A Lonely Stranger Asked Me a Question . . .

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

A strange thing happened to me one Sunday after a sermon ended at our church and people sought out their friends or drifted into the parking lot.
 
In our church’s large lobby, I had seen an isolated man whom I judged to be in his early sixties. I recall that I spoke to him, though I don’t remember asking him 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 man I mentioned stood off to the 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, rather amazed that a stranger would have the boldness to ask someone he didn't know, “Could I go to lunch with you?”

He left his car in the church parking lot, and the three of us drove a short distance to the Golden Corral in Aberdeen. 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, as I recall. 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?”