We are continuing our 30 Days of Gratitude! If you missed the scoop about why we’re celebrating, be sure to check out Episode One. Yesterday, we talked about how to be grateful even when people don’t apologize for the things they’ve done to offend you. Today, we’re going to be discussing Day Seven's Topic: Church Folks!
LISTEN!!!! That one phrase can cause sooooo many emotions, right? Goodness gracious. Just hearing myself say those two words has me over here shaking my head. Dealing with people in general tends to be hard, but it just seems like church folks are a different breed of human beings. I think it’s because of what we expect from church folks. We expect them to be different from “regular folks”, but the fact of the matter is that people are people, no matter where you are or where you go. And honestly, just like church folks are “church folks” to you, you probably are or have been “church folks” to someone else, whether they were inside or outside of the church - sometimes without even realizing it. I know I’ve been “church folks” before… Bless my heart.
In my book, I quote a LONG passage of scripture (Luke 10:25-37 to be exact) that talks about the story of the Good Samaritan. Now if you don’t know the story, I’ll give you the tea right quick. So this lawyer asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus flipped the question back on him and said, “Well what is written in the law?” Jesus had comebacks for days. So the lawyer quotes the scripture and says that we should love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength and that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Jesus says, “Yeah, that’s right. Do that and you’ll live.” I’m paraphrasing, by the way. The lawyer tried to get a little justification for his little uppity actions by saying “And who is my neighbor?” So Jesus, true to form, tells a story. Normally, I get mad when I ask a simple question and someone tells me an entire story, but this is Jesus, so you know, you gotta kinda just listen. So here’s the story He told:
He said that a man was walking down the road and he got robbed. They stripped him and beat him, and then they left him half dead on the side of the road. So there was a priest going down the road and when he saw the man over there all beat up and stuff, he went to the other side and passed by. THE OTHER SIDE. A whole entire priest. Next came a Levite. Now a Levite is something like what we would call a "praise and worship leader" today. He saw the man, crossed the street, passed by the man… on the other side. Then, Jesus said, “BUT a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.”
Now you may have been taught that when you use the word “but”, it negates everything you said before that word. Jesus was intentional about this. And that’s gonna bring me to number one, but let me finish the story. So the Samaritan man helped the man who had been robbed. He cleaned him up, bound up his wounds, took him to an inn and paid for his stay. Then he said, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.” So Jesus asked, “Which one of these do you think proved to be a neighbor?” The lawyer said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said, “You go, and do likewise.”
I really wanna break this down, but I have to give you these three things to be grateful for or we will be here ALL DAY!
Number one: Be grateful for the "but". Church folks can hurt you. Church folks will hurt you. We expect church folks to treat us differently than the people on our jobs, out on the street, on the Metro, etc. - but the fact of the matter is that people are people, and church folks (ourselves included) tend to use the very thing that is supposed to convict us to try to justify our behavior just like this lawyer was trying to do in this story. But… For every single offense, hurt,
