“Strangers and Neighbours: The Unseen Stranger”

Scripture – Luke 24:13-35

Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Graeme Wilson

Sunday, October 6, 2024

You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating. Good morning, everyone! It is so wonderful to be back here in Wilmington, and to be with you, the good people of Westminster Presbyterian Church. On behalf of Julie and myself can I thank you for your warm welcome and for the kind gestures of hospitality we have already received? I said last year that “strangers are those neighbours we have yet to meet,” and we most certainly do not feel like strangers here … indeed, we feel like we are surrounded by the best and loveliest of neighbours and that this congregation is a home away from home. We welcomed Greg and Camilla to Glasgow on Monday and had a lovely dinner with them that evening before departing for Philadelphia the next morning.

One of the things that Greg and I discovered in our Pulpit Exchange last year is that we have so much in common in our ministries and congregations. There is so much that unites us in our common cause to love and serve those on the margins of society – locally, nationally, and internationally. In our time of sharing together we have all become better strangers and closer neighbours.

The words of the hymn we will sing later in the service puts it so beautifully…

‘The love that made us, makes us one,
And strangers now are friends.’

The process of travelling is a slightly strange one – that strange in-between time between one place and another. Indeed, airports are strange in-between places in many ways. A place of departures and arrivals. Of farewells and welcomes. A transitory place – a stopping off point in our journeys from one place to another … but never a destination in itself.

As we were waiting at London Heathrow for our connecting flight to Philly, I was reminded of my favourite airport lounge story … the story of the potato chip thief!

A woman at the airport, waiting to catch her flight, bought herself a big bag of potato chips. She then walked over to the airport lounge, settled in a chair, and began to read her newspaper. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the man beside her helping himself to her chips. Not wanting to make a scene, she read on, ate chips, and watched the departures board.

As the daring “chip thief” kept on eating the chips she got more and more irritated, but decided it wasn’t worth making a scene over. She wanted to move the chips to her other side, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. With each chip she took, he took one too.

Eventually, they both reached into the bag at the same time and put their hands on the last chip. She let go … and with a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, the man took the last chip and broke it in half. He offered her half, and he ate the other. She snatched it from him and thought, “This guy’s got some nerve! He’s so rude. He didn’t say sorry, or even, ‘Thank you’.”

At that moment, her flight was called, and she gave a sigh of relief. She gathered her stuff and headed for the gate … making a determined point of not looking back at the ungrateful “chip thief.” She boarded the plane and sank in her seat, reached in her bag to get a book to read …

As she reached into her bag for her book, there was a rustle! There, next to her book, was her bag of chips! The chips they ate in the lounge were his, not hers! She had been the “chip thief,” not him!

The chip thief story reminds us that sometimes when we think we are being gracious, we are actually the one being shown grace. That we are being shown hospitality by an unknown and unseen guest who turns out to be the host.

The Emmaus Road story is perhaps the greatest example we have of Paul’s maxim from Hebrews Ch. 13 … ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality, by doing this, some have entertained angels unawares.’ (Heb. 13:2)

How often are we blind to the world around us? How often are we blind to the others around us? Blind to strangers, the neighbours we have yet to meet? How often have we missed angels unawares? Often as human beings, we can get streamlined into seeing only one way, seeing only from one perspective, seeing only certain people, and not seeing others. We all view the world through our own unique and particular “lens.” But, like any lens, it can have a fixed focus and perspective. It helps us to view things, but perhaps only in the way we are used to seeing them … or how we might want to see them.

But think of your faith as being like an eye test. Suddenly you discover that you haven’t been seeing things as well as you thought you were! The optician changes the lens and suddenly things come back into a sharper focus. You notice things you were missing. The world, as you see it, changes. For those of you who wear glasses – think of the time when you got your very first pair of glasses and put them on. You thought your eyesight was fine until you put the glasses on!

The story in Luke’s gospel of the encounter on the Emmaus Road is a story about not seeing what is right next to us. It’s a story about being so consumed with ourselves, our own troubles and worries, and our own story that we do not see the bigger story that is right beside us.

We do not recognise the risen Christ in our midst.

But, change the lens, and we see Christ. And when we see Christ, the world, as we see it, changes too. The point of this story is that the strangers encountered Jesus by walking alongside him, even though they did not recognise him. He was the unknown, and the unseen guest.

We too are a people who walk with Jesus, who journey with him every day. Perhaps some days we are more aware of his presence than others. Perhaps some days other people see us walking with Jesus, even when we do not see it ourselves. But when we walk with Jesus, he is revealed to us – we will recognise him. The unseen guest we have known all along.

The road to Emmaus isn’t just some dusty road in the past … the road to Emmaus can be whatever road, whatever journey we take today or any day … but on every road to Emmaus there is the possibility that we might encounter the risen Christ, whether we recognise him or not. Hope is born – not in knowing where you are going – but in knowing who is leading the way.

I want to conclude by telling you the story of something that happened to me in Edinburgh a number of years ago. It was a moment I shall never forget.

I was at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh in 2014. I had had dinner with church friends from my London days in the centre of the city and it was getting late when we finished, close to midnight. I saw a young homeless man on street. He looked cold and so I bought him and me a coffee. We stood and talked as we cradled our hot coffees, and he told me part of his story …

• How he had had troubles at home when his mother remarried … and he eventually left home.
• How he sometimes slept in the Cemetery across the road when he couldn’t get a hostel or a bed for the night.
• He talked about the fear and the vulnerability that he and other homeless people felt when sleeping rough out in these places.

Out of his backpack, he produced a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps – potato chips – and he shared them with me. Coffee and chips and conversation – a form of holy communion, at midnight, in the centre of Edinburgh.

As we went our ways, he hugged me and said, “God bless you!” “God bless you too,” I said. But I was the blessed one in that encounter.

I encountered something of God that night, something of the open, selfless love of Jesus, in those 30 or so minutes. I encountered something of the divine in that meeting and conversation with the stranger on Waterloo Place. I encountered an unexpected blessing from an unknown companion on the road. The Emmaus Road made real.

Paul writes, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality, by doing this, some have encountered angels unawares.’ (Heb. 13:2)

The encounter on the Emmaus road is a story about welcoming Christ into our midst – known or unknown, bidden or unbidden, seen or unseen. It reminds us that …

Jesus is the stranger who is no stranger.
Jesus is the unknown guest that we need to know.

Amen.