From Strangers To Friends
I am an introvert at heart. For some of you this may be a shock, others of you may instantly be nodding your head in agreement. As much as I love people, starting conversations and interacting with people isn’t the easiest thing to do. It’s taken a lot of personal growth and challenge. I’m by no means the best at first impressions, let’s just say my track record isn’t the best.
When I was back in college my buddy Jason decided during our 2nd year that he was gonna find me a girlfriend. Now when Jason set his mind to something, he was gonna see it through! Jason’s girlfriend at the time was just beginning her 1st year at KCU with us, and he enlisted her help by meeting other 1st year girls to see who might be a good match for Jon.
After meeting a few of the girls there was one who stood out and I was pretty interested in. Now I don’t have the best game with the ladies, never have. I’m rather slow and shy when it came to meeting a cute girl. Jason had other plans. Within the first few weeks, somehow, we ended up on a secretly planned double date. Jason and his girlfriend tricked and got the four of us to the lake for a ‘group hangout.’ Yet, the group was only us four to the other girl and my surprise. We were set up…
Not long into being at the lake Jason and his girlfriend went off by themselves and left me alone with this girl I found cute, but had only met a handful of times. So I sit near her, start up conversation, and little to think I’m doing a better decent job, until… *gross warning* Until I had to pause the conversation with this girl, walk away as far as I could get (maybe 10 feet), and throw up.
Told you I wasn’t good at these things.
Yup, I threw up right in front of this girl. The mixture of anxiousness, greasy dinner, and hot humid Kentucky weather isn’t a good combination. So no. No relationship formed that night or anytime soon.
I’m not good at first impressions. My wife, Hannah, still makes fun of me to this day for throwing up in front of her the first time we hangout. Somehow after a long six to seven months that girl ended up saying yes to me and is now my wife!
If it doesn’t go right the first, don’t give up right? The amount of grace my wife has is incredible!
As I told this story maybe you thought of a time when you messed up or embarrassed yourself in front of a stranger. Maybe you split your coffee on yourself, stumbled over your words, forgot their name, tripped over your feet, hopefully you didn’t throw up…
Meeting new people can be a challenge. Maybe you fear the results, worry about embarrassing yourself, you don’t know what to say, don’t want to do something wrong. We often overcomplicate connecting with our neighbors, coworkers, baristas, servers, those at our gym, the other parents at our kids sporting game. We give up at the first sign of fear, worry, self doubt, anxiety, embarrassment. Our culture is increasingly isolated, polarizing, and divided. So much so that it is easier to avoid strangers to just keep your head down and talk to those you already know.
When we do this we limit of capacity to see God’s family grow. We never even give the opportunity to meet someone new or find our who lives in the house next door. Why is it so hard for us to connect with the stranger who are in proximity to us?
Let’s read Luke 10:25-37 together real quick.
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
We start of this story with a lawyer, who approaches Jesus. He is asking a rather pointed question: What do I need to do to know I belong to God’s people? What external things do I need to be doing to make sure I am on the right track? What does it look like to follow you?
When he get to the point of asking, “Who is my neighbor?” he is more or less wanting to know how can I identify those who belong to God’s family? “The Jews interpreted “neighbor” in terms of members of the same people or religious community, that is, fellow Jews. Even within the Jewish people there was a tendency to exclude certain others from the sphere of neighbor… Hence the lawyer’s question was basically, “Who belongs to the category of God’s people?”1
Jesus responds to this question with the story of the Good Samaritan and he concludes with the question, “Who proved to be a neighbor?” “Jesus’ telling question at the end isn’t asking who the Samaritan regarded as his neighbor. He asked, instead, who turned out to be the neighbor of the half-dead Jew lying in the road.”2
The question Jesus was asking the lawyer was: Can you recognize the hated Samaritan as your neighbor?
“What is at stake, then and now, is the question of whether we will use the God-given revelation of love and grace as a way of boosting our own sense of isolated security and purity, or whether we will see it as a call and challenge to extend that love and grace to the whole world. No church, no Christian, can remain content with easy definitions which allow us to watch most of the world lying half-dead in the road.”3
Jesus himself is on the road to Jerusalem. Along his way he intentionally passes through Samaria, rather than avoiding the land as every other Jew did in that time. Rather than avoid it at all costs, Jesus was bringing about a way of living and showing God’s grace, urgently offering a way of peace.
“Jesus said the most important thing we can do is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves… This simple plan also offers us a different kind of life. It’s a way of living that makes sense and brings peace to people’s souls. Whenever we center our lives around the Great Commandment and take very literally the idea and practice of loving our neighbor, there’s great freedom, peace, and depth of relationship that come to our lives. By becoming good neighbors, we become who we’re supposed to be. As a result, our communities become the places that God intended them to be.”4
To love God means to love our neighbors. If we are being formed by Jesus and truly have encountered his love, then we should be excited and eager to engage those in our everyday lives.
This means we will have to embrace the awkwardness and fear of meeting new people. We step out in faith and put aside the worldly dividers.
When we don’t do this it will lead to:
- Isolation: Where we live lonely lives. We avoid those around us, hurrying from one thing to the next to prevent being caught in conversation with those we pass by everyday. We never get to know those around us, and they don’t get to know us.
- Fear: We become wary of those around us, and they of us. We assume the worst because that which is unknown is scary. People move from neighbor to enemy. We don’t know them, they don’t know us, and it’s easy to imagine the worst.
- Misunderstanding: We get the wrong idea about those around us. We allow the world to tell us how to label and identify those around us because of how they look, speak, act, what they support, and do. We place things upon them, put words in their mouth, and make the decisions for them.
To make room for others and move from strangers to friends we have to begin by identifying the strangers in our everyday lives. Those who are in proximity to us where we live, work, and play.
Not picking and choosing who we want to label as neighbors because we get along, have things in common, share the same values, or are easier to talk to. But recognizing that everyone we encounter truly is our neighbor. When we begin to pick and choose we often fail at being neighbors to those who are actually our neighbors.
We end up have a closed group of those who are just like us.
Making room for strangers requires developing flexibility and compassion within our hearts. Allowing the Spirit to transform our heart with the characteristics and priorities of Jesus. To see those around us as loved and created by God. Claiming that everyone is my neighbor cannot be an excuse to avoid those in proximity to us. When we aim for everyone, we end up being a neighbor to no-one. Don’t fall into that trap.
Take a moment for yourself right now. Pick a location in your life where you encounter people. Maybe it is your home, the office, gym, coffeeshop, school, sports team. Ask yourself these following questions:
- Are there people in this location who are nameless and faceless to me?
- For those I know a name, what do I know about them? Do I know any general information about them? (Where are they from? What to they enjoy to do?)
- Do I know any in-depth information that I can only get from a conversation? (Career plans? Dreams? What motivates them? Fears? Faith?)
Many of us will struggle to fill out these three questions for more than a handful of people. Seeing people move from strangers to friends, we have to identify who are strangers and take a chance to get to know them.
Intentionally making room for others by stepping into community. This is how we will see family expand, when strangers become friends and friends become family. For that to happen we have to be willing to identify and pursue those in proximity to us.
Having the compassion and love of Jesus will lead us into connection with those the world often tells us to avoid. Our family will begin to look different, sound, different, talk differently. We will see people from different backgrounds, cultures, and stories join the family when we can see those the everyday stranger in our lives as neighbors, as the half-dead Jew lying on the side of the road.
Who can you be a neighbor to today? Who needs you to be a neighbor today? Just a simple: Hi, how are you doing today? Tell me about yourself…
Just try it. Let God work and show you how strangers become friends, and friends become family.
1 Charles H. Talbert, Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary, Rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, Ga: Smyth & Helwys Pub, 2002), 128.
2 N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, 2nd ed. (London : Louisville, KY: SPCK ; Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 128.
3 N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, 2nd ed. (London : Louisville, KY: SPCK ; Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 129.
4 Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon, The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012), 25.