Most parents teach their children to watch out for strangers. That’s a legitimate concern, of course, given that the world seems to be a much more dangerous place than it used to be.

The truth is, however, that the world has always been a dangerous place. We just know more about that danger more quickly because of the 24-hour news cycle. It’s kind of amazing, really, that my mother let me roam the neighborhood with absolute freedom from sunup to sundown in an age when there were no cell phones. The only way she could contact me was by yelling my name out the front door, which you could hear for at least a mile. It might never have occurred to her that some stranger in a van would scoop me up and take me away. Then again, maybe she know I could run fast!

In the name of an abundance of caution in our own day and time, however, we may inadvertently be reaping what we’re sowing. What is known as “stranger danger” in little children can quickly morph into middle school cliques, high school bullying and even a national policy on immigration. We become so afraid of strangers that we will do anything to keep them at bay, sticking with those we know.

But we forget one thing and that is that we are inevitably a stranger to someone else. We have to consider the fact that someone else might look at us with fear and suspicion, not knowing that we aren’t all that scary.

All too often we are easily misunderstood, categorized and refused hospitality because we aren’t like the people around us.  You have seen the news just this passed week that two African American males were arrested for simply sitting in a Starbucks and being strangers to the white manager.

The more we understand that we, too, are strangers to someone, the more likely we are to extend hospitality to those who are strangers to us.

We prefer our strangers to be vetted, cleaned up, cleared by the authorities and with the proper credentials. Certainly, we need to be mindful, but fear of the stranger narrows our definition of neighbor to the point at which only a lawyer like the one who questions Jesus in Luke 10 could embrace (vv. 25-37). We pass by like priests and Levites on the other side of the road in fear of our own safety. We’ll let that be someone else’s problem. We fear being part of someone’s suffering; we fear rejection; we fear the possibility of death.

But remember that Jesus showed his disciples that welcoming the stranger is part of the job description of cross-bearing disciples. Following Jesus means that we love, and love is risky. It doesn’t recognize boundaries, but simply shows compassion.