Do you have folks in your life that are so messed up, so odd, so annoying that you just can't hardly stand to be around them? People that you see coming and you want to just go the other way? People that make you act (or at least feel) in a way that you know Jesus wouldn't act? But you just can't hardly help it.
My friend Joy had an amazing insight about people like that. She made one of those statements that made me feel like Jesus was poking me in the ribs, saying, "Hey, did you hear that???"
Joy used the word "BEAUTIFUL" to describe what happens when one of those tough to love people finds a place to be a part of a community.
Beautiful.
Which is not the word that would describe my attitude towards that tough to love person. So, who is the one that's really messed up?
Joy is right. It is beautiful. And as I thought about that, I realized that you almost never see this kind of beauty when you are around people that are like you. It's not something that happens (very often) behind the safe walls of our homes or our churches. It's not something that happens unless we're willing to get a little messy ourselves. Or until we're willing to just admit that we ARE pretty messed up ourselves. Or until we start looking for beauty in people that are NOT like us.
So it occurs to me that our tendency to flock together with people that are like us makes it alot less likely that we can actually be like we really are with other people. In other words our uniqueness gets lost behind our desire to fit in.
Let me say it another way: I've got my own messed up junk. In my own way, I can be really hard to love myself. I can definitely be a big friggin idiot. If I let people see that stuff, will they find anything beautiful there, or will they just want to walk in the other direction? If I am honest about who I am, will there be room for me or will I find myself on the outside looking in? Can you make room for my uniqueness? My differing perspectives? My nuances and oddities? Can you let me be me? I mean, REALLY be me?
That's a deep and very real fear that I think haunts every person on some level. So we hide in our "likeness."
Maybe, just maybe, the only way to start to see beauty in ourselves is to start looking for it in others - ESPECIALLY those in whom it is hard to see much beauty.
But when we see it, when we feel it, when we are a part of it....yeah, it is beautiful.
Doesn't Jesus call us to expnd our definition of neighbor to specifically include those folks who are different from us, not part of our tribe, and maybe even otherwsie despised by us when we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves? Its easy to love the lovable folks who are just like us. Its quite another thing to spread that love to those folks that bug us, make us uncomfortable, fearful, etc.
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