John Ortberg has written a book called ‘I’d Like You More If You Were More Like Me’, a sentiment that is probably more true than we often care to admit…
We all feel safe loving people who are like us because we understand them. We make allowances for their flaws and faults because they are our own. Xenophilia means to love those who are, by definition, not exactly like us. We are called to love the outsiders, the rejects, the ones no one else cares about, because God loves them just as much as He loves us.
Jesus was once asked the piercing question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ (Luke 10:29), a question which prompted the parable of the Good Samaritan. In that parable, he showed us that our assumptions and prejudices can’t always be relied upon. The Samaritan, the one whom Jews despised, was actually the one who showed practical love to the man who’d been attacked by robbers. Being a good neighbour, Jesus revealed, was about showing mercy, about not passing by on the other side as the priest and Levite had done. We are called to be good neighbours to everyone, not only to those who ‘deserve’ our love and attention, but to those who do not. Grace, after all, is all about getting God’s favour when we deserve only judgment and wrath. Those who have received grace, God says, need to pass it on.
We serve God when we love other people, and we love other people not just with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.(1 Jn 3:18) Hospitality to those who are not like us – and yet who are people made in God’s image and therefore just like us – is one of the many ways we can love with actions and in truth.