The Idolatry of Security or Broken Open

Mary Chase-Ziolek 

October 2007

 

Carefully, methodically, I prepared myself to go to Africa

            Clothes that would keep me cool and protect me from the sun

                        An LED headlamp that would protect me from the dangers of the dark

                                    Immunizations that would keep me disease free

                                                Medications that would comfort my body should I become ill

                                                            Shoes that would protect my feet from blisters

                                                                        Walking and exercising to get in shape

I was well prepared to protect my body

 

All of my preparations for protection were an attempt to create barriers to keep danger at a distance

and yet, walling myself off from danger, was in itself a danger -

a danger that I would protect myself so much that I would miss what God wanted to

give me in this foreign and unfamiliar place

 

As prepared as I was to protect my body, I was totally unprepared for the extravagant hospitality of our hostess Misee

Hospitality so freely, joyously and generously given by this woman with few material resources

and a very large family

                        this woman who milked the cows in the field every day

who lived in an immaculate mud brick hut with a dirt floor

                        who brought water from the well for me to bathe

who wove grass mats for our latrine to accommodate our

foreign need for privacy

 

Nothing could prepare me for such lavish, unexpected hospitality

Christ could not have been more welcoming

 

Hebrews 13:2 says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have

entertained angels without knowing it. “

I wonder if it could be turned around to say,

“Do not neglect to receive hospitality from strangers, for by so doing some have

been ministered to by angels without knowing it.”

 

I tried to protect myself, yet my soul was broken open

by the gracious reception of this humble Muslim woman and her frequent blessings

through whom God worked to receive me - an unknown stranger who must have looked

odd to my Fulani hostess with all of my protective gear

                                   

                        God took my anxious human attempts at protection and turned me inside out

                                    breaking me open to receive that for which I did not know to ask -

the profound experience of being a stranger in a strange land

where I was welcomed as a long lost sister