by Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
St. Luke 24:13-35
“You have to be a stranger yourself. There has to be an intentional marginality, an intentional experience that becomes part of our spiritual discipline. One can’t claim the role of host all the time; … it is a gift also to be willing to be guests and to share in people’s lives.”–Christine D. Pohl, Professor of Social Ethics at Asbury Theological Seminary
It’s been almost ten years since I preached my first sermon here at St. Stephen. It’s been almost ten years since I arrived here a stranger, and you welcomed me.
And I was a stranger. I’d never been to Texas except for a layover in Houston one time. I didn’t know where anything was in Fort Worth. Hospitals, homes, nursing homes, neighborhoods, nothing. I didn’t really know anything about the history and recent struggles of the church. I didn’t know any of you, and you didn’t know me.
Since then I’ve learned a lot. Some of it I learned by making mistakes, by making assumptions that maybe I was wiser than I actually was, or knew more than I actually did. And some of what I’ve learned I picked up because you were patient with me, and you were willing to show me the ropes.
Today we heard the Gospel story of the resurrected Jesus, who met two disciples on the road to Emmaus soon after His resurrection, but they didn’t know who He was, until He broke bread with them. Pretty cool, and perhaps that’s the way we sometimes imagine ourselves when we’re in the role of stranger in a new situation. Yeah, I’m secretly Jesus, but they just don’t know it yet. Look at how Jesus is teaching them all these things and opening up the scripture to them! And so we think that being the stranger means that we’re Christ, and everyone else’s job is to welcome us. And once they do, it’ll be revealed to them all just how right I am!
The other way we think of strangers is that it’s someone else who is the stranger. At Room in the Inn, for instance, where we welcome homeless men into our church once a week during the Winter and Summer—we’re welcoming strangers into our midst, right? And that is absolutely true. Furthermore, there’s no question that we are called to welcome strangers in the name of Christ.
But we are strangers to them, too. If you have taken a walk along East Lancaster, or visited the Presbyterian Night Shelter, you’ve picked that up pretty quick. You feel uncomfortable and unwelcome at first—and you should, because you’re a stranger. The homeless feel uncomfortable around us. We live in an entirely different world. We don’t understand their needs and struggles. They suspect we intend to judge them. They suspect we think we’re better than they are. If you think about it, it takes a lot of nerve for our homeless guests to come to St. Stephen the first time—to enter this building full of strangers.
Another way we deal with strangers: visitors to the church. Perhaps we make an effort to welcome them, perhaps not. We view this as our home, and they are the strangers coming to visit us, and we hope we’re good hosts, and often we are; but the point I’m making here is that being a stranger goes both ways. We are strangers to them. They don’t know us. They’ve entered our house, but they don’t know if this is a safe place or if we are safe people to be around. We are strangers to them, and we outnumber them, too.
There’s always risk when we interact with strangers. It takes a lot of boldness and nerve to meet new people. We know that well enough when we think of ourselves taking the risk of interacting with strangers. But it’s also good to be aware that to others WE are the strangers. We’re potentially dangerous. Another person is taking a huge risk just saying hello to us.
Jesus doesn’t just call us to welcome the stranger—Jesus calls us to be the stranger. And to be the stranger requires humility. It requires listening. It requires being sensitive to the natural fear others have of the stranger.
Being the stranger doesn’t mean that we’re the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, come with all the answers and others have to bow to wisdom and show us proper hospitality. It means we’re the humble Christ, willingly taking the form of a servant, willing to learn, willing to submit to others. The stranger enters the lives of others knowing that he or she doesn’t know anything about them, and has no right to judge. The stranger enters new situations and new environments without assumptions, willing to grow and learn. And the stranger knows that every environment is a new environment, every person is unknown territory. Strangers know they are guests in the lives of others, and respond with proper gratitude, grace and humility.
In fact, we’re strangers in a strange land, and always will be. We are strangers in the home of God. God has welcomed us and made us comfortable and at home in God’s world, even though by doing so God has taken some terrible risks, and we’ve often been bad guests. We do well to remember we’re strangers who’ve been welcomed into the home of God. Often it seems like we forget that, polluting God’s environment and waging war on the other guests God has invited into His home. But God is an extraordinarily gracious host, who understands that He is Himself a stranger to us, and His ways are hard for us to understand.
The best way to live in God’s world is as strangers—strangers who appreciate the enormous hospitality of our Divine Host, strangers who still have a lot to learn, strangers who have the humility to listen, learn, and grow; strangers who know that we should treat the other strangers in our lives with the same hospitality we’ve received from our heavenly host.