"What's This Neighborhood Coming To?"
#92-20Presented on The Lutheran Hour on January 12, 2025
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: John 1:14
The first thing was to take off our shoes. This is very important. My wife had instructed me, "Where they're from, you never bring your shoes inside." After they greet us at the door and invite us in, we see the big red tablecloth spread out, set for a feast. It was right there in the middle of the room, where an American family might have a couch and some chairs and a big screen TV mounted on the wall. Right there in the middle of the room, where there would have been a coffee table and some recliners, this red tablecloth. And along the centerline of the tablecloth, there are three large plates with fresh apples, bananas, oranges and grapes. Around the edges, there are salad plates and some smaller dishes with sauces and dressings—plus trays of warm bread and piping hot rice and some empty plates waiting to be filled with courses yet to come.
Dawood invited us to be seated. We were the guests of honor at this feast. And all the preparations for it were spread out on that enormous red tablecloth. But there's no table. It's just the cloth spread out on the floor.
Dawood is a refugee from Afghanistan. He served as a soldier in the Afghan Army. He worked with the U.S. Military to stabilize the country in the 2010s. But in 2021, the Taliban toppled the U.S.-backed constitutional government, and Dawood had to flee. He came to the U.S. with his wife and their nine children—four boys and five girls. Now they live in a brick duplex two miles from our house.
My wife, Amy, got to know them because she works with a ministry called Christian Friends of New Americans. Dawood's family are some of the new Americans that she has befriended, and in return they have befriended her, and they invited us over that Monday night for dinner—served from the floor. Dawood must have seen me scoping out the seating arrangement and noticed the look on my face that said something like, "We're eating on the floor?!"
"In America you use table, yes?" he said.
"Yes," I said.
"In my country, we sit," he said, gesturing toward the floor.
Now, the last time someone had asked me to sit on the floor before a nice dinner was Christmas of 2007. We were visiting my parents and were all dressed up for Christmas. My wife, Amy, wanted a family picture in front of the Christmas tree. She wanted the presents to be in the picture. So she said we needed to sit. Our two children, who were four and three at the time, obeyed promptly, happily plopped on the floor. I, however, kind of threw a fit. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something like "In America, men do not sit on the floor. Children sit on the floor. I sit in a chair, or stand, dignified." I elaborated my argument, skillfully, for the next 20 minutes, deflecting all her counterpoints with impenetrable logic, letting everyone in the house know exactly why I refused to stoop to such a demeaning request.
"Are you finished?" Amy asked.
"Yes," I said, then sat on the floor with the kids and faked a smile for the camera. Sure, I lost the battle, but I won the war because no one in my family has asked me to sit on the floor since. But Dawood says, "In my country, we sit."
If you had asked me in 2007, having served in a military that would be defined by 20 years of combat operations in Afghanistan, if I could imagine a future in which I would be in America, on a Monday night, two miles from my home, in the home of an Afghan family having dinner with them, on the floor, I would have said that's "crazy talk." But a lot can change when someone new moves into the neighborhood.
There's a paraphrase from the Bible that I don't think I every really appreciated until now. It's a loose translation from the Gospel of John 1:14. It says, "The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood." It's from The Message version of the Bible by Eugene Peterson. Elsewhere, Peterson explains how he arrived at this translation. It goes back to a memory from his boyhood, growing up in a small town in Montana. One day a truck appeared, parked outside the big house on his street. "It was a North American Van Lines vehicle," he said, "majestic in its red, white, and blue logo, a huge truck half a block long. It dominated the street, bringing with it an aura of expectancy, the promise of new life in the neighborhood."i
Eugene remembers watching the movers unload the truck—the immense plate glass mirror, the expensive-looking furniture, snow skis, a motorcycle. "We had hit the jackpot," he thought, "These people ... simply by moving into the neighborhood, were already transforming our lives. We would never be bored again. We would never be ordinary again."ii
The new family did transform the neighborhood, but not in the way that he had hoped. Turns out, they were a wealthy family from out East. They'd moved to Montana because the dad had gotten reassigned with his corporation. But it was clear from day one that none of them were all that happy about it. The dad never spoke to anyone in the neighborhood. The mom rarely left the house. And the teenage kids called Eugene and his friends "hicks" and never hesitated to belittle, demean, and remind them how much better things were where they used to live.
Contrast Eugene's experience with those words from the Gospel of John. The Word of God, the Son of God, The Second Person of the Holy Trinity became a flesh and blood human being and moved into the neighborhood. The first words we hear Jesus speak in John's Gospel are not demeaning or belittling—but inviting. Jesus sees some of His new neighbors out on the street, following Him. They're wondering who He is and what He's about. He says to them, "What are you seeking?"
They say, "Rabbi (which means teacher)—where are You staying?"
He says, "Come and see."
And they went with Him to His house—or to His tent, rather, and spent the day with Him. It was around four o'clock in the afternoon, John tells us.
One afternoon on a Saturday a few weeks ago, my wife and I were running some errands. We stopped at the Afghani market about a mile from our home (they have the best flat bread). As we were leaving, we run into Dawood. "Miss Amy! Miss Amy!" he greets my wife. She returned his greeting and says, "Dawood, this is my husband, Michael." Underneath his bushy brows, his eyes glimmer as he greets me, shaking my hand and saying, "You must come. You must come and be my guests."
"Okay, sure, thank you. That would be nice. Well, nice to meet you. We've got to get going," I said, turning my attention back to my list. It was a big list, you know, important—many unchecked boxes. And it was already four o'clock.
So why does the eternal Son of God move into our neighborhood, shop at the local market, run into random neighbors at four o'clock on a Saturday? Why does the all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing Word of God stoop down so low to become a tent-dweller, who has to eat and gets sore joints from sitting on the ground? Why? Because we needed Him. You and I need Him. You might not think to name the need as such, but you've felt it, inside you. A spiritual, relational hunger that's never quite satisfied, but always seeking, always searching. What you are seeking—whom you are seeking, is Jesus. He is the creative Genius behind your existence. He's the fulfillment of your deepest longings. He's the adventure in every journey, the "a-ha!" in the new discovery, the reward in the challenge, the warmth in a conversation, the glimmer in a greeting from a friendly neighbor—it's Him, all Him—from Him and through Him and for Him. You were made for Him. You can't live without Him. Somewhere along the way, you and I became refugees, exiles, wanderers. We bought into the lie that we could be self-made authors of our self-chosen to-do lists. Jesus moved into the neighborhood to save us from that lie. To save you, to meet you, shake your hand, look you in the eye, and say, "You must come. You all must come and be My guests."
The next Saturday, a week after we had seen Dawood in the Afghan market, I was at our local American grocery store. But this time, Amy wasn't with me. Just then, I turn and see Dawood, walking into the store just ahead of me. His two teenage daughters were with him, covered from head to toe in dark-colored dresses, shawls, and veils. I almost said hello. But the three of them looked so foreign, so out of place in that moment. We were getting groceries at the same store, but it felt like there were 10,000 miles between us, and just talking to them would probably cause a scene. I thought, if Amy were here, she would talk to them. And they would answer, communicating in broken and at times undecipherable English, and she, mostly by sheer enthusiasm, she would have talked to them. And the four of them would have stood there right outside the door, talking, making a scene for a good ten minutes. But Amy wasn't here. And I had my list, many important things to do. So I tried not to make eye contact and avoided them in the aisles. It occurs to me now that Dawood and his daughters were there buying food for the feast that was scheduled for the following Monday.
When someone new moves into your neighborhood the only thing that's certain is that things will be different. You might feel that it's for the better or for the worse. But it will never be what it was before. When the Son of God became a foreign-looking, Middle Eastern neighbor, many people did not think it was for the better. And they hoped that He would just relocate somewhere else. But He kept showing up, disrupting their tasks, conversing with all the wrong people, ruining the neighborhood. There was no way to avoid Him. Things will never be the same again, because you're either for Him or against Him. Those who were against Him voted to have Him permanently relocated: crucified. Those who were ambivalent just tried not to make eye contact with the dying Man making a scene, so they could get back to their grocery lists. But He—He was preparing a feast.
Feasting at Dawood's house that night, trying to relieve my sore joints, awkwardly shifting from my knee, to the side, then back the to the knee again, I wondered, "Why don't they use a table?" I did notice that it puts you closer to your fellow diners, without the personal bubble of your own chair and place setting. And once we all relaxed a bit, it became something like a game of Twister®—arms and legs entangled, passing plates of rice and sauce, flat bread and chicken, and bottles of Coke® from the grocery store down the street.
But a deeper answer as to "why no table?" emerged when Dawood pulled out his phone and showed me photos from back home: picture after picture of feasts that made this one look small. Instead of a 6x6 red tablecloth on the floor in the front room, he showed images of long red runners that stretched to the horizon, peopled on both sides, seated outside on the ground of the Afghani countryside, under a canopy that seemed to go forever, because when you're not limited by the size of your table, you can invite everyone.
"This is my family," Dawood said, leaning over the tablecloth, handing me his phone. I study the image more carefully.
"Dawood?" I asked, "Those green bottles along the cloth—is—is that Mountain Dew®?"
"Yes! Yes!" he said, "You know Moun-Tan Dew?"
"Yeah!" I said. "I do the Dew."
In John's biography of Jesus, he tells us that a large crowd followed Jesus up the mountain one day because they thought He could give them what they were seeking. Mostly, what they wanted was a sugar high. But He wanted more for them. He said, "Do not work for the food that spoils, but work for the food that endures to eternal life."
So, they said to Him, "What must we do to be doing the works of God?"
Jesus answered, "This is the work of God ... to trust in the One whom He has sent."
They say, "What sign will You give us, that we may see, and put our trust in You? Moses gave our fathers bread in the wilderness, as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
Jesus says, "It was not Moses who gave you this bread from heaven but My Father (who) gives the true bread from heaven, because the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives His life to the world.
They say, "Sir, give us this bread, always."
He says, "I am the Bread of Life, whoever comes to Me will never be hungry, whoever trusts in Me will never be thirsty. But I have spoken to you, and you have seen Me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me, I will never drive away, because I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day. Because this is My Father's will, that everyone who looks to the Son and trusts in Him would have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." And He just goes on like that, inviting everyone to the feast. Even when they kill Him, He comes back from death to tell them that they must come and be His guest. All must come, because His canopy is eternity and the tablecloth is the whole creation, and there is room for everyone.
The crowd that day seeking Jesus didn't know what they were looking for. But you have to start somewhere, right? So, Jesus fed them an ordinary dinner and He had them sit on the ground to share it. The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. But where do you find Him, today? Didn't He rise from the dead and return to heaven—isn't that where we'd find Him? Yes. And remember that one day He will come from there to find you when He returns to judge the living and the dead, and those who trust Him will rise to the resurrection of life, and those who don't, to the resurrection of judgment. And then everyone who knows Him will find Him everywhere in all creation because the dwelling place of God will be with us.
Until then, Jesus promises that you will find Him wherever two or three of His followers are gathered in His Name. And He's given a meal to sustain this gathering: simple bread and wine, which He says is His body and blood. That's where you'll find Him. In the local church. Go and see. And if you've never been, or haven't been in a while, it might be a little awkward at first. And some of the customs might even feel demeaning. They probably won't have you take off your shoes and sit the floor, but kneel, maybe, and confess and listen and sing and pray. And if you're doubly blessed, your local church might even have potlucks. And once you all relax a bit, a picture will begin to emerge of the feast to come, when Jesus gathers everything in His arms, and happily, humbly offers Himself as host.
After dinner that Monday night, when we were all stuffed and sipping green tea, it started to rain. Dawood, our host, got up and opened the front door. I wondered where he was going. He stepped outside in the rain, no coat, in his bare feet, and about a minute later he comes back in, and there gathered in his arms, were all our shoes. At the end of the night, when Dawood's English was exhausted, his ten-year-old daughter translated for him. She said to us, speaking for him, "If you are full and happy, that is our greatest happiness. And you must come again."
I pray for Dawood and his family. I thank God for sending them into the neighborhood to teach me so much about Jesus. And I pray that they will meet Jesus in us, their Christian friends. I pray that they will come to know Him in the bread and wine in the fellowship of a local Christian church.
But with the language difference and their religious background, that sounds like crazy talk. And I have no clue how Jesus could ever make it happen. But I suppose you have to start somewhere. Maybe we should invite them for dinner at our house? But I think we'll do it American-style and use a table, and also serve some of that flat bread from the Afghan market. And definitely Mountain Dew.
In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
i Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2005), 104.
ii Ibid., 105.
Reflections for January 12, 2025
Title: What's This Neighborhood Coming To?
No reflection segment this week.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright" arr. Donald Busarow. From Hymns for All Saints: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany (© 2005 Concordia Publishing House)
"Let All Together Praise Our God" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
