Psalm 119:19 says I am a stranger on earth; do not hide your commands from me.
Maybe you are an oddball yourself?
It is interesting to think we could ever be better, smarter, healthier, richer, prettier, or more successful than the person next door when we are all living breath to breath, dependent on our Creator. If we could zoom the lens out from our circumstances, we would behold a vastness of creation that would indeed make each of us seem strange.
I am not the big cheese I think I am, even though most days I act like the world revolves around me. That if I don’t get my first cup of coffee by 7am, I’ll potentially die. That my best self requires nine hours of sleep, music, a morning jog, and whole evenings of alone time. I need a steady supply of floss, salads, wool socks, and non-fiction library books. And tea and chocolate, and curbside grocery pick-up. One NFL game per week is ok, but Monday and Thursday night football is asking too much. I like discussing history and vegetable gardening and I abhor romantic fiction, potty jokes and crumbs on my couch cushions.
It seems reasonable. Why can’t everyone be like me?
You can make your own list of pros and cons, favorites and pet peeves. We all have a unique perspective, language, physique, odor, opinion. Perhaps this draws people in, and perhaps it repulses them, but it should not be so. We each reflect the image of God, and in His sovereignty no image is skewed.
Let’s say it together now: We are all strangers.
It’s the one thing we all have in common.
The thing to really contemplate is this: What fellow stranger is God wanting me to notice? And more importantly, how do I stop focusing on myself long enough to really see them?
Overall I think I’m a pretty good person. I like me. I like my weirdness (except for my awkward conversational skills and a new revelation, imposter syndrome! For real, this explains my whole existence) and I imagine it is just everyone else’s problem if they can’t get along. Maybe everyone else could come up to my level of understanding. If you could homebody like me and love children, well, then we could straighten out the other issues where we don’t see eye to eye.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians, details this idea of being “all things to all people”.
He may have been a star when it came to persecuting Christians, but when Jesus put him on His team as a free agent, Paul radically upped his offensive game.
For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23
He knew the advantage of adapting to the culture around him. He was a pro traveler, keen on noticing differences and making sure it didn’t hold him back from getting to know the stranger.
Paul–originally named Saul–started out on the Jewish A team. He had the wit, heritage, and tassels to prove it. But when Jesus changed his heart, he realized what a mess he truly was. None of his AWANA badges and Bible bowl trophies meant anything if he wasn’t willing to get dirty. He could rattle off the first five books of the Law verbatim yet was too proud to kneel down to the level of a hungry child and hand them bread. God opened his eyes to the inconsistency of his nature, his social status, and covert racism. He had to put off his old self so he could do what Jesus was asking him to do.
The passage by Paul in Corinthians blows me away with its insistence upon finding similarities and settling in. Paul found peace freely pursuing the lifestyle of a cultural chameleon. He knew how to play the Jewish card around the Jews–that’s how he was raised. But he could drop the tassels just as easy and pull up a chair for bar-b-que with the Gentiles. “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.”
He sought out people so he could create relationship. He wasn’t just knocking on doors, handing out tracts. He moved into their neighborhood and became one of them. He listened. He tuned his heart radio to their frequency until he could speak their language.
This is not what some people call stooping to their level. Simply put, he learned how to proclaim Jesus in every cultural context. By familiarizing himself with the cultures of his day, he was able to discern the areas where he could slip in truth that would change their lives for the better. Paul did not wait for those Gentile folk to straighten up and get circumcised already. He didn’t wait for them to come around to his way of thinking. He entered their world, humble and aware of his surroundings. He used logic in a bold way: understand the culture, preach to the people, let the Lord change hearts.
In Acts 17, Paul is spending time in Athens, waiting for his friends to show up. He doesn’t stay holed up in his hotel, though. The Scripture says,
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
Acts 17:16-18
Immediately upon arrival, Paul noticed the idol obsession. It wigged him out, and he felt some obligation to confront it. So he began to strike up a conversation with Jews and non-Jews and your everyday farmers’ market vendor and chatty philosophers. He knew the way to their prattle-loving hearts!
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
Acts 17:19-22
Paul’s first impression in the marketplace garnered an invitation to a bigger stage, the Areopagus. He was asked to speak, and he began by commending their obsession with idols as “very religious”–a sort of pat on the back regarding their chatty past time. Then he gives them a short, breathtaking sermon.
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Notice the kindness in Paul’s tone, the wisdom in his words. He was talking to Athenians. He referenced their hometown poets, gave a nod to the incredible marble temples and sculptures, and quickly summarized the history of the world. All these things were incredibly relevant to his audience. Paul was on point, perfectly courteous and succinct.
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed.
Some of them sneered, as expected. He might have felt a twinge of imposter syndrome. But the others invited him back.
He had told them about their Creator, Jesus, repentance, and freedom. He didn’t waste their time. And he didn’t waste his time, either. He just showed up within their culture and was completely reasonable and appropriate.
I wonder if we don’t need to check ourselves more often with Paul’s checklist.
Have I put off my old self?
Am I intentional?
Am I trying to flatter? (Hopefully no.)
Am I approaching them with respect and humility?
Who am I serving here, me or God? Who gets the glory?
It seems easy, but I think it is tricky to nail down the right attitude. We step on our own toes because our natural tendency is to remain comfortable. But the essence of knowing the stranger is becoming uncomfortable, losing a bit of oneself to blend in.
I must be malleable, playdoh in the hands of God. Ready to engage, but not on my terms of play. Wit counts for nothing, sincerity wins hearts. Submissiveness is crucial.
It encompasses every culture in the world, every color and creed. Every homeless person, jailbird, refugee, annoying classmate. Old folks in the nursing home, babies in the nursery.
There isn’t a stranger stranger than me.
What of my old self have I put off so that I may put on something more appropriate, more approachable?
Jesus, who has freed us up to lose the robe, fake eyelashes, tidy house, the facade of having it all together, wants us to put on sweatpants to talk to other people in sweatpants.
Now that is freedom.
