Stepping out among Strangers

Good morning, prayerful friends!
We have nearly reached the end of July – the height of summer and time to prepare for holidays, prepare for time to put away your tools for a while and do other things, time to take refreshment. Let us thank God for this new day in the warmth of summer and all the enjoyment of life the season brings to us.

Hello God on this delightful new day. Thank you for switching off my restless brain through the comfort of sleep. Today looks full of promise; help me live up to it in every way. Hold my hand as we walk toward evening, facing together whatever challenge may arrive. Keep me safe in your love.

Amen

As we use our ability to get out and about, we re-join the stream of city life, mixing briefly with people we don’t know, mixing with strangers. It was wonderful visiting the Museum of the Moon in the Tree Cathedral and last Friday’s event in Campbell Park felt closer to our own Milton Keynes, with lots of different people enjoying the benefits of city life in our beautiful parks.

Virtually all these people are strangers, yet we met one another with a smile or a nod in passing. After so long in isolation we all will need to learn how to be a society again, how to be among strangers. In the ancient world, hospitality to strangers was a sacred obligation: travelling strangers brought trade and news and gossip. The duty to be welcoming recognised that in a world without safety nets anyone could be lost and in need. The anonymity of the city brings us closer together physically while making alienation and loneliness easier.

The Latin word hostis means guest, stranger, and enemy all at once. From this root we get words like guest, host, hospitality, hostility and hostage. Paul wrote to the Hebrews, Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Dear Lord, we are so looking forward to the chance of stepping beyond the fence, encountering new people in different places, having conversations that range beyond the daily, mundane small talk. Keep us always ready to be hospitable, to offer welcome, to meet new people and their fresh ideas with enthusiasm. Make us curious again so we polish up our Milton Keynes’ welcome. Compel us to open the doors of Cornerstone and invite the world inside. Make us worthy to welcome our city to an encounter with our God.

Amen

Thus, we are linked to every stranger by an invisible thread of care. Inside everyone we don’t know is a teeming mind busily processing its own unique reality. We are storytelling creatures and every stranger holds out a little gem – a story we haven’t heard before. As we listen and tell, the strange turns into the familiar; the anxiety, the fear, turns into a comfortable conversation. When we listen to, get involved in, the stories of strangers, they become fully fledged characters in their own right, no longer ‘homeless’ or ‘the lonely’ or ‘needy’, but instead are welcomed people stopping by on their way to somewhere. As Paul reminds the Ephesians, You are no longer aliens in a foreign land, but fellow citizens with God’s people.

Dear Lord, thank you for the great diversity of people, language, culture, faith and food that makes Milton Keynes special. May we practice at hospitality in the clear hope that one day we will get it right. Help us, incomers all, to realise that we are no longer aliens but citizens together of the Kingdom of God.

Amen

Ideas for these prayers were sparked by a review of recently published books about strangers that appeared in the Guardian on 10 July 2021. I’m having a break in August and perhaps I’ll have time to read something different, something strange. I’ll be back here the first week in September with, I hope, lots of strangers’ stories to share. Enjoy the summer!

Biblical References

Hebrews 13: 1–2; Ephesians 2: 19

New Books

Hello Stranger: How we Find Connection in a Disconnected World by Will Buckingham

The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World by Joe Keohane

Cheryl Montgomery