Sunday Morning.............

We have bathed, shaved, made our faces up, fixed our hair and dressed in our best.  We 

are off to church.  As soon as we leave our driveway, we start turning off certain private 

home and personal behavior switches.  We start flipping on the church ones.  We fuss less 

along the way.  If we fuss, it is in quieter tones.  Our arguments usually stop at the 

parking lot of the church.  Too often, we turn off the switches that would reveal our sins, 

burdens, trials, disappointments) pain, personal problems, and our deepest worries.  Our 

most intimate secrets are seldom shared with anyone.   Our mates may  not even know 

what private pain or guilt we bear, let alone our church family.  Many of us do not even 

have mates to share them with.  But, we feel compelled out of conscience, or law, to meet 

at least the minimum requirements of church membership.  Due to fear and/or 

disaffection, we feel no compulsion to open our hearts to others.  Nor, do we want others 

to open their hearts to us. 

Too often, we cover our cares with a show of public piety.  That very act brings stress and 

adds to our inner turmoil.  Few, if any, of our private burdens ever reach the point of 

public disclosure in a church, assembly.  We are forced to bear them alone.

We have concluded that no one has our kind of pain.  No one has experienced our 

kind of failure.  No one knows the kind of guilt we carry.  No one knows the depths of 

our loneliness or sense of isolation.  Unrevealed, our wounded and broken hearts find 

little or no sympathy from others in church.  We often conclude that our kinds of 

weakness and need are not the common ones that some others “go forward” to confess.  

Ours cannot be revealed or shared.  If we did, we would expose our weak faith and our 

other frailties.  By revealing them, we would then be most vulnerable to criticism by those 

who seem to have few, if any of our failures, burdens, and demons; certainly none as 

overwhelming as ours. 

Because we doubt that anyone would understand, really care, or be willing to help us with 

our needs, we sit stoically on our pew, alone in a crowd of people.  We have come 

together to worship God.  We go through the motions.  We follow the order of worship.  

Isn’t that enough?  We don’t need to take home anyone else’s baggage.  Certainly no one 

wants to take on ours.  Since no one knows, how could anyone care?  But, if others don’t 

know, why would they care?

Even though there are blood-bought brothers and sisters sitting on the pew next to us, we 

are afraid to ask them to hear us or help us.  They are in reality, strangers to us and we are 

strangers to them.  They are not intimate spiritual family members.  They also bathed, 

shaved and dressed up this morning.  They made up their faces, fixed their hair, and chose 

to look their best at church.  They also came to church with their burdens, sins, cares and 

disappointments, some equal to, or maybe even greater than ours.  But, due to the lack of 

Christian intimacy, they also remain strangers  on  the  pew.    They  (we)  also  ask,  “Does 

anyone want to know us?  Does anyone really care?”  No one answers these questions.  

The church provides few, if any, venues where we can ask our questions and get answers.  

Few churches are large enough to provide Christian counselors from whom we can seek 

answers and get comfort.

The church must also find ways to break down the barriers that stifle, even discourage 

genuine sharing with others in the pew.  The church cannot  afford to allow barriers to 

stand between those who feel they are on the “outside” away from those who are on the 

“inside.”  These “outsiders” must be strangers no longer.  But, the alienation must not end 

with the inclusion of greater  openness in our assemblies.  This inclusion must extend away

from our sanctuaries and reach into our homes.  The practice of genuine hospitality is a lost

practice in many churches.   Hospitality must be greater than sharing a cup of coffee between

Sunday school and the general assembly.

Do those who seem so secure in the church really know, or want to know, the strangers in 

pew?  The strangers certainly do not know them, nor do they even know each other.  Is 

the church willing and  ready to show the same concern and love Christ extended to the 

lepers, the blind, the lame,  the hungry, the adulterers, and  the strangers?  The demon 

possessed?  Should we not have the same concerns, the same compassion, and the same 

love for others that Christ has for us?  Dare we not find ways to learn of those who are 

hurting and those who are “burdened and heavy laden?”  We must, and we will if we 

are truly His disciples.  As disciples of Christ, we must not merely observe the hurting 

strangers in the pew and “walk by on the other side.” 

Let us take a stroll down the  aisles and among the pews at church to discover and get 

acquainted with some of the strangers in our midst.  Saying “Hello” and “How are you” 

is not enough.  Knowing their names is not enough.  We must  have some shared 

intimacies.  Only then we will be in better positions to encourage and assist them.  We 

will be able to show them true brotherhood, and give them comfort and counsel.  We will 

be ready to help them  “bear their burdens and so  fulfill the law of Christ.”   The 

church will then become, as Jesus wants it to  become, a place of inclusion, mutual 

support, healing, nurturing, compassion, encouragement, forgiveness, understanding, 

sharing and comfort.  And, it will be indeed, “a place of refuge.” 

The church is often confused  about its purpose and  its identity.  It  easily becomes an organization that is more concerned with the dotting of a doctrinal “i” than with feeding the hungry.  It may be more concerned with crossing an organizational “t” than visiting the sick and imprisoned.  Yet, according to Jesus, the judgment will not be based upon right organization  and right ceremonies, but upon being  a true refuge  for sinners, the broken hearted, the over burdened, the alienated, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the jailed, the sick, and the stranger.  Those who refuse to recognize the needs of others and who refuse to respond to them, will hear the Savior say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you fed me not;  I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you took me not in; I was naked and you clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and you visited me not.” (Matthew 25:41-43)  Even though the church is made up of imperfect and fallible people it can become a compassionate refuge for all people with unclean hands and broken hearts.  Only when every member is acknowledged as an important part of the body will we be reaching the ideal that Christ has for his church. When we love others as Christ loves us, we will shower love, grace and kindness upon all those in the pew.  We will divest ourselves of the spirit of separation and isolation.  Every part of the body will be working with every other part to  bring about healing, harmony and hope.  We will  “receive others just as Christ has received us,” broken, sinful, afraid, warts and all.  We will offer understanding, reconciliation and acceptance.  Most importantly, our strangers will no longer  be strangers.  They  will be family and 

accepted as equal members in the family of God! 

Let us now get acquainted with some of the strangers that we might greet every Lord’s Day, but may not really know at  all.  Then let us begin to  “take them in,” for the strangers we “take in” may be those “angels” that we are “unaware” of. 

“All of you live in harmony with one another.  Be sympathetic, love as brothers.  Be 

compassionate and humble.” (1 Peter 3:8)