Boy is tonight’s text a hard one for me right now. The text for tonight’s worship is James 2:1-13 and it’s all about partiality. If we treat someone nicer because they’re dressed better or if we treat someone else with a lack of respect because they’re poor than we have sinned. Now you may think to yourself – oh of course I wouldn’t treat someone differently based on how they look or how they dress or how they smell or how much money I assume they make. And normally in a bit of self righteousness I would agree with you.
Until I went to the emergency room last night.
Enoch, our 4 year old was bouncing on our pretty tall sleigh bed as Spider Man last night and he flipped over the end of the bed landing on his arm. So here we go to the Emergency Room – the land of all sorts of people in all sorts of situations and states of panic/fear/sick.
The first thing I notice is that there’s no one there to greet you. The nurses were busy. We just signed ourselves in as Enoch continued to cry. As we sit down I start to take in the dirty walls and dirty seats and dirty everything. As we sit down in triage I can’t help but notice on the floor mucus/spit yuck that we have now walked through and Enoch has dragged his blanket in. Let’s just say that Mom Narcie is not quite as open to all of us being equal as Minister Narcie. Mom Narcie wanted to demand immediate attention and ask someone to clean this place up and stop chit-chatting with the nurse if you’re supposed to be putting in our insurance information. Not that I didn’t realize that everyone there was in some sort of distress whether themselves or for a family member, but I honestly only cared a smidge because Enoch was hurt and I wanted that to take precedence over anything. Not that if someone walked in bleeding everywhere, I would have said anything, but you get my drift. Every person that walked by from the teenagers to the person in the orange jump suit that came in with the police officer got the once over. And you know how that goes. I’m sure you’ve given people the once over at least a couple times. Where you’re looking at their clothes and their hair and their overall appearance and your making judgments and assumptions.
I always think that part of a doctor’s physical is pretty random – overall physical appearance. I often want to put something beside it that says – stressed college student or very tired mother of small children or just doing the best I can.
But we know that there are people sizing us up all over the place. Do you feel that when you walk into class or at the grocery store or at church or at that party? What does our appearance say about who we are? Does it show all of who we are? Why do we make so many assumptions about people based on how they look or how much power we think they have?
The passage goes on to end with verses 12 and 13, “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.”
Whoever enters, whoever dares to come in, wherever appears at our door, we are called to respond with mercy not judgment. That’s not easy. It’s completely counter-cultural. We’re used to sizing things up to see if it’s true or false. Does this person really need help or not? Is this person telling the truth or not?
Or on the other hand, if we’re the ones that have messed up, if we’ve been the one to make the mistake and all appearances are to the contrary – do we want mercy or judgment? Do we want someone to make a split second decision or do we want them to check it out with us? Do we want instant rebuke and accusation or do we want compassion, understanding, dialogue?
I think if someone was on the outside looking in at the hot mess my life looks like at times, I’d want them to get to know me. I’d want them to see me for who I am – warts and all. I hope that I have the grace, mercy, and love to show that same care for others, because loving our neighbor as ourselves means that we don’t lift ourselves up at the cost of someone else but that we show the same compassion to the world that we expect in return. And we show that even when it’s not given to us. That’s hard.
As we continue this Lenten journey may we not only embrace the teaching of Jesus that affirm us and lift us up but also those that challenge us and smack us sometimes. To walk the journey as a disciple of Jesus is not always easy, but what a life and example to try and imitate!
A dirty Andrew
Is it easier to embrace the dirty and embrace those around us when we’re in “mission trip” mode more than in our day to day lives??? Do we suspend our judgments more that way? Is it easier to not get so wrapped up in ourselves during those times?
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