“I’ve always survived on the kindness of strangers.” These are the famous last words of Blanche Dubois in Tennessee William’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire. They are the words of a woman driven mad by loss and abuse, a woman whose self-constructed, the ideal world has finally caught up to her. They are the words of a woman whom we want to blame for her choices, and yet at the same time we cannot help but see her as a victim.
For her, the kindness of strangers is not about relationships and well-being. It is about escapism from the constant ache of a love that she lost through her own cruelty. Yet that idea, the kindness of strangers, seems to be the hope that Jesus sends his disciples toward in our passage today. He sends them out with the clothes on their backs to neighboring towns to tell people about him and his love for them.
I have to say, that sounds like the worst gig ever. Can you imagine it? Of course, there are those that still hold to this model today, or at least they use this scripture as a model for going door to door to talk about their faith. While I have great respect for that, I have to admit that it’s rarely a conversation that I look forward to having. It’s not because I don’t share their love for God. It’s because I rarely find them to accept that I share their love for God.
Yet it is the love of God that binds us all. Each of us, in our self-constructed, ideal worlds have the choice of recognizing our own experiences of escape and loss, of trial and triumph, of momentary joy and eternal consequence. We can hold these fragile moments as if they were all that could save us, or we can remember that there is something greater that holds us all.
You see we are bound by the love of God in a way that none of these other things can hold us, for the ultimate kindness is that the One who is holy, separate, and other from us is the One who moves and inspires all that is good. More than that, this is the One that holds us even when we reject all that is good. This is the One about whom Paul said, “Your grace is sufficient for me.”
How often do we think about our lives that way? The grace of God is sufficient. It’s enough. Over and over again we make covenants with leaders and align ourselves with powers and with people that make us feel safe. That’s what we see in our first reading. The leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel have come to David because there have been constant conflicts from within and without. They made a covenant with him.
They agreed that he should be the one to protect them, to direct their actions in war, and to shepherd them in peace.
That went well, for the most part, and we look to David in many ways as a model of faith (a man after God’s own heart). What matters for us today is that the covenant they made reminds us that we are a covenant people, too. We are a people bound by the covenant of grace and mercy made between God and all of creation through the person of Jesus of Nazareth and the power of God displayed through him.
The power of God was displayed everywhere he went – except in his hometown. The power of God was displayed everywhere except for the place where people actually knew him. They were the community that raised him, yet when he got up to speak all they could see was all that they had ever seen. All they could see was the brokenness of his family.
Wasn’t this Mary’s son? No mention of Joseph here; was he even alive? There are so many unanswerable questions in this story, but what matters most is that they refused to believe. They refused to believe that the Kingdom of God has come near—which means that they refused to repent. They refused to turn from old ways of thinking about God and power and providence and so they were not able to receive God’s presence and God’s power, and God’s providence.
So, Jesus sends his disciples out to seek the kindness of strangers, and he gives them the same authority that has just been rejected by others. He tells them to stay with whoever welcomes them. If you get a better offer for the second night, just stick with the first one. No one likes a social climber when it comes to faith. Then he tells them that they have peace to bring with them or take away if they are rejected, and finally that when they are rejected they should shake the dust from their sandals – don’t even let the dust come with you when you leave.
Of course, they returned with these great stories of healing – spiritually and physically – because they had truly received the kindness of strangers on their journey. I’m sure that each of us has our own stories of random acts of kindness and love. All of us have experiences of the power a kind word or a gift or an answered prayer.
Likewise, we all have unanswered prayers, or maybe times when God just said, “No.” I think that is why – in the midst of our covenants and our expectations of what life is all about – Paul says the greatest demonstration of power is to rely on God’s grace.
He goes further than that though, when he says, “Power is made perfect in weakness.” That doesn’t mean that God wants us to be submissive groveling slaves. It doesn’t mean that God wants us to stand down in the face of evil. It doesn’t mean that we should not be empowered people that use our minds collectively to solve problems together.
It means that all of our covenants and agreements as a church, as citizens, and as individuals in need of the kindness of strangers are reflections of this one reality. That is the fact that God loves you, and there is nothing you can do about. You can’t earn it. You can’t get more of it. You can’t have less of it.
God’s grace is the unmerited favor – the constant abiding love – that holds us no matter what. Not only that, but the idea of grace – a love that is not earned – exists because of our brokenness. It exists because no matter how closely we follow God in our personal lives, we are always going to find times when we have neglected God’s love.
Maybe it’s because we become so familiar with God’s love that we forget to see it in someone else. Maybe it’s because we expect some grand vision of the way things should be, and we forget that God’s vision is the one we are constantly seeking. Maybe we just get so frustrated with the problems of the world that we look to some other source of power as the answer to the problems that hit closest to home.
Yet the Kingdom of God is ever and always unfolding, and the message of Jesus that we carry with us is one of peace. It is one of reconciliation. It is the message that God’s grace and mercy hold us even in our most contrived realities.
In this way we do, in fact, survive off the kindness of strangers, but unlike Blanche Dubois, we don’t survive as pariahs or as people trying to numb the pain and sadness of a troubled life. In fact, we are called to a life that is not limited to survival at all. We are called to a life that is vital and thriving and full of abundant joy!
Why? It’s because we recognize that Christ has come to make all things new. We recognize that the Kingdom is at hand! We are a people bound in the covenant of grace, and God’s grace is sufficient for us.
It is my hope and my prayer that within and through our limitations we will continue to find ways that demonstrate the love we have received as a people and as disciples sent into the world. And may God continue to be glorified in all we say and do. Amen!
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