Talking to strangers?

As a kid, did we not all learn an important safety principle from our parents? "Never talk to strangers!" The idea "stranger danger" is a fundamental thing we teach our kids still, and for good reason. I can remember how dangerous I was told it could be to pick up a hitchhiker, how terrible it was to accept a gift from someone I didn't know.

I get the reasoning behind all of this. Unfortunately, it becomes something a bit tough to overcome as an adult. I recall a hot day about ten years ago driving somewhere in town in the minivan, rounding a corner not far from the house, and seeing a young woman wearing sweat pants and carrying what appeared to be about a 4 year-old kid. She looked miserable. So did the boy. You know what the first instinct still was? I am ashamed to admit it: stranger danger. You never know what could happen.

I recall the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Sadly, I can identify with the priest and the Levite. Now, the story doesn't directly talk about why those two were motivated to pass by the fellow suffering on the side of the road. Uncleanliness is surely part of it (these were Temple folk after all, and cleanliness was a big deal to them). However, there was the danger element. You couldn't have known how far away the bandits were and if they were hoping that someone would stop to help, someone they could add to their list of victims.

As for the "unclean" factor, I doubt that many of us today could totally avoid this feeling. I live in a town with an very interesting population. There are a good number of people living here who have it pretty rough. Quite a few of retirement age who don't really have enough to retire on. A lot of people not of retirement age just struggling to make it, single-parent families doing their best to put food on the table. There's a derogatory word used to describe a lot of the people around here: redneck.

Jeff Foxworthy is famous because of his "You might be a redneck..." jokes. It describes a culture viewed as backwoods, uneducated, and poor, people who may be poor because they have poor ways of doing things. They are stereotyped as those who haunt Wal-Mart late at night while yelling at their kids and buying a bunch of cigarettes and beer and miniature chocolate doughnuts with a little actual food on the side, often with food stamps. They are pretty much ignored, avoided, and made fun of.

Maybe it's not unlike the way Jews treated Samaritans.

In the parable, the question was answered, "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29). The neighbor to the suffering man was the one who helped him. He wasn't defined by being Samaritan or Jewish, ultimately, or by the position he held. He was defined as the helper. The one with compassion. The one who looked past prejudice and stereotype and saw another who needed his help.

Back to the young single mom carrying his son. The temptation was to drive on. Stranger danger. Stereotype. But it turned out to be one of those moments where I could actually hear the audible voice of God in me, the Holy Spirit. Like the sheet being lowered for Peter: don't call unclean what I call clean.

I turned around. I had carseats already. Mom was dubious, but desperate and tired enough to take help. She had been walking all the way from Dade City to get to a park where she'd meet a friend to go home with. Her trek was taking her about ten miles with this little boy in the hot sun. I only wish I had seen her sooner, and about eight miles further north. At the least, we were able to save her a couple of miles of walking and sweating. And I made a friend with a pretty cool kid.

Look, I'm not a great neighbor. I've driven by others that I should have stopped for. But it's pretty memorable to be a neighbor. I want to be one more often. I know I still have to unlearn some things, lose some biases and inhibitions, and start thinking of people the way Jesus does: Precious people for whom He died. Start doing life with Jesus in the way He would do it. Maybe it'll be dangerous. Maybe I'll get burned a time or two, but at least I would be able to say I lived. Better to be a risk-it neighbor than to always play it safe and miss the opportunity to be like Jesus.