When a man or woman comes into your home, your assembly, your gathering, we are to show no partiality. If a man with a Gold ring, fine clothes and lots of material things comes in, and another man with shabby clothing, unbathed, and nothing to offer the assembly, do not show partiality to the man with the fine clothes, allowing him to sit with you and placing the shabby man at your feet or far from you. (major paraphrase) :)
Now, who wants to admit that we favor people? Who wants to admit that we like pretty people above the not so pretty? Do we actually do this? Do we shy away from the person at our jobs that isn't like us, the next door neighbor that makes us uncomfortable?
As we shared this, we began to feel pretty blessed that we didn't have this problem that was evident in this scripture passage. When we really started to dig into this passage and share our hearts, we realized that we all shared one thing. We don't really favor the "pretty" people. We had all had bad experiences with the popular crowd, the wealthy, and the accepted. We all decided we actually were drawn to the man in shabby clothing. I shared that I felt much more accepted, comfortable and connected with the man that is homeless, or the woman who is an addict. Why?
Because they are real, they are vulnerable, they are transparent. They don't have a choice but to be transparent and real....their circumstances and sin are very apparent. They are homeless because they were addicted to crack cocaine, they are homeless because they lost their job, their wife and had nowhere to go. They have been humbled beyond understanding. They share in my sin, my addictions, my vulnerability, they are willing to speak to those things because they have no reputation to hang on to...no Kingdom that they are trying to build; they are simply trying to survive.
We truly began to feel quite holy and set apart...we were better than the people in the assembly that favored the fine dressed man. Then we realized the truth. We were no better; we simply had switched who we favored. We realized we have our own stereotypes, our own prejudices, our own "pretty" people that we favor. We came to understand that we all have those that we are comfortable with, those that help us feel safe in our own skin, and those who help us stay in our comfort zone.
Whether you belong to the group that favors the "pretty" people and have them sit in the front with you, or the group that favors the lowly and shabby people...we must change our thinking and love them all. Even those in the middle that just simply don't even show up on our radar.
The group that you simply walk by and don't even notice. We chase the rich for the financial or material gain that they can help us attain or the resources they have to help us build our Kingdom. The shabby and poor we can chase for the self-righteous satisfaction that it gives me to help them, to lower myself to spend time with them.
Jesus sees us all the same. He came to use the lowly to confound the wise. He also came to set the rich tax collector free. But He also came to set this middle aged mother of three, free from the addictions of alcohol, tobacco and depression. He came to give me a hope and a freedom that I had never known so that I could share my freedom with those that fit in all of these groups.
We need to see all the same. They all need Jesus. We cannot look over those we see as less deserving to get to the rich for selfish gain, we can't step over those we see as more deserving for the poor to pump up our ego. And we cannot and must not, stay in our comfort zone, not reaching out a hand of fellowship because we refuse to get out of our comfort zone.
Where do you fit? Who do you favor? What is your prejudice? Reach out like Jesus and offer the hand of fellowship to all that Christ brings in your life.
