For When Your Hospitality Just Isn’t Radical, Part 2

I imagine that the greatest obstacle to radical hospitality, aside from our overarching self-focus, is fear. Fear is what keeps us from meeting the eyes of others in public. Fear keeps us from opening up and sharing the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Fear is even an industry – a profitable one, one that masquerades as security. It sells home insurance, alarm systems, antivirus software, and even TV shows, films, and books. Fear is one of the enemy’s greatest weapons.

We are increasingly a culture of suspicion, and suspicion is an offshoot of fear – the fear of what might happen if the thing underlying our suspicion comes to pass. But how, realistically, do we live without suspicion? How do we live without fear?

In the interest of full disclosure, there’s another story I want to tell you. This one is from a couple of weeks ago, and it looks a bit like my story about meeting T.C. last weekend, but what went through my mind was somewhat different.

It was Saturday, during nap time. I was running errands (sound familiar yet?). I was in Barnes & Noble looking for a software manual when a girl walked up to me and without speaking, handed me a note card. It read something along the lines of, I’m sorry to disturb you. I have no money and nowhere to go. Can you help me? God bless you. Caught off-guard, I read the card before I really looked at her. And then I looked at her. She was young, Eastern European-looking.

She was pregnant. Significantly pregnant.

It’s amazing how fast the brain can whip through a whole host of questions and possible scenarios. In the three seconds that I stood there looking at her, the note card still in my hand, I was thinking, How old is she? She looks really young. Is she married? Is she alone? Does she understand English? Why is she panhandling in the local B&N, of all places? Is this a setup? What if she’s a victim of trafficking? And what the $#%% am I supposed to do? Holy crap, she’s pregnant. There’s a baby involved in this.

And finally, Why do people always approach ME?

It was an overwhelming situation. And a scary one, in my mind. I’d just started reading Half the Sky. What if this girl was a prostitute, and her pimp was forcing her to panhandle because she was pregnant? What if he was sitting over in the cafe watching us? Or what if she’d escaped a trafficking situation and was now homeless? What if she’s an illegal? What if she’s a refugee? A runaway?

Okay, so I know I was having all of these extreme presuppositions, and it’s possible that none of them were true. But it’s also estimated that more than 17,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. annually, many of them from the struggling nations that were part of the former Soviet Union. Sex trafficking in the U.S. alone (not internationally) is a $30+ billion industry. These are staggering figures. So – the chance that this girl was somehow a victim of trafficking? Real possibility exists.

What is most certainly true is that there was some kind of story behind her situation. A story I didn’t know. I story I could have tried to find out.

I was thinking as fast as I could, and I was assailed by a sense of helplessness. As usual, I had no cash, nor did I want to give her any. I remembered the existence of a local women’s shelter, The Barn, which was about 10 minutes away.

“Do you have a way to call someone?” I asked the girl. She nodded.

I took out my smartphone and looked up The Barn’s information, then wrote it down on the back of the note card. I handed the card back to the girl.

“If you call this number, tell them you’re pregnant and need help, the people at this place should be able to help you,” I said. “It’s a women and children’s shelter. They’re Christians.”

She smiled and nodded, thanked me, and then turned and disappeared around the shelves. The book I’d wanted wasn’t there, so less than a minute later, I left the store. I didn’t see the girl again.

As I was driving home, as the pressure I’d felt in the moment left me, I was assailed by questions. Why didn’t I offer to buy her a snack in the cafe? Why didn’t I offer to drive her to The Barn? Why didn’t I ask her more questions so I could get a better sense of what was going on?

As usual, part of the answer is that I was in a hurry. But also, there was a bit of fear. Not fear of her, but fear of the possible unknown person lurking in the shadows behind her. The one I couldn’t see. I don’t know if that shadow was even real, but the idea of him was enough. I had a brief vision of a car chase in which we – me and the girl – were the chasees. Ridiculous? Oh, probably. But this is the way my overly suspicious mind, a product of too much crime TV and international news, works. It made me want to end my interaction with her quickly.

Should I have called the police? Alerted the store manager? Maybe, but those kinds of actions don’t always have helpful results. And honestly, those options didn’t even enter my mind. I wanted to do something to help her, so I did the only thing that popped into my head.

Here’s the thing. Two things, actually. (1) My most basic instinct was to offer assistance. To help. (2) That basic instinct was only marginally successful because of suspicion and fear. Yes, hurriedness and preoccupation with my own life also played a role, but the primary battle that went on in that two-minute interaction was help versus fear.

How do we overcome fear so that our instinct to help someone can win out, can be given a chance to do more than just offer a phone number? How do we enter into the kind of radical hospitality Jesus talked about, so that we know more of a person’s story than a few words scribbled on a note card or a cardboard sign?

Scripture says the remedy for fear is trust in God. So if I say I trust God, why do I still fear? Easy: I’m human.

I called my friend Nicole, because we’d just been talking about radical hospitality that morning, and told her what had happened. That I felt like I’d failed that pregnant girl to some degree. I mean, shoot – I could have called The Barn myself and arranged a ride for her. Why hadn’t I done that, at least?

Nicole was consoling – she said she thought I’d done what I was called to do in that moment, which was more than what most people would have done. The problem is, I don’t want to do hospitality “slightly better than most people.” I want to do hospitality Jesus’ way. Really.

My friend Stephanie would call these scenarios I’ve run into lately – the woman in the Costco parking lot this summer, T.C., and the pregnant girl in B&N – divine appointments. Setups, basically, or God-given opportunities to act in Jesus’ stead. She’d also say that divine appointments are often meant to move us beyond where we are. To stretch our limits.

So I’m doing something a bit daring. I’m asking God to give me more divine appointments like these. I’m asking him to prepare me to do hospitality a little more like Jesus each time. I’m asking him to cancel out the things that interfere – the hurriedness, the self-preoccupation, and the fear. To move me beyond where I am. Because I’m tired of the way hindsight feels.

These are big asks. Uncomfortable asks. They’re probably going to cost me something. Most likely  time, maybe a little money, maybe some of my remaining optimism. But that’s okay.

I’m not sharing all of this to say to you, “Look at me, look at me. I want to be more like Jesus.” I’m not sharing it to make you feel called out or shamed or anything like that. I’m sharing it because I am that person who has turned away from the “least of these.” I am that person who isn’t living up to my Savior’s command to love my neighbor as myself. I am that person who needs grace coverage in the area of hospitality. I’m here outing myself. It’s a form of accountability, putting a piece of your inner ugliness out there for the world to see.

And so my only challenge to you is, can you ask yourself what God wants to do in your life right now? Whatever it is, are you open to it? Are you ready to ask for more of it?

Mercy & grace~

Harmony

Photo Credit: UDNP. License: Creative Commons 2.0 Non-commercial