A Stranger Asked a Question

We used to attend a large church in Southern Pines, N.C. People can “get lost” in big congregations. Someone said, “Church is a place where we worship together, alone.”

An odd thing happened at that church on a Sunday after a sermon ended and people sought out friends or drifted into the parking lot.

I had seen an isolated man, probably in his early sixties, standing in that church's lobby. I greeted him but did not ask for his name.

As the after-church crowd thinned, my wife and I started out one of the many metal-and-glass doors fronting the worship facility’s lobby. The fellow I mentioned stood to one side of those doors, and as I placed my hand on a door, the man asked, “Could I go to lunch with you?”

“Sure, come on,” I said, amazed that a stranger would ask someone he didn’t know, “Could I go to lunch with you?”

He left his car at the church, and the three of us headed to a nearby Golden Corral. His wife would be joining him in a few weeks, he said. They were moving temporarily from a distant state to stay in a family member’s apartment while that member was deployed with the Army. He told us about his journey to Christian faith, and we shared stories about our lives. As we talked, I thought of these words spoken by Jesus, “I was a stranger, and you took me in.”

The man’s wife moved to our area, and we enjoyed lunching with the two of them before they moved back to their distant home.

I often think about the man who was lonely enough to ask a stranger this question: “Could I go to lunch with you?”