Soon my family will be moving to a new town. Recently, I found myself looking around the neighborhood and thinking of all the things (and people) I don’t think I’ll miss. That’s not exactly a very Christ-like attitude, is it? But in a time when our country and world are divided along political, racial, and cultural lines, I don’t think I’m the only one struggling to keep an open heart.
When I was a child, my family’s congregation encouraged us to go door-to-door to invite neighbors to church. As my father and I handed out vacation Bible school flyers, one neighbor invited us to pray with him. Maybe times have changed, but have they really changed so much that I couldn’t bring myself to knock on the door of the house across the street and say, “Hello”?
Do you know people of faith who knock on those literal and metaphorical doors–people who make the prayer, “Open our hearts to those you have placed in our midst,” a part of their life’s work?
Jesus would never shy away from knocking on a door. It’s not easy. But as Christians, we’re not called to walk the easy road.
This message is an excerpt from “Welcome: Let’s be honest” by Sarah Carson in the May 2021 issue of Gather magazine. Today we remember Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, martyr, who died around 258.
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