They Joined And I Never Made Them Belong

This one is written to the person in the comfortable seat, which is you.

You were born into this. You know where the plates are in a house you do not live in. You know which stories are told and who tells them and what the ending is, and you have never once, in your whole life, walked into a family room and not known what to do with your hands.

And somebody joined. Years ago. And they have been perfectly all right, and nobody has been unkind, and everything has been fine.

And here is the question, and it is uncomfortable and it is the point of this article. What have you actually done?

Not: have you been welcoming. Everybody has been welcoming. What have you done, specifically, that made that person a member of this family rather than a well treated guest in it?

The comfortable seat

Let me name the position, because it is genuinely not your fault and it is genuinely yours to use.

Nothing was done to get that seat. It came by birth, which is a thing nobody chooses, and it arrived with a set of advantages that are invisible from the inside and completely visible from the door.

You know the shorthand. You know what a particular tone from your aunt means. You know that the story about the car is not really about the car.

And a person who joined has none of that, and no way to get it except by being handed it, one piece at a time, by somebody on the inside who decides to.

You are holding something you did not earn and can hand over, and no advantage of birth has ever once been given to somebody in order to be kept. Leviticus 19:34 says the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, which is the written word setting the standard as equal footing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an insider generous with a thing he never paid for.

And they are a whole person, whoever married in. They have been managing this for years, competently, and they have their own account of your family that nobody has ever asked for.

They are right about at least one thing nobody in that family has conceded. And they will never once raise any of it, because raising it would be the single most awkward conversation available.

You are able to hand over what you were born holding, and years of good manners has never once been the same as having given anybody anything. The Spirit of God is what makes an insider see a doorway, and it is written in Leviticus 19 that the stranger is to be as one born among you.

As one born among you

But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34, King James Version)

That is one of the most demanding sentences in the law and the demand is in four words.

As one born among you. Not: treat him decently. Not: make him welcome, which is a thing a host does for a guest and which preserves the difference. As one born among you, which abolishes the category entirely.

There is no version of that instruction where somebody remains a well treated visitor.

You are being given a standard that removes the distinction rather than softening it, and no courtesy has ever once been able to do what equal footing does. It is written in Leviticus 19:34 that the stranger shall be unto you as one born among you, which is the written word abolishing the category, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that ordinary at a family table rather than heroic.

And the reason attached is the same one God keeps using. For ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Which does not apply to you. You were never at the door of this family. So the argument from memory is not available, and what is left is the plainer half: I am the LORD your God.

You are under an instruction that does not depend on your having been outside, and no person born into comfort has ever once been excused from that sentence. The Spirit of God is the one who makes it binding without a memory to lean on, and Leviticus 19 ends the whole verse by naming who is giving the command.

What actually to do

Here is the practical part, and it is three specific things and none of them is a conversation.

The first is information. Tell them one piece of family knowledge that has always sat on the inside. Not a secret. The kind of ordinary context everybody in that family absorbed at nine and nobody has ever thought to say out loud.

You are able to hand over one piece of what you were born knowing, and one sentence of context has never once been a small thing to somebody who has been working it out alone. The Holy Spirit is the one who prompts the sentence at the right moment, and it is written that the stranger shall be as one born among you.

The second is work. Ask them to do something rather than offering them a seat. It is the oldest signal a family gives and everybody who has ever married into one can read it.

And the third is the question, which is the assignment. Ask them something real about themselves, and listen to the whole answer, and ask a second question about it.

Not about your family. Not about how they are finding things. About them, as a person with a life that started before any of this and continues outside it.

You are able to be interested in somebody after all these years, and one real question has never once needed an apology for the years before it. The Spirit of God is what turns a member of the family into somebody known in it, and Leviticus 19:34 sets the standard at born among you and nowhere lower.