Being new somewhere is hard. A new town, a new country, a new language. You do not know anyone. You do not know where to buy bread or which door to knock on. Many of us have felt that, or our parents and grandparents did.
Jesus talked about strangers in one of his most important stories.
The king's list
Near the end of his life, Jesus told his friends a story about a king who gathers all the people of the world. He puts them into two groups. To the first group, he says thank you for what they did for him.
The Gospel of Matthew, one of the four accounts of Jesus's life, records what the king said.
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Matthew 25:35 · King James VersionThe original Greek
ἐπείνασα γὰρ καὶ ἐδώκατέ μοι φαγεῖν, ἐδίψησα καὶ ἐποτίσατέ με, ξένος ἤμην καὶ συνηγάγετέ με,
Found in Codex Vaticanus (about AD 325), Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 350).
The word "stranger" means someone from somewhere else. A traveler. A foreigner. A person with no family nearby. And the king puts taking them in right next to giving food to the hungry.
When the people asked when they had ever done this for the king, he said that whatever they did for the least important people, they did for him.
He was a stranger too
Matthew also tells us that when Jesus was a baby, his family had to run to Egypt because the king of their land, a cruel ruler named Herod, wanted to kill him. Jesus spent his first years as a child far from home, in a foreign land.
So when he said "I was a stranger," it was not only a story.
What it means for us
Welcoming a stranger does not have to be big. Learning a new neighbor's name. Showing a new family where the good grocery store is. Inviting someone who just moved here to dinner, or to sit with you at church.
We have all been slow to welcome someone who seemed different. That is human. But Jesus said the newcomer at the edge of the room is someone to treat as him. If you have ever been the stranger, you know how much one kind person can mean. You can be that person for someone else.