Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:19, The Bible
I was reading the book of Deuteronomy recently and came across the scripture above. It reminded me of who God truly is and how his character can teach a lot of lessons about life. In this blog post, I would like to talk about God's love for the stranger.
Who is the stranger?
Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:9, The Bible
A stranger, according to WordNet, is anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found.
We all have experienced the newcomer coming in — in school, at work, in church, sometimes even at home. They are different from us in some way. They don't understand the rules around here, the operations. They may mess things up. They may be careless or may not know the importance of things because of their naïveté. And even sometimes, they might be dangerous to you and to everyone else.
We're all familiar with the stranger, because we've all been strangers in every aspect in our lives. We were strangers to talking, strangers to walking, strangers to travelling, strangers to classmates, strangers to co-workers, strangers in groups we choose to associate with. We were strangers to adults as children and strangers to children as adults. The irony of life.
How man deals with the stranger
When you join a basketball team as a point guard, and you are paid a lot of money to perform, you are expected to rack in points non-stop. You may be given time by the coach, it may take you some time to catch your stride, but eventually you have to produce results (aka score). If seasons go by and points are not forthcoming, you would eventually be let go.
When you join a jazz band as the lead pianist, you have to hold those chords down. You have to make sure the harmonic section is on par. You may slip and fat-finger a couple notes here and there, but eventually you have to get up to speed. If you don't, they show you the door.
There is a version of this with the sick among the Israelites in the Old Testament. They were told to quarantine for some days but if the sickness persisted, they were given the boot and were told to leave the camp.
I think you can start to see a pattern of how man handles the stranger. There are many other scenarios that I didn't mention like:
- Giving the stranger more work e.g. a new employee
- Using the stranger as a slave e.g. in the time of the Egyptians
- Excluding them from good e.g. immigrants not having the same rights as citizens
- Making them take the blame for everything e.g. Potiphar's wife getting Joseph locked up
Bad things are not the only thing that happens to a stranger, but as you can see, you have to do good, or else! Or like they say it in some nursery school songs:
If you do good, kingdom waiting for you; if you do bad, no more kingdom.
How God dealt with the stranger
What does the Bible say about the way God dealt with the stranger?
- In the garden of Eden, he prepared coats of skin for Adam and Eve (the new strangers). (Gen. 3:21)
- After Sarah kicked out Hagar (the stranger), God visited her. (Gen. 21:17)
- In Exodus, the strangers (the Israelites) were saved from Egypt. (Ex. 22:21)
- The strangers that were among them were told to follow the same law. (Ex. 12:49)
- The strangers were told to observe the Sabbath. (Deut. 5:14)
- He accepted the stranger Abraham, and even gave Abraham the land that he was a stranger in. (Gen. 28:4)
- Moses was a stranger in Egypt. (Ex. 2:22)
How Jesus dealt with the stranger
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Matthew 5:43-44, The Bible
Did Jesus deal with the stranger? He sure did:
- Jesus told us to love our enemies aka the stranger (as in the scripture quoted above).
- Jesus saved the Gentiles, who are considered strangers to the Jews.
- Jesus saved other Jews that were under the curse of the law. They were strangers because they were put under the laws of the Pharisees, which they were unable to follow.
- The parable about the Good Samaritan could be viewed as a person being saved by a stranger (as how God can seem like a stranger to us).
- Jesus always ate with sinners. Sinners in this context play the role of the stranger.
- Though Jesus wants us to continue believing in him after he saves us, and we choose to turn our backs on him i.e. choose to become strangers to him, he still keeps to his promise and grants us eternal life.
- Man is a stranger to God, because our ways are opposite. (1 Cor. 1:25)
In summary:
If you believe once, kingdom; if you do evil, kingdom still waiting for you.
How can I apply this?
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:9, The Bible
There is a lot to learn from the stranger. Having this attitude can make life a lot better. Learn to understand your children (the strangers) and not just judge them. Try to understand the Republicans and the Democrats (the strangers) before you criticize what they say. Try to be a listening ear to the employee that is under you (stranger again) or an old geezer.
I use this principle even in my work. When I write software, I try to create interfaces that capture part of the problem. This is how I come up with my best solutions. For instance, if I write a program that converts spreadsheet documents to XML, I most likely would use high-level representations of Spreadsheet and XML in the code to help materialize the problem. Once the problem is defined, the solution can easily be put together.
Obviously these principles can be applied outside of software. Show love to people that don't deserve it. Love like the sun. Love like God.
The bottom line
This is a true exercise of mercy. We all need it, so it is only fair we give to all, including the stranger. We don't have to, but it surely doesn't hurt.