On The Kindness of Strangers--July 10, 2025

On The Kindness of Strangers--July 10, 2025

[Jesus told the seventy:] "Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you...." (Luke 10:5-8)

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," Blanche DuBois famously says in the classic line from A Streetcar Named Desire.  Of course, in the play, she's not necessarily held up as a role model, and her sentiment isn't exactly meant to be taken as the moral of the story.  There is something reckless, something risky, maybe even scandalous, about living one's life dependent on the hope that someone will show up on the scene to provide for your needs.  Every time you and I drive past someone standing at a street corner with a cardboard sign asking for help, we give ourselves a lesson on just how difficult it can be to live your life relying on "the kindness of strangers."  When we are the strangers on whom someone else depends, we have a way of being remarkably unkind, or at least indifferent, sometimes.  We are the evidence, sadly, that it can be a precarious thing indeed to depend upon the kindness of strangers.

And yet, that is precisely what Jesus calls these seventy disciples to do as he sends them out to introduce his movement and message to the towns and villages of Galilee.  They are sent in utter dependence, learning how to be good guests and how to share the lives of the people they encounter, from the living space of those who host them to the food that is set before them. Now, that might well make these traveling missionaries uncomfortable--after all, it can be hard to learn to try new foods and to be grateful even if you don't particularly care for the dish they have prepared, or to sleep on whatever pull-out sofa or futon (or the first-century equivalents) they have available. And beyond that, it can feel awkward to be in someone else's social debt by being their guest--there is always the fear you are imposing, or worrying whether you are putting your hosts to too much trouble, or adapting to the time they like to eat supper or when they go to bed.  But part of how you earn the right to be heard when you have a message to share is to break bread together, to share ordinary life together, and to learn to listen to the people you would also like to have listen to you.  Part of how you gain the credibility for someone to hear what you have to say is that you have first invested the time to hear people where they are, to accept them as they are, and to honor the good gifts they have to offer. After all, you're much less likely to believe the sales-pitch of a traveling peddler at your door or the paid announcer on a TV informercial, but if your good friend who has shared many a cup of coffee at your kitchen table with you tells you about some great new book, you're more likely to take their recommendation.

What Jesus calls these traveling disciples to do, then, is to take the risk of getting to know people on their own terms--to share their lives, to break the same bread, and to see the world from the vantage point of their front door--before they start telling others about how great Jesus is or announcing the that Kingdom of God has come near.  That means they will have to slow down enough to get to know the places and people they are visiting, and they will have to come to care for the people in each town rather than just seeing them as statistics of new members for their club or new streams of income for their venture.  All too often in our day, so-called church grown "experts" focus on numbers rather than faces, on how many interchangeable people in crowds show up in interchangeable amphitheater-style worship spaces, and focus only on Sunday attendance, livestream views, or follows on social media--none of which require you to get to know people where they are, as they are.  Jesus, on the other hand, begins with a model in which we take the take to get to know one another, to care about the stakes of each other's lives, and only then once trust is earned, to talk about the itinerant rabbi we follow.

In fact, maybe once we are guests at someone else's table or welcomed into someone else's life, we come to see that they are the face of Christ for us, as much as we were sent to be the face of Christ for them.  Maybe the people who extend hospitality to us have been sent by God into our lives, just as truly as we have been sent by God to share the news and love of Jesus.  At the very least, by meeting people where they are, sharing a table with people as they are, and listening to their stories over food and drink as Jesus instructs, we are less likely to come off as condescending religious know-it-alls who blow into town, make a quick buck, and catch the midnight train to the next place.  

Maybe the takeaway for us as disciples today, then, is that the best way to share our faith in Jesus with others is to listen to the same ones we want to introduce to Jesus. Maybe the way to convince people that Jesus cares about their lives... is for us to actually care about their lives.  And maybe the way to show someone that God's love is for them, just as they are, is for us to love them, too, just as they are.

What would it look like for us to do that today?  Where would we go? Who would we meet?  What sort of adventure might be in store if we dared to depend on the kindness of strangers as our way of introducing people to the Kingdom of God?

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to listen, to meet people where they are, and to trust that you will provide hospitality as we bring your love to the world.