Welcoming the Stranger
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
8/17/03

 

Reading

 

”Why Do You Come, John?” by Victoria Safford[1]

 

I knew a man once who came to church every Sunday.  You may find nothing remarkable in this.  But think of it—a man who came every single Sunday, and it was not that he lacked other things to do.  I  knew him only in the last years of his life—a birthright Unitarian, a retired geologist who, when he was not at church, was a volunteer for Amnesty International, for the local food bank, for the American Civil Liberties Union, for the family planning clinic, the AIDS project, for the Unitarian Universalist district we were part of, for the Audubon Society, and for a splendid community chorus.  Busier than any of us still holding full-time jobs, he was committed, effective, clear about what he could and would and, by his own standards, should contribute to the causes that he cared for, the world and people that he cared for.  But what set him apart from all of us was that he came every single Sunday, and (because of hearing loss, I think, more than any sense of his own importance) he sat in the front row.

 

“Why do you come, John?  In all kinds of weather, when you’re well and when you’re not, when you like the guest speaker and when you know you won’t, why do you come every Sunday?”  I asked him not long before he died.  His answer was straightforward, just like the man himself.  “I come,” he said, “because somebody might miss me if I didn’t.”  He said it in a way not arrogant at all, but generously, and honestly.  He was the kind of person who saw it as his duty and his privilege to welcome newcomers on Sunday morning—not because he needed more friends himself (the man was eighty years old, with a lifetime of friends and colleagues and acquaintances to spare; he had plenty of friends already, more than he could handle).  He did it not because he wanted to evangelize the visitors or grow the church (on the contrary, he loved and missed the tiny congregation he’d joined in 1955.  He felt a little lost with so many new faces, a little sad at all the changes).  He greeted people as they came, and steered them toward the minister, the coffee pot, the Sunday School, the guest book, the pledge cards, the sign-up sheets, because he felt it was the right and only thing to do.  When people come into your home, you welcome them as if nothing in that moment matters more.  He worked hard on Sunday mornings… he got up on Sundays expecting to work hard to make others feel at home; he came with that in mind.  And he was right—after he died, we missed him when he didn’t come.

 

And do you know what happened? The Sunday after his memorial, someone new (who’d never met John Eric and now would never have the chance) walked right in and sat down in his empty place in that front row.  A whole family just sat right down as if they owned the place, as if they had every right to be there, as if we were glad to see them—two women new to town, and their toddler and their baby.  They came hoping there was room, and John himself would have been delighted.

 

 

Sermon

Do you recognize John, this fellow who saw it as his obligation to come to church every Sunday because there is important work to do? If you’ve been around this church for a while I imagine he might remind you of someone you’ve met here. Maybe someone named Beth, or Mary Ellen, or Caroline, or Sally?  Do you see some of yourself in him?  

 

I was probably most like John when I was young, around the age of 10 or 11, when I saw it as my duty-- my honor, even--to welcome people to the neighborhood in the small town in North Carolina where my family lived.  Because we lived in a new development, just two streets bordered by woods and a tobacco field, knowing all the neighbors was easy.  We saw a steady stream of mostly young families coming and going, so there were plenty of opportunities to meet new people. My own family had moved there just a few years earlier, and, even as a 10-year-old, I remembered what it was like to be new in town.  Experience had taught me that no matter who moved in, we’d all be playing together eventually, so I figured, why not just fast-forward to the part where we all know each other and skip all the preliminaries?  After all, there was fun to be had. So, in the interest of expediency, when a new family arrived, my friends and I would take on the role of preteen welcome wagon. We would gather and make our way to the new family’s front door, often times while their moving truck was still being unloaded.  Typically one or both of the parents would answer the door. On behalf of my cohorts and in my most official voice, I would proudly welcome them to the neighborhood and ask if they had any kids that could come out and play.  (Of course, we already knew they did or we probably wouldn’t have bothered).  Our greeting always made the parents smile.  At the time I thought the adults smiled because they had been expecting us or because they were relieved that we didn’t wait to acknowledge their presence, to let them know that we cared enough about our neighborhood to care that they were now a part of it. But now as I look back, I wonder if the parents might have smiled because they were bemused that a fourth-grader and his friends could be so cocky.  However, as was the case with John, I don’t think arrogance was a factor in our hospitality.  We just wanted to play.  And not long after our greeting, the new kids would be released and we would all be playing together as though we had shared the neighborhood for years.  Mission accomplished.

 

I suppose it is not surprising that that bold little 10 year-old eventually became your minister.  After all, an important component of my calling is to help others feel welcomed and get connected to each other and to this world we share.  All the same, I admit there have been plenty of times in my life when the hospitality chutzpah I showed in fourth grade was overwhelmed by fear or by lack of initiative.  I was reminded of this the other day while Susan and I were watching Seinfeld.  In this episode, Jerry enters the lobby of his apartment building in New York City, where all the doors to all the apartment buildings are always locked.  Right behind him follows a man he does not recognize.  Jerry tells the man that he cannot let him in the building…that there has been a rash of burglaries lately and he just can’t let him in since he doesn’t know him.  The man pleads with him, telling him that he does live in the building; he has simply forgotten his key.  Jerry apologizes but holds firm and walks away, leaving the man locked out, peering through the window into the lobby with a befuddled look.  Not a look of anger, mind you.  Mostly a look of disbelief and disappointment. Later that week, the two men end up riding in the building elevator together.  Jerry is then progressively humiliated to realize that the man not only lives in his building, and on the same floor as Jerry, but he actually lives in the apartment right across the hall. The scene isn’t funny, really.  It is darkly poignant…and all too familiar.

 

Susan and I grimaced at this scenario because during the brief time we lived in lived in New York, it could have just as easily happened to us.  While we knew the people on either side of us, we never did meet the people down the hall…literally just a few feet away.  In fact, in the 15 months we lived in the building, we never even saw them.  I assume our paths crossed occasionally, but since we never took the time to get to know them, they remained invisible to us…and us to them.

 

There is good news here, though, because I think there is something instinctive in us that is not satisfied with being invisible. So we leave the light of our singular rooms and search out communities like this one, where we can safely know others and be known, where we can be assured that brothers and sisters surround us and to restore their images on our eyes.  I’m sure that was one of the reasons why I ended up visiting a UU church in New York. 

 

On my initial visit to that church, I’ll admit I was a little afraid.  I’d never been to a UU service and I wasn’t sure what to expect.  The first person who spoke to me was an usher.  He told me where to enter the auditorium and where I would find the restrooms.  After the service, as I passed through the lobby and toward the street, I shook the minister’s hand and told him I had enjoyed the service.  Noticing I was new, he invited me to attend coffee hour, but I just kind of nodded and kept walking.  For me, it was too soon to mingle with strangers.  However, I was happy to be invited. It felt good. That morning I wasn’t expecting to make a bunch of friends and I didn’t want to be interviewed or pressured into socializing.  But to know where things were, to know where I could go if I wanted to share coffee and conversation, to know that people had noticed that I was a visitor that morning made me feel like more than a visitor…more than someone who was merely taking in the scenery and passing through.  I felt like a guest—someone whose presence was honored and who was made to feel at home.  And, as a result, I felt like I wanted to come back…and I did, eventually meeting more people, eventually getting involved in the life of the church, and, as they say, the rest is history.

 

Certainly all of us, even those of us who are new this morning, could tell different stories about how we entered this church: why we came, who acknowledged our presence, and how we felt. Maybe we entered thinking we were just visitors.  Maybe we simply wanted to check this place out, or we came to show respect to a friend who had invited us.  But regardless of why we came the first time, chances are good that we returned because someone treated us like a guest…like our presence mattered. 

 

When I was in seminary I attended a UU church in Chicago.  The church, much like our own, was trying to embrace an emphasis on shared ministry, the idea that church is a place where all of the members have roles to play in the ministry of the church…where we are all ministers.  Thinking about my how much it had meant to me when I had been welcomed in New York—I decided that one ministry I could offer would be that of “undercover greeter.”  Without fanfare, I decided to set aside five to ten minutes after the service each week to talk to people I didn’t know. I didn’t set out to become their best friends and I didn’t corner them in the fellowship hall and try to get them on a committee.  Most of the time I just eased up beside them and made a simple comment about the service or something that was happening at the church.  Then I gauged their response.  Did they seem to want to talk?  If so, I would introduce myself, tell them how long I had been coming to the church and then ask them how long they had been coming.  I found this to be a better approach to greeting than saying “Is this your first time here?” in case I was meeting some long time member for the first time.  If they were in fact, new, I did my best to make them feel at home. Some of the ways I found to do this were to ask them if they had any questions about the church;  I’d try to let them know about programs and groups in the church that matched their interests.  I might introduce them to others I thought they should meet.  But most of all, I tried to remember their names, because as our opening reading reminded us there is a “gladness” in hearing our spoken names.  In the weeks that followed, if I saw them sitting alone, I would sit down beside them. If I couldn’t remember their name, I told them so. Chances were good that they didn’t remember my name either. It’s not what I said to them that mattered anyway…it’s that I noticed that they were there, that I acknowledged their presence with my presence.  I let them know that it mattered that they were with us.  Because, well it did.  And it does.

 

I ministered to many people during my time as an undercover greeter.  And I do think ministry was what I was doing.  I was ministering to them.  I was serving their human needs of attention, affirmation and acceptance and found that in doing so, I was being served as well.  I met some really great people who otherwise might have come and gone without me noticing at all.  It happens all the time, you know.  And if not for the people who helped you feel at home here, it might have happened to you.

 

Not everyone I talked to joined the church.  In fact, I’m sure that many of them were visitors just passing through.  But there were several who kept coming back, even to this day.  I know this to be true because last year, I went back to my former church to offer a prayer at the installation ceremony for their newly settled minister.  After the service I talked to several people who I remembered greeting when they were new.  They all remembered my name, as I’m sure you can remember the names of the people at our church who first took the time to get to know you.  And a couple of them were even serving on the board of trustees!  How fun to see that the people who had started as guests had become some of the most important leaders…just like every one of the members of this church can and often do.  While we all start as guests in this democratic community, we are destined to become stewards of it. That’s why it’s so important that we make hospitality one of our highest priorities.  Not because we have to grow the church, but because we should want to.  We should want to grow our perspectives by opening ourselves to what others have to teach us.  We should want to give the people who enter our community a chance to grow and learn from us, too.  Besides, how we welcome the guests who enter our doors says a lot about our values as a church community.  When guests hear us talking about respecting the inherent worth and dignity of all individuals they will be confused if we walk past them as though they are invisible.

 

There is a story that UU minister David Rankin tells about a time he was eating alone in a diner.  At the table beside him sat what he assumed were a mother, a father, and their young son.  A waitress came by to take their order. 

 

“What will you have?” she asked the boy.

“I want a hot dog!…” the boy began.

“No hot dog!” the mother interrupted.  “Give him what we ordered!”

The waitress ignored her.

“Do you want anything on your hot dog?” she asked.

“Ketchup!” the boy replied with a happy smile.

“Coming up!” she said, as she walked to the kitchen.

There was silence at the table.

Then the youngster said to his mother: “Mom, she thinks I’m real!”[2]

 

If we want our guests to feel welcomed, we have to show them that we know they are real; we have to meet them where they are, not where we are or where we think they should be. 

 

You know, people don’t come to church on a Sunday morning the same way they wander into a movie theater or a local shopping mall.  They come to church in search of something that only encounter can bring…even if they don’t know what it is for certain.  Some come for community, some come for intellectual stimulation, some come for something to salve their wounded heart or to clear their troubled mind.  You never know who might be sitting with us on a Sunday and what they might be carrying around with them.  You never know, that is, until you take the risk to find out.

 

I learned recently that in Hebrew, the word for stranger is zar which means “border.”[3]   Taking the risk to meet someone new, to cross that border is not easy for many of us.  We tend to stay with the familiar.  As Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote,

 

“[We] tend to select people like ourselves, a very monotonous diet.  All hors d’oeuvres and no meat; or all sweets and no vegetables, depending on the kind of people we are.  But…one thing is fairly certain: we usually select the known, seldom the strange.  We tend not to choose the unknown which might be a shock or a disappointment or simply a little difficult to cope with.  And yet it is the unknown with all its disappointments and surprises that is the most enriching.”[4]

 

The most enriching, indeed.  Think of it.  Every person in our lives that we now hold dear was at one time merely a stranger…someone waiting to be known and to know us.

 

How did it happen that we finally connected with these strangers?  The answer, of course, is quite simple. In every instance, we crossed a border, a border that separates the familiar from the wild and unpredictable unknown.  I believe that making the choice to cross this border is sacred, a sure-fire way to access the divine--the creative and sustaining force that underlies all that is good in the world, the event or power that some call God, some call creative interchange, and some call marvelous human possibility brought to fruition.  Whatever name we choose for the outcome, I believe crossing the border through encounter is holy work because it will almost always lead us to places we did not plan to go…places where we may have to take some risks and open our hearts.

 

I’m pleased to let you know that there is a group of about a dozen church members who have been meeting to discuss ways to be more intentional about this holy work of our church, the work whereby we  greet our guests and make them feel at home.  But I encourage all of us to consider accepting a role in the ministry of hospitality.  This is not to say that all of the introverts around here suddenly need to become extroverts.  The ministry of hospitality asks each of us to try to see things through the eyes of the guest and to be present in whatever way we can be.  After all, as the preteen welcome wagon understood, if we’re going to be playing together eventually anyway, why not just speed things up a bit?

 

I close with a meditation written by Nancy Shaffer entitled “Prayer for This Church”[5]:

 

May each one among us have skin that longs to touch
other skin: fingertips that long for other fingertips
or whole hands and even arms; bodies that
want to stand next to other bodies, not alone,
while singing and bending, stirring soup.
May ones whose skin doesn’t cry out for other
skin wish it did, and so teach it, so that no one
stands alone and no one aches and does not say so.

 

May our doors be so open it is drafty inside,
and people sometimes shout because noises without

Come also within.  May those sheltered here
sometimes cry, all at once, letting tear
water clean what words by themselves cannot.

In silent times, may every one present hear
every one else breathing, and know this is not
separate from how the world breathes all night.

 

May we always have enough room for those
many who want to come in.  May those who cherish
this church be so glad they cannot stop speaking,
stop asking, and may that crowding itself be a gladness
as we keep adding rooms.  May we notice
each one who is new and invite her to stay.
May our list of names for the Holy not ever
be finished; and may we hear God chuckling
with us as we find still more.