Sermon on April 19, 2026
“Jesus the Stranger”
By: The Very Rev. Pamela Dolan
Gospel: Luke 24: 13-35
I was listening to a science podcast recently and was intrigued to hear that “research shows” that people enjoy small talk a lot more than they think they will. I know it’s dangerous to start off any assertion with “research shows,” but I decided not to go down a rabbit hole trying to find that research and examine its methodology and results. Instead, I found myself thinking about how much our society seems to go out of its way to make it possible to almost never have to make small talk or have almost any interactions with strangers.
As far as I can tell, we Americans spends so much time in our cars and on our screens that we almost never have to interact with people, unless we want to. We can do our banking, grocery shopping, and so many other errands big and small without speaking to, or even laying eyes on, another human being. And while this is incredibly convenient, it has almost certainly had the effect of making us lonelier and, I would argue, more intolerant. The less opportunity we have to bump up against each other in trivial, innocuous ways, the more likely we seem to be to experience encounters with strangers as threatening.
I know I’m guilty of avoiding dealing with people at times. When I travel by plane, for example, I stick my earbuds in as soon as I arrive at the airport and I rarely make eye contact. I used to think of myself as a full-bore extrovert, but since the pandemic and the slow reopening of life I consider myself more of an “extrovert with social anxiety”! And I’m quite sure I’m not alone. As a society, we are out of practice with in-person, unplanned social interactions, especially if they involve strangers.
It is a good thing that the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t have access to earbuds or even cars, for that matter. In all seriousness, traveling was a much more dangerous thing in the ancient world than it is today, and meeting a stranger on the road could be especially perilous, for both parties. So, it’s undoubtedly significant that in today’s Gospel the disciples specifically address Jesus, whom they do not yet recognize, as a stranger.
The word “stranger” has such deep implications in Scripture. In the Old Testament, there are dozens and dozens of references to strangers, also called aliens or foreigners, as a protected class of vulnerable people, alongside groups like widows and orphans. The repeated assertions that God loves and cares for strangers, and that the people of Israel must show justice and compassion to strangers because they too were strangers once in the land of Egypt, has led scholars to believe that strangers or aliens were generally looked on with fear and suspicion. If there were no problems with the treatment of strangers, God wouldn’t have to keep telling people to treat them fairly and with kindness.
Strangers are threatening. And strangers need protecting. It’s a curious double bind, and one that is precisely where Jesus places himself. Think about that. Just hours after the Resurrection, Jesus appears to his disciples on the road, as a stranger, a stranger who is both a vulnerable person in need of protection and someone who is likely to be seen as threatening and so treated with suspicion, if not downright hostility.
I’d like to tease out a few questions for us to ponder from this. First, at a personal level, I wonder what it feels like for us to think of Jesus as a stranger. We are encouraged in most of our prayers and hymns to think of Jesus as a friend, a brother, a Savior, a healer, a teacher, and so on. Might there be some spiritual wisdom in also thinking of Jesus as a stranger? Is it part of seeing Jesus as fully human? Could it help us deal with those times when we feel like a stranger, like the odd one out, even in the midst of family and friends? Going even deeper, are there some parts of ourselves that we don’t fully recognize or understand, some ways in which we can be strangers even to ourselves?
Then there is the wider societal level of looking at this. In our current political context, we are all too willing to see people as strangers and to demean or demonize anyone we categorize as an “other.”
Let me be clear. There are political ramifications to the Biblical directive to show kindness to strangers. And if how we treat strangers is a kind of ethics test for societies, we are failing. In the big budget bill passed last year, programs like Medicaid were cut while spending for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security increased by billions of dollars. We as a country are obsessed with keeping ourselves safe from strangers, whether we imagine the stranger as another country, people “out there” whose cultures and languages and religions we are encouraged to belittle and revile, or as individuals crossing our borders. The result is a seemingly endless series of wars, as well as the brutal enforcement of policies that terrorize people on our streets, in schools and places of worship and courthouses, and even in our own homes.
As I’m sure most of you know, the term for treating strangers with such fear-based hostility is xenophobia; the opposite of xenophobia is the Greek term xenophilia, love of strangers, which is most commonly translated as hospitality. The whole story of what happens on the road to Emmaus can be taken as a parable about hospitality.
In this story, Jesus takes the Biblical injunctions about hospitality to strangers and inhabits them, enfleshes them, by becoming a stranger himself, even to his closest friends. And, somewhat shockingly, the disciples actually behave as he has taught them to. This might be the true Easter miracle—after his death, the disciples are faithfully following the example of Christ.
Even though the disciples are encountering Jesus as a stranger, treat him with respect and generosity. They take his question seriously, sharing without equivocation what Jesus of Nazareth had meant to them. Given that this takes place only three days after Jesus was condemned and executed by their chief priests and leaders, the disciples are taking a risk here by placing themselves so firmly in the camp of those who had hoped this prophet would be the one to redeem Israel. They are risking honesty and authenticity with a stranger, more evidence that the life and example of Jesus have changed them, even before they truly believe in the Resurrection.
And then, when Jesus the stranger makes a move to go on his way, they urge him to stay with them, and they all gather together at table for a meal. We might even argue that it is only because they are embodying the ethic of xenophilia, of hospitality, that that Eucharistic moment finally happens. When Jesus takes the bread, blesses and breaks and shares it—that is when, at last, the eyes of those gathered are opened and they see Jesus for who he is: a friend and not a stranger.
Our Evening Prayer service has a collect that echoes this moment. It reads, “Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love.”
This poignant prayer, based on today’s Gospel passage, speaks to a deep longing we all share to be seen, known, and loved. The story of the road to Emmaus can encourage us to be more like the disciples and seek to find Christ in every stranger, and in those close to us as well. Companions are those who break bread together; when we gather at the table, we not only share bread we, in essence, become that bread, that body which is to be blessed and broken and shared for the life of the world. There are no strangers around the table. Knowing that we are all intimately interconnected, sharing one bread and one cup, we can reach out in love and become companions to one another, walking the same road, bearing one another’s burdens, and welcoming all as we seek to welcome Christ. May God grant this for the sake of his love. Amen.
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