Tenants & Outsiders

The landlord has been increasingly nasty. Forget about the early days when they were delaying the commencement of our tenure by not setting up telecommunication lines and utilities facilities. Forget about failing to keep the initial bargain of renting level one to us, and deliberately withholding the office space so as to once again dig deep into our pockets. They have now come up with bizarre techniques to “oppress their tenant” that one can only be "amazed" at such incredulity...

Just to name a few:
Not allowing food delivery so as to ensure that we will eat at their canteen;
Discrimination of our staff when we buy food from their canteen;
Not allowing the cab drivers to drive into the compound- and this is the freaking cold winter!
Not helping us call cabs – and we are such a distance off from the main road! :(

And this has led to Akihiro (my Japanese colleague) lamenting the other day “we are outsiders everywhere”… And that comment, together with his genuine forlornness when he said that struck a chord with me…

It made me think about how as man, we always want to be part of the “in crowd”, part of the community, to belong somewhere. Remember how it felt to be “left out”? A time when you were standing outside a group and looking in through a window, wondering how nice it would be to be inside?

And you know something, having been Christians for so long, we have almost forgotten the joy of simply belonging to His family, being part of the kingdom that we once were outsiders. It is not until we know the forlornness of being “outside” and “excluded”, will we experience the bursting joy of being accepted. And be once again arrested by the grace and love that was extended to us.

Ephesians 2: 11-13
Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

And to this, I call upon the need of acceptance and inclusitivity in all of our Christian communities. Have we somehow by our actions and private jokes, make anyone who has walked into our midst feel the invisible wall? i know i have... Have we made them outsiders in a place where they hope to find a home? consciously or subconsciously...

And might this be the reason behind the shortage of "new blood" in our ministry? Seeing only those who have been around and blind to the work God might be doing in and through the stranger in our family? Praying that we who have been accepted will too extend the same love in Christ to all.

“There are no strangers, there are no outcasts, there are no orphans of God” (Avalon)