February 11, 2007
(Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany)

Receiving a Stranger

by The Rev. Carol Sanford, Curate

Jeremiah 17:5-10  •  Psalm 1  •  1 Corinthians 15:12-20  •  Luke 6:17-26
(From The Lectionary Page)

Buenos Dias! I’ve been away for a few weeks, first at the women’s retreat and, most recently, in Mexico. It says a lot for the cathedral community that it has been a joy to return, even though Grady and I experienced an eighty degree drop in temperature when we arrived back in Kansas City.

We literally walked off of a sunny beach and onto a bus, then stepped on our Missouri-bound plane with sand still in our shoes. It was a frigid reentry into the Midwest.

Much of our time in Mexico was spent at a gathering within a resort compound where English was spoken by everyone and the food was adjusted to travelers’ tastes. Between us, Grady and I speak just a few sentences of high school Spanish, so we had to rely upon the openness of strangers to assist us when we ventured into the nearby towns of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo.

There, we walked though streets filled with signs that we could not read and gazed hungrily at cafes where we were not sure if it would be safe for our northern stomachs to eat. I felt embarrassed in the markets. I was uncertain of how to ask for prices and wondered if bargaining were expected or if it would be considered rude. Most of the time, I said nothing.

We, who are so accustomed to living in a culture adjusted to people like we are, were strangers there. In Zihuatanejo, we were the ones who were out of place. We were the ones who looked peculiar and who couldn’t find our way around. We were the ones dependent on others who might or might not welcome or assist us.

Our Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, recently wrote a reflection for the people of the Episcopal Church. In looking ahead to the gathering of Anglican primates from around the world that begins next week in Tanzania, Presiding Bishop Katherine comments that, “We cannot easily be partners with strangers.” She reminds us that Jesus called us friends, and she directs us to reflect on “Christ in the stranger’s guise,” and to focus especially upon those who are forgotten.

Because I grew up white and educated and heterosexual and in this part of the country, I seldom feel marginalized in Kansas City. Even given some issues around being female, my place in society has been so generally secure that I seldom consider that I am the stranger.

I wonder, though, what the citizens of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo thought of yet another pair of U.S. tourists flip-flopping along their streets. We were so grateful to be treated with kindness and generosity by the woman on the bus who told us in hand gestures where to stop for the shopping district, and by the man at the corner who enunciated slowly and used simple grammar so that we could catch the correct transport to town. How easy it would have been for them to ignore or to be impatient with such clumsy strangers.

The pleasurable disorientation of being out of the country on vacation is only a distorted reflection of the real uprootedness and alienation experienced by those who are truly on the margins of our world. What are we to do in the sight of the stranger when faced with words such as, Woe to you who are rich…woe to you who are full…woe to you who are laughing?

Our psalm for today offers a simple formula that is repeated in various words and stories throughout the Bible: Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked…their delight is in the law of the Lord.

What would the council of the wicked be regarding the stranger? I think it might be to be very afraid; to concentrate on difference as a fearful and shameful thing. I think the wicked way might be to criticize the differences we have and to ignore our common bonds. One way to preserve a false sense of safety and righteousness is to presume that our way is really the one, correct way, and to measure everything by that standard.

On a small scale, this might mean that we think food that we did not grow up with is disgusting. On the larger scale, we might deride someone else’s sense of the sacred or belittle their history. What we so often forget when entertaining ourselves by looking askance at others, is that each of us is someone else’s stranger.

Our delight is to be in the law of the Lord; the law of love, acceptance and generosity. Love does not demand that we like everyone or suddenly develop a taste for surprising foods, or that we all go to live beneath the bridges with our homeless brethren. Love does not demand that we share political opinions or agree even on matters in the church. Love does demand, however, that we understand the stranger to be human; to have the same feelings and needs that we do; to be frightened sometimes and lonely, to desire love and freedom and peace.
I think it is more challenging these days when we are bombarded with images, tastes and events from all over the world. Our minds and hearts must stretch wider than ever before to embrace the world around us, for we see more and more of it all the time.

So here is what is true for me: I can’t do it. I simply cannot take in all the information and all that is new and all that challenges me to change my life and my perspective. Fortunately, I don’t have to. God’s embrace has already done so.

There is a familiar illustration handed down to us from ages past. The image is like a large wagon wheel with spokes radiating out from the center. God is the hub of the wheel and humankind is arrayed around the rim. As we each move, through worship, study, prayer and sacrament, along the spokes toward God, we automatically come closer to one another; as we come closer to one another, through means such as hospitality, fellowship and service, we travel farther along the paths that lead into God.

I like this image because it reminds us that we are never truly separate from God and each other. The nearer we are to one another, the closer we come to God.

Today, the stranger may appear as the person on the newscast beamed out from a foreign country, or maybe the stranger is the annoying presence in front of us in the Starbuck’s line. Perhaps the stranger is panhandling outside the restaurant we’re headed into for lunch after church, or the stranger may even be an individual who shares our own home. Sometimes, we are strangers to ourselves.

Christ appears among us in the guise of the stranger.

Our Presiding Bishop asks us to remember that the Anglican Communion exists to further God’s mission of healing our world. Long ago, gods were thought to live on the mountain heights. Jesus came down from the heights and stood on a level place and spoke with his friends. The power that flowed out from Jesus to heal the multitudes has not disappeared from our reach.

Yesterday’s celebration here of the feast of Absalom Jones, first African American priest, was one Grace-filled example of individuals and groups determined to move beyond alienation and to come together in friendship in the love of God in Christ. Today, we can each reach out to a stranger as a friend, and when we do, we stand with Christ, and move ever closer into the heart of God.

Vaya con Dios.