“Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:18–19)

“Here the outcast and the stranger bear the image of God’s face.” (From “Let Us Build a House” by Marty Haugen, published in More Voices)

“There are no strangers here, only friends you have yet to meet.” (William Butler Yeats)

When I was in high school, I played on the Midget Girls basketball team. I know—I don’t exactly scream “high school athlete,” and truth be told, I mostly warmed the bench. I joined at the request of my Phys. Ed. teacher. I was tall. I could handle a basketball because we had a net in the driveway, and when I was “sent outside to play,” like most kids in our neighborhood, it often meant a game of 21 with whoever showed up.

I was never an organized-sports kid. In my family, you got one weekday activity, and music lessons beat out soccer, baseball—even dance. That whole culture of playing outside after school, of not having every minute scheduled, doesn’t seem to happen much anymore, does it? Now the expectation is that kids are supervised and offered “opportunities” to develop skills. To be fair, I did this with my own kids. And yes, they’re wonderful adults who have tasted life in ways I could only dream of.

I even had “play clothes” to change into after school—school clothes kept neat for class, play clothes ready for dirt, scraped knees, and shooting hoops in the driveway with a half-dozen other kids. Unsupervised. But we all knew which parents were home if we needed a bandage or a snack.

So there I was, with my very undeveloped understanding of team sports, warming the bench for the Midget Girls basketball team. My teammates seemed to know what they were doing. Their one activity clearly wasn’t music lessons. I felt like a fish out of water in my garnet-and-grey pinny, watching from the sidelines. I did learn a lot that year. I even played in parts of a few games and was dubbed “Most Improved Player.” But metaphorically, I was still on the sidelines. This wasn’t my team. I knew it. They knew it. Nobody was unkind; I just wasn’t one of them.

When the team banquet came around, it never occurred to me to go. I don’t think anyone noticed my absence. The next day, I was handed my “Most Improved” plaque in the front hallway as I headed for the bus. Unceremoniously. I didn’t even register that I wasn’t part of the celebration. I wasn’t part of them, and that was that.

I’ve never played a team sport since. Truly. That was—get this—47 years ago, and I don’t even watch team sports.

I’ve had smaller versions of that experience many times since: attending a conference and not feeling like I belonged; visiting a church where I sat on the sidelines, observing but not connecting; trying to join organizations where others had a shared history I didn’t. These places weren’t hostile. I just wasn’t one of them. They knew it, and I knew it.

So I wonder: how do we become communities where the people who arrive expecting to warm the bench—or the pew—because they don’t know our culture or ways are actually drawn in, seen, and embraced? What needs to shift so the “outcast and the stranger” are recognized as bearing the image of God among us—that their faithfulness, not their familiarity, marks their belonging? How do we live as though strangers truly are friends we haven’t met yet?

I know we’re a friendly crew—really, I do. But I also wonder if there’s a difference between being kind to newcomers and truly receiving the stranger as the image of God in our midst.

Because at the end of the day, many of us know both what it is to share in God’s wholeness and holiness—and what it is to warm the bench and not notice when the banquet is called.

Blessings today, and remember: you are loved.

~ Rev. Lynne