin’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story within a story.  The main story is the fictional memoir of a young Pakistani man who comes of age in New York City.  Driven and extremely bright, the man graduates at the top of his class at Princeton, and gets hired as a the top draft pick of a competitive Wall Street consultancy firm.  The trajectory of his life is radically altered following 9/11, when his accent and skin color take on a new significance.

He recounts the story as a middle-aged man working as a professor in Lahore.  He tells the story to an American visitor who, over the course of the conversation, becomes increasingly agitated.  The narrator notes, in passing, that in some circles he’s been labeled anti-American and that there is some concern that an attempt may be made on his life.  His American guest may, in fact, be there to kill him.  Ironically, the narrator is abundantly welcoming and hospitable to this stranger. 

We’re always looking for reasons to write each other off.  In this polarized time and place, it feels as though we scrutinize one another for any identifying feature.  Like soldiers in a revolutionary war, we want to make sure the person we’re talking to is an ally.  If there’s any indication to the contrary, we shut down the conversation. 

At the end of the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul tells the church to adopt a radically different approach.  He says,

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.  For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”

Paul says, “Your default setting is friendship. When you were God’s enemy, Christ treated you as a friend.  Do the same.”  Paul concludes,

…welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

Our goal is harmony.  Christ provided us harmony with God at the cost of his life.  The call of the Gospel is to militate for peace and harmony – with neighbors; strangers; even enemies.  No matter the cost.