Again, you can preview the first two minutes of the film. The Work of the People is supported by a subscription-based model, so if you'd like to access the whole film, along with every other film at the site, it's only $7 a month for a personal subscription, which you can cancel anytime.
Today's film is entitled "Finding Your Hobab."
In this film, Travis and I discuss themes from my book Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise.
The point I make in the two minute preview of the film concerns the way hospitality flips our expectations about divine encounter. Churches regularly use words like "service," "mission," and "evangelism." In encounters framed by these words, Christ is always identified with Us over against Them. We "bring Christ" to others. We are always acting as "the hands and feet of Jesus" in service to our neighbors.
Hospitality reverses all this. God comes to Us in Them. Christ is the stranger we welcome. We don't always do the saving. Sometimes others save us.
The title of the film--"Finding Your Hobab"--comes from a story told in Numbers 10.
For years, in working with churches about practices of hospitality, I've started by asking them to share Scriptural examples of God coming as a stranger or in disguise. Passages like Genesis 18, Matthew 25, and Luke 24 are regularly shared. But once I was surprised when someone said, "There's the example of Hobab."
If you are like me when I first heard this example and don't know who Hobab is, here's the story from Numbers. The Israelites are about to head out from Mount Sinai toward the Promised Land. But they have to cross the desert. It will be a treacherous journey, looking for water and places to camp in this wasteland. And no one among the Israelites knows the desert well enough to make the crossing. They could all die.
Facing this risk, Moses approaches his brother-in-law Hobab. Hobab is not a Hebrew, he's a Midianite. But Hobab knows the way. So Moses makes him an offer: “We are setting out for the place about which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.” Hobab demurs, but Moses insists. The Israelites need this Midianite. As Moses says, "Please do not leave us. You know where we should camp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes." And so, Hobab becomes their guide.
This story has become precious to me. There is a deep and profound image here. The Israelites cannot make it to the Promised Land unless a Midianite guides them. And Midianites, let's recall, are among the sworn enemies of Israel.
Ponder the shock of this story. We cannot make it to the Promised Land unless the stranger guides us. That is what I mean when I tell churches to "find their Hobab." Stop sitting around your conference tables making plans about how you're going to save the world. You have no idea how to save the world. Stop standing at a distance discerning how to be the hands and feet of Jesus to your neighbors. You have no idea what your neighbors need or want. Instead, find your Hobab. You need a guide. Create friendships so that your neighbors can lead you. For you do not know the way. As a church, admit that don't know how to make it, all on your own, to the Promised Land. Like Moses, find the stranger who will serve as eyes for you and who knows where to camp.
Churches, find your Hobab. Let the stranger lead you the Promised Land.
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