Jesus tells us to love our neighbors. It is easy to love them when they eventually turn out to be friends, or

were already friends to begin with, and we should cherish them as friends. Sometimes, our neighbors may turn

out to be enemies; they might believe in a different religion, or engage in verbal or physical violence, or have an

overpowering political or social agenda that they use to shut down not just different worldviews, but the very

dialogue between different worldviews. Surprisingly, sometimes we even find it easy to love those people once

we have categorized them as enemies, and congratulate ourselves for having engaged in the hardest task of all.

We find it easy because we have categorized ourselves as the “good guys,” and we are confident that there are

enough good guys out there who will also see them as enemies. In loving our enemies, we have the “moral high

ground.” Of course, it still hurts when they make our lives difficult by spreading rumors about us, or threaten us

with punches and pepper sprays, but at least we gain some kind of “glory” in tolerating them and sharing the

gospel to them.

But there is a third category of a neighbor that is hard to love: the stranger. The stranger sometimes shows

friendly behavior, and sometimes shows animosity. The stranger is not exactly someone who agrees with us on

everything or most things, and therefore is not a friend. The stranger is difficult to define as an enemy, because

they are not doing something that most people would condemn—things like murder, rape, calling us names, and

trying to use our past traumas against us. Rather, the stranger calls into question the very things that we use to

categorize them as friends and enemies. They work not by straight-up lying about us, but they take a step back

(or sideways) and change the standard or topic: that person is weird. For example, instead of saying that the world

was not created by an almighty, good God but by some primordial power of chaos and wiccan magic, they might

just give off something similar to the Gen Z stare with an undercurrent of “Oh, whether Christian or wiccan,

you’re one of those performative religious types.” They are scary because they make us “strangers,” and

worldviews are not discussed, but discussion itself is considered cringe. Discussion itself is dropped because that

whole topic or dimension of life is considered unimportant. Faith is unimportant. Working hard is unimportant.

Maintaining one’s purity, however hard and with many stumbles, is unimportant. Sometimes it is unimportant

because “no one does it anyway.” Sometimes it is unimportant because “it is absurd.” But these kinds of responses

are not new, but were common in Paul’s time:

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Acts 17:32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will

hear you again about this.”

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1Cor. 15:32 …If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

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Sometimes people may remain strangers. But there are also people who have heard of the gospel before who

are suddenly deciding to dip their toes again into the discussion. If I may jokingly say: people are like

Schrodinger’s cat, which basically means that strangers “become” strangers (or not!) every time you talk to them

and observe their response. Sometimes they remain strangers. Sometimes they suddenly change and start to think

about faith. We know that people can change precisely because we know our own past responses when we listen

to the Gospel. Some days we don’t care. Some days we suddenly do. We don’t know ourselves at all times. How

do we know that strangers will always be strangers until the very end? The Bible assures us of a competing claim:

God’s people will always turn out to be God’s people in the end.

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Acts 17:9 And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not

be silent, 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are

my people.”

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