April 5, 2009:

Ponderings of a Pilgrim PASTOR

“Principles For Liberal Christians:  Radical Hospitality”

(I thought this piece from a recent issue of “The Progressive Christian” was very moving.  I hope you do, too.   Pastor Dave)

“O Jesus, Thou art standing outside the fast-closed door,

In lowly patience waiting to pass the threshold o’er;

Shame on us, Christian family, his name and sign who bear,

O shame, thrice shame upon us, to keep him standing there!”

            “Someone’s knocking at the door.  Is it an illegal immigrant?  A drug addict?  A transgendered prostitute?  It is easy to romanticize the outcasts of Jesus’ day:  the despised Samaritan, the wanton woman at the well, the ubiquitous lepers.  Our outcasts are hard to glamorize.  We trip over them in the streets, dodge their curses, and pay for them with our taxes.  With the baffled crowd in Matthew 25, we plead, “Lord when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?”

            William Walsham How (1823-97), affectionately known throughout the slums of East London as “the poor man’s bishop,” penned this hymn after meditating on the verse, “Behold I stand at the door and knock.”  He saw some Christians locking the door and wrote, “shame, shame, shame.”  Is this why his hymn has lost favor?  (By the way, it is not in The New Century Hymnal.  Pastor Dave)

            Field slaves in the U.S. once sang, “Somebody’s knocking at your door.  Knocks like Jesus!  Somebody’s knocking at your door.”  Who’s knocking?  Better check the hands and feet.”

                                    — Pam McAllister