The love that God wants us to show towards all people is essentially practical (see 1 Jn 3:16-18). It involves practical help: offering food, clothing, and any other practical help that is needed. Loneliness is endemic in our country, even within the church, but God sets the lonely in families (Ps 68:6) and one of the ways we can show love is to open our homes and hearts to other people – something that our British culture often finds hard to do.
Practical love may mean a telephone call or a text to see how someone is… a visit to someone who is housebound… inviting someone to a meal… arranging a trip out. The early church worshipped together, prayed together and played together (Acts 2:42-47) and we need to be like that too. Rom 12:13 urges us to ‘share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practise hospitality.’ Peter urges us to offer hospitality without grumbling. (1 Pet 4:9) Xenophilia goes beyond this, however, for we need to love all people, not just those we like or who are like us!
Xenophilia means we are not satisfied with loving those who love us; we want to love the people God loves – and He loves everyone. That is not comfortable. It is not safe. There is risk involved in loving people who may not speak our language, who may not share our values and morals, who are not like us. It’s scary. We can’t predict the outcomes. Most of us prefer safety and comfort. We don’t really like risk in our lives.
But we owe our salvation to a God who took risks. God sent His only Son to seek and to save the lost. He faced rejection, insults, misunderstanding and betrayal in order to save us, and so we cannot hide behind our middle-class niceness and assume that that is enough. God is calling us to a radical love. To reach out to our community means reaching out to people who are not like us in many ways, but who need to see God’s love through us. How else will they know that God loves them unless we show them? Who else will go?
Jesus was known as the ‘friend of sinners’ (Luke 7:34). He was criticised because he ate and drank with prostitutes and tax collectors, the lowest of the low as far as the Pharisees were concerned. (Matt 11:19) The religious people had a real problem with Jesus because He didn’t conform to their stereotypes of what a religious teacher ought to be like. But the people, ordinary people, loved Him because they knew He cared for them. We have to be careful not to become religious and respectable. Our love needs to be practical and needs to reach out to all. We need to love all people with God’s love.