Learning from the Stranger

Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity

David I. Smith

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781467423472
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Cultural differences increasingly impact our everyday lives. Virtually none of us today interact exclusively with people who look, talk, and behave like we do. David Smith here offers an excellent guide to living and learning in our culturally interconnected world. / Learning from the Stranger clearly explains what "culture" is, discusses how cultural difference affects our perceptions and behavior, and explores how Jesus' call to love our neighbor involves learning from cultural strangers. Built around three chapter-length readings of extended biblical passages (from Genesis, Luke, and Acts), the book skillfully weaves together theological and practical concerns, and Smith's engaging, readable text is peppered with stories from his own extensive firsthand experience. / Many thoughtful readers will resonate with this insightful book as it encourages the virtues of humility and hospitality in our personal interactions — and shows how learning from strangers, not just imparting our own ideas to them, is an integral part of Christian discipleship.

CHAPTER 1

HOW NOT TO BLESS THE NATIONS

GENESIS 20:1-18

Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.”

Early the next morning Abimelek summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid. Then Abimelek called Abraham in and said, “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” And Abimelek asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?” Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’”

“Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

Then Abimelek brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelek said, “My land is before you; live wherever you like.”

To Sarah he said, “I am giving your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This is to cover the offense against you before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated.”

Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again, for the LORD had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.

THE KING

The king was understandably upset. In a single night, it had all unraveled. What had started out as a most gratifying series of developments had taken a turn that would unseat anyone’s peace of mind; divine death-threats in the dark night hours were not the best recipe for a restful sleep, and watching fear seep through his court was not his favorite way to start the day. And all because of that foreigner.

Before last night there had been no hint of trouble. A wealthy nomad from out east had turned up in Gerar and pitched his tents. Word had it that he had brought his sister along, and King Abimelek saw a chance to forge a potentially useful alliance.¹ He made the necessary arrangements to have her officially added to his harem.

And then what had seemed like a sensible strategy turned scary. God appeared to him in an unforgettably vivid dream and told him bluntly that he would die. This wandering foreigner, apparently, was a prophet, the woman was his wife, and Abimelek, who had taken her for his own, was in trouble. Abimelek protested that he could not have known she was the prophet’s wife, that Abraham himself had declared her to be his sister and raised no complaint when she was sent for, that Sarah had confirmed the claim, and that although Sarah was now in his residence, he had not yet been near her. God’s tone remained stern — it was I who kept you from sinning against her, he pointed out, and you are to return good to this foreigner even though he deceived you and is in your power. At least God lifted the death sentence, provided Sarah was returned and Abraham’s intercession was sought.

“Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.”

GENESIS 20:4-7

Abimelek woke early in a cold sweat, and his fear spread to his officials when he told them about the dream. Now he was about to face Abraham, his mind churning with a bewildering mixture of dread and anger, awe and protest. From pleasurable anticipation to fear for his life and loss of control over his choices, from ruler of the land to the recipient of a foreigner’s mercy, all in a single night. The king was understandably upset.

THE STRANGER

Abraham was anxious. He entered cautiously, unsure exactly what to expect or why he had been summoned so early. It did not take long for the king of Gerar to get to the point: “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that decent people just don’t do!” Why, Abimelek wanted to know, would he pretend that his wife was his sister? Why would he stand by and let her be taken to another man’s bed? What possible reason could he have had for quietly ushering others into evil, for bringing God’s anger down on their heads?

Abraham stood silently for a while before replying, suddenly exposed in a public place far from home, his murky motives laid bare in the court of a foreign king. Abimelek’s anger alone he could perhaps have braved, but there was now more than Abimelek involved. By way of Abimelek’s dream, the questions were coming from God himself, the God whom Abraham had been following all these years.² Why, Abraham, when I called you to be a blessing to the nations, why did you do this?

Abraham’s mind darted back involuntarily to the time when he had turned his steps toward Gerar. He had just witnessed the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain. He had asked God to spare them for the sake of fifty, twenty, even ten righteous people, and God, far from haggling, seemed to be thinking along the same lines. The burning ruins bore shocking testimony to the absence of even ten whom God could regard as righteous. The anxiety that he already carried with him as one who wandered through other people’s lands, dependent on their good will, was roused afresh: nothing in this part of the world but wickedness, people who might stoop to anything, especially concerning a man with wealth and a wife. Now his fear, a fear that had sustained repeated deception in the name of self-preservation wherever he had traveled, was laid bare before the gaze of a foreign king and his court.

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

GENESIS 19:27-28

“I was afraid,” he admitted. “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God caused me to wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”‘“ Everywhere he had traveled, Abraham had been anxious.

IRONY

This story is found in Genesis 20, sandwiched between the promise to Abraham that Sarah would finally give birth to a son, a sign of God’s covenant with the man who was to bless the nations, and the actual birth of Isaac. It is a story filled with irony. Abraham, the prophet, mumbles apologies while the Word of the Lord comes to and through a foreign king.³ Abraham, the one called to walk with God, stands guilty of lying and gross mistreatment of his wife and her suitors, while the supposedly heathen locals are mortified at the thought that they might have sinned against God. Abraham’s fear of mistreatment in spite of God’s repeated promise that he would be blessed stands in contrast to the immediate and obedient fear of God that breaks out in the court at Gerar as soon as God speaks there. Abimelek’s concern for Sarah’s chastity is deeper than that of her husband, who knows that she is to bear the child of the promise. Everything is upside-down. Something, it seems, has gone horribly wrong.

Early the next morning Abimelek summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid. Then Abimelek called Abraham in and said, “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” And Abimelek asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?” Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’”

GENESIS 20:8-11

I suggest that Abraham’s failures, thrown into such sharp relief by Abimelek’s God-fearing response, are failures from which we should learn, in hope that we might stop repeating them. His failures have at least four causes, all of which subvert what God had called him to be, and all of which become intertwined with cultural difference. All are factors that can similarly undermine present efforts to live faithfully in a culturally diverse world. Let’s explore each one briefly.

FEAR

First, there is fear. Both in this instance and on the other occasions when Abraham passed off his wife as his sister, fear for his safety and his future well-being is an explicit motive. Fear is one of the basic challenges of life in general — what will happen to me? Will I be kept safe amid the world’s dangers? Will I have a good life? What if everything suddenly goes wrong? But in this particular instance Abraham’s fear has a more specific context: God has called him to live the life of a wandering stranger, far from his home territory, outside his home culture. The first incident of self-protective lying occurred in Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20); this time Abraham is at Gerar. Both times his fear centers upon the treatment that he might receive at the hands of the locals.

“Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’” Then Abimelek brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelek said, “My land is before you; live wherever you like.”

GENESIS 20:12-15

There is a peculiar vulnerability involved in being a stranger — a migrant, a refugee, an exile, any kind of alien.⁴ Every human community has a multitude of unspoken rules about when to speak (and about what), when to be silent, where to go for what, what to call things, when to smile, what to praise, what to despise, and so on. Children of the community internalize these rules as they grow, often simply through imitation or by means of a disapproving parental stare. For the stranger, who has learned other rules and cannot rely on the locals, who are scarcely aware of their own habits, to foresee and explain all of his likely mistakes, there are daily reminders of not belonging, of being an outsider who does not quite fit in.

This sense of not being at home goes together with a certain insecurity. The stranger does not share the native’s roots. The locals inhabit networks of family, clan, and other social groupings. The stranger cannot as easily call upon the support of the community; the community owes him or her no deep-grained debt of loyalty. In the extreme case, the stranger is at risk of being cheated, mistreated, deported, or even attacked. Such things happen often enough to offer a plausible basis for anxiety, and it is not necessary to cross oceans to encounter them. It is easy for the stranger to feel an exaggerated sense of fear, and hard to avoid the sense that some degree of anxiety is justified.

POWER

This already hints at a second factor in Abraham’s situation: power. While some strangers are honored, and some locals are despised and marginalized, it is commonly those who are different who are in various ways pushed to the fringe of a community. It is clear in the present story that whatever his wealth, Abraham perceives himself as relatively powerless. Indeed, as a foreigner, Abraham is relatively powerless. Having no born right to be where he is, he is at the mercy of the local community’s decisions about how to treat him and dependent on his own ability to defend himself if necessary. Abimelek sits secure amidst his officials, wielding institutional authority and enjoying standing among the dominant group. Abraham is an outsider, and such power as he gains here will have to be bought, or granted him by the locals. When the powerful king sends for the nomad’s wife, powerlessness works with fear to keep both Abraham and Sarah silent.

Cultural differences are not just benign variations, like colors on a painter’s palette; they constantly become places where power is unevenly distributed so that cultures and those who indwell them are more or less powerful, more or less vulnerable. These differences in cultural power can operate both between societies and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue: Relinquishing the Center
• 1. How Not to Bless the Nations
• 2. Culture and Bad Breath
• 3. Cage, Carnival, or Calling?
• 4. On Loving Foreigners
• 5. Plausible Ways of Falling Short
• 6. Learning from the Stranger
• 7. Of Babblers and Barbarians
• Epilogue: Choosing the Journey
• Endnotes
• Bibliography