Human price tags
Commentary
Object:
Soren Kierkegaard once wrote of a strange break-in at a large store in his native Denmark where the thieves didn't remove anything. When clerks opened up in the morning, all the merchandise was still there. Instead of stealing the goods, the thieves had stolen value. They had switched all the price tags so that the worth of each item had no relation to its price: a diamond necklace valued at $2; a pair of leather shoes for 50 cents; a pencil selling for $75, and a baby's rattle with $5,000 on the sticker.
Sometimes it seems as if our society has been invaded by thieves like that. Just when we think we know the value of something, the sticker price begins to spin. Worse still, the values placed on us can bounce like a stock market chart until we don't know who we are anymore.
Shelley Rodriguez remembers the time she brought her grandson to a farm sale near their home in Independence, Kentucky. The boy was eight years old at the time. Immediately he was captured by the magic of the auctioneer's singsong voice. Yet something bothered him.
"Grandma," he asked, "how is that man ever going to sell anything if he keeps changing the prices?"
That's a good question for all of us.
Of course, one might also wonder about God's price tags of human worth when reading today's lectionary passages. Why should "those who are poor in the eyes of the world" have a higher value in heaven's gaze than any other demographic group? Maybe it is time for us to learn again how God looks at us. Only then, possibly, will human "sticker prices" finally make sense.
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
In 1967 a psychologist named Kinch reported a rather bizarre experiment conducted by university psychology graduate students. These males were part of what they considered to be the "in" crowd on campus. They moved in the right circles, dressed the right way, and went to the right places for nightlife parties.
But they all knew a particular young woman who wasn't in that circle. She was an "outsider," a "nobody," a person who didn't count, at least to them and their kind.
Knowing the effects of behavior modification, they planned together to see how she would change if they treated her, for a time, as if she were part of their "in" crowd. They made an agreement that whenever they saw her they would compliment her and show an interest in her. Furthermore, they would take turns asking her out on dates.
The experiment took a strange turn. Under other circumstances they did not like her. Prior to this, they would not have talked to her but only about her, and in condescending and cynical ways. Yet as the challenge progressed each of the men gradually found the young woman more likable, less foreign, less alien. The first fellow's date with her went okay, even though he had to keep telling himself she was more beautiful and better company than he truly felt.
But by the time the third fellow asked her out, she had actually become part of their circle of friends. They thought it was kind of fun being with her. She wasn't so bad after all!
The fifth fellow never did get to date her, because the fourth fellow in line asked her to be his wife! What started as a rather cruel experiment ended up as an amazing testimony to the truth of James' words. The judgments made by the "in" group of men proved paltry in the face of mercy, even if it began as a psychological exercise.
Edwin Markham put it well when he wrote:
He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic! Rebel! A thing to flout!
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
We are taught fair play as children, seeking a place to hang onto our "rights." That is a good thing. But the law made for children, as these Proverbs declare, must eventually give way to relationships of mercy that reflect the spiritual maturity of our true Father.
Sometimes there are children who can show this in remarkable ways, as Dale Galloway related in his book Dream a New Dream. A friend's son was very shy, he said. Chad was usually by himself, and others took no effort to include him in their circles of friends. Every afternoon Chad's mother would see the children pile off the school bus in groups, laughing, playing, and joking around with each other. Chad, however, would always be the last down the steps, always alone. No one ever paid much attention to him.
One day in late January Chad came home and said, "You know what, Mom? Valentine's Day is coming and I want to make a valentine for everyone in my class!"
Chad's mother told Dale how terrible she felt. "Oh no!" she thought. "Chad is setting himself up for a fall now. He's going to make valentines for everyone else, but nobody will think of him. He'll come home disappointed and just pull back further into his shell."
But Chad insisted, so they got paper and crayons and glue. Chad made 31 valentine cards. It took him three weeks.
The day he took them to school his mother cried. When he got off the bus alone as usual, bearing no valentine cards from others in his hands, she was ready for the worst.
Amazingly Chad's face was glowing. He marched through the door triumphant. "I didn't forget anybody!" he said. "I gave them all one of my hearts!"
That day Chad gained something more than just friends. He gained a sense of himself. He won a sense of dignity and worth. "I gave them all one of my hearts!" he said.
That's where these Proverbs want to bring us. Circles of hatred erased by circles of love. Circles of judgment blurred by widening circles of mercy. Circles of death that give way to circles of life. The gospel says that when we had drawn God out of our circles, his love drew us in. Perhaps Markham's poem could be translated into the conversation of heaven as the Father and the Son reflect about me:
He drew a circle that shut us out --
Heretic! Rebel! A thing to flout!
But our love alone had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
That was the day mercy triumphed over justice!
James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen was traveling in Rome when he noticed a crowd of people gathered around a large red poster. They were talking rather animatedly among themselves about the message it announced, and Ibsen was curious to know what was causing the commotion. When he reached into his coat pocket, however, he realized that he'd left his eyeglasses back at his hotel. Not wanting to be left out of the excitement, he turned to the fellow next to him and said, "Signore, could you please tell me what that sign says? I've forgotten my glasses."
The man turned toward him with a "knowing" look in his eyes and replied, "Sorry, Signore, but I don't know how to read either!"
Corrective eyewear is a physical necessity for many of us. But James says that corrective eyewear is also a spiritual necessity for our hearts. As Dr. Karl Menninger once put it, "Attitudes are more important than facts." For that reason James indicates a trip to the "glorious" light of Jesus Christ is part of a spiritual ophthalmologist exam. Once we enter the light of Christ we need glasses that will change our attitudes about each other. We need glasses of the heart that will alter our perceptions. We need corrective lenses of the soul that will make us encourage and build others up, rather than cut them down.
Johan Eriksson learned that lesson well. In 1939 trainloads of Jewish children were piling into Sweden. Because of the changing political climate under Hitler's European campaign, parents were trying to get their young ones out of Germany. Boys and girls, sometimes only three or four years old, stumbled off boxcars and into culture shock carrying nothing but large tags around each neck, announcing their names, ages, and hometowns.
The Swedes had agreed to take in the children "for the duration of the war." Unfortunately there were more children than suitable homes, so even Johan Eriksson was called. Johan was a widower, middle-aged and gruff, and not a likely candidate for foster parenting.
Without comprehending why, young Rolf walked away from the train station next to Johan. The boy was starving at the time and frightened into silence. Every time he heard a noise at Johan's door, little Rolf would run into a closet and pull coats over his head.
For years Rolf wouldn't smile. He hardly ate. Johan created a spartan but stable home for Rolf, biding his time until Rolf would be gone and he could get back to his life. Yet Rolf never went back to Germany because no one ever sent for him. His parents perished in the ovens.
So Johan did his best with a son he never anticipated. When Rolf was in his twenties, Johan managed to get him a job in Stockholm. For a while Rolf struggled along, but he couldn't handle the pressures. "His mind just snapped one day," his employer said, and the local authorities wanted to put him in a mental institution.
Johan set out immediately to rescue his boy. Johan was an old man now, yet he brought Rolf home again to the little city of Amal. For many years Johan nursed Rolf back to health.
Rolf finally got better. He married a wonderful woman. He established a fairly successful business and even became quite wealthy. All along, though, he knew that his achievements were only possible because of Johan, the big Swede who took in a nobody, loved him back to life, gave him an identity, and hugged away his fears.
When doctors called Johan's children home for a final parting in his dying days, Rolf was the first to arrive. From an orphan's tragedy, his life had become the story of a dearly loved son.
Johan was a Christian. He found the spiritual corrective eyewear that James prescribes. It gave him the ability to see little Rolf as God saw him, and Rolf began to live that day.
Said Mark Twain, "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." True! But when you get that new pair of eyeglasses for your soul, everything begins to look different. James would say that it has to do with the light of "our glorious Lord Jesus Christ" restoring in us the true ability to see.
Mark 7:24-37
Thomas Long told about the examination of ministerial candidates in a North Carolina presbytery. One elderly minister always kept quiet through the bulk of the ordeals, according to Long, and then invariably asked the same final set of questions just at the close of each examination.
"Look out that window," he would order the candidates. "Tell me when you see someone walking out there." So they did. When someone walked by he would say, "Now, describe that person to me theologically."
Each person's answer would be a bit different from the others, of course. Yet they consistently could be reduced to just two basic ideas. One group of ministers-to-be would say something like: "Well, there goes a sinner who is on his way to hell unless he repents!"
The other group responded something like this: "There goes a person who is a child of God. God loves that person so very much, and the best thing that can happen to him is to find out how good it is to love God in return!"
Funny thing, said the old minister, both responses are probably right. Still, those who respond in the latter way always make better pastors.
Why? Because they have learned to live life in the manner of Jesus. For when the roll is called up yonder, the grades on the report cards that make it won't be "A" for excellent, or "B" for good, or even "C" for nice try. The only grade that will make it will be G for grace.
Application
Lee Sharpe remembers a childhood incident that made a permanent impact on his life. It was the spring of the year and his father wanted to get the garden ready for planting. When he took his hoe and rake from the shed, both needed repair. He dropped them off at Trussel's blacksmith shop, saying, "Whenever you can get around to it, I'd appreciate it if you could fix these. I know it's not much, and I hate to bother you with it."
Mr. Trussel said it was no problem; he'd look after it. Several days later he called to say that the tools were fixed and ready. Mr. Sharpe could pick them up anytime.
Lee went with his father that afternoon to get them. Mr. Trussel had done a fine job. But when Lee's dad asked, "How much do I owe you?" Mr. Trussel shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Don't worry about it. My pleasure."
That didn't sit right with Mr. Sharpe. He was a fair man and wanted to pay a fair price for a fair hour of work. He took out his wallet and tried to shove some money into Mr. Trussel's hands. The blacksmith, however, adamantly refused. He held up his hands and said, "Sid, can't you let a man do something now and then, just to stretch his soul?"
Young Lee carried that incident with him for the rest of his life. It was, for him, a vision of integrity: Mr. Trussel spoke and lived the faith he believed.
Even Charles Darwin was impressed by Christian faith that breathed through responsible Christian living. He had disowned the Christianity of his childhood and was sailing for five years around South America in search of confirmation to his theories of natural selection and evolutionary development. When he stopped for a while at Tierra del Fuego he found a community that defied his prescriptions for normal human development. Under the teaching and ministry of a man named Thomas Bridges the whole society was transformed into something better than it used to be.
The power in Thomas Bridges' leadership came from his own story. He was abandoned as a baby on the banks of the Thames in London, England. Passers-by heard his feeble cries and rescued him barely alive. It happened on St. Thomas' Day near several bridges over the river, so they called him Thomas Bridges. The family that raised him as their own gave him confidence in the love of Jesus. Though abandoned by his mother, he learned the power of faith that lives through deeds of those who care.
That is why he became a missionary of Jesus Christ, and the reason his words, coupled with actions, rang with power. Even Charles Darwin, as he was becoming an atheist, supported Thomas Bridges financially for the rest of his life. Here was faith that made a difference, and that was something the world needed more than another scientific theory.
An Alternative Application
James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17. Felix Mendelssohn loved to tell the marvelous story of how his grandparents Moses and Frumte Mendelssohn met and married. Moses was very short and far from handsome. He walked with a limping gait, partly because he sported a very noticeable hunchback.
The day Moses met Frumte, Cupid's arrow struck deep. He determined to win the hand of this young beauty, the daughter of a local businessman. He knew it would be difficult because, like other young women of Hamburg, Frumte was repulsed by his misshapen body. Only after Moses made many requests to her father did she reluctantly agree to see him.
Frumte did not fall in love with Moses, however. At the same time, in spite of her constant resistance, Moses' hopes did not dim. He persisted in calling on her until one evening she told him firmly and clearly that he should not return. She did not want to see him again.
Moses threw caution to the wind. This would be the last time he could get a foot in the door so he asked an intriguing question: "Do you believe that marriages are made in heaven?"
"Yes," replied Frumte hesitantly, reluctant in the insecurity of not knowing where he was headed with this. "I suppose so."
"So do I," agreed Moses. "You see, in heaven, just before a boy is born, God shows him the girl he will someday marry. When God pointed out my future bride to me, God explained that she would be born with a hideous hunchback. That is when I asked God if he would please prevent the tragedy of a beautiful girl with a hunchback. I asked God to let the hunchback fall on me instead."
Frumte's eyes filled with tears. Years later she wrote, "I looked into the distance and I felt some long-hidden memory stir in my heart. At that moment I realized the depth and quality of this deformed young man. I never regretted marrying him."
Maybe Moses Mendelssohn overplayed his hand in conjuring scenes of pre-natal heaven. Still, there is something quite insightful about his analysis of who we are in ourselves and what lies inside the persons we meet day to day. For one thing, there is something of divine beauty in every person knit together by God in each mother's womb. We did not emerge into this existence by our own volition or at the design of our own hand. And if our lives are a divine gift, we ought to be careful about artificial criteria of worth we might use as plumb lines in measuring the bent of another soul.
Second, though physical realities, including beauty and social status, may initially mark our assessments of each other, they rarely tell the whole story of human meaning. "Poor eyes limit your sight," said Franklin Field, "and poor vision limits your deeds."
He knew us well. Who wants to kiss a hairlip? Who wants to hold hands with a stump destroyed by meat tenderizer mistakenly injected by a junkie? (She was in our church telling her story recently.) Who wants to form "spoons" in bed with a hunchback? Perhaps only those whose vision is not encumbered with limited perspective and thus have eyes to see the true person. Some might say it is only those who love.
Third, there is something refreshing about stumbling into the kingdom of God and finding relationships of meaning that are not prejudged and limited by the rules of others. By the rules of the day Frumte should not have married Moses. Similarly, Sir Walter Scott should not have remained with his disfigured wife. Likewise, Hosea should have divorced his wayward spouse. There are millions of other relationships that ought to have dissolved, at least on our terms. But what a serendipitous delight to find power in the passions of heaven!
"You have insulted the poor!" said James. Too bad! See what you missed? You missed the gifts God lavishly showered in unlikely corners. You missed a beauty beyond status, and you missed Jesus himself, because he was playing ball with the kids down that very alley.
Sometimes it seems as if our society has been invaded by thieves like that. Just when we think we know the value of something, the sticker price begins to spin. Worse still, the values placed on us can bounce like a stock market chart until we don't know who we are anymore.
Shelley Rodriguez remembers the time she brought her grandson to a farm sale near their home in Independence, Kentucky. The boy was eight years old at the time. Immediately he was captured by the magic of the auctioneer's singsong voice. Yet something bothered him.
"Grandma," he asked, "how is that man ever going to sell anything if he keeps changing the prices?"
That's a good question for all of us.
Of course, one might also wonder about God's price tags of human worth when reading today's lectionary passages. Why should "those who are poor in the eyes of the world" have a higher value in heaven's gaze than any other demographic group? Maybe it is time for us to learn again how God looks at us. Only then, possibly, will human "sticker prices" finally make sense.
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
In 1967 a psychologist named Kinch reported a rather bizarre experiment conducted by university psychology graduate students. These males were part of what they considered to be the "in" crowd on campus. They moved in the right circles, dressed the right way, and went to the right places for nightlife parties.
But they all knew a particular young woman who wasn't in that circle. She was an "outsider," a "nobody," a person who didn't count, at least to them and their kind.
Knowing the effects of behavior modification, they planned together to see how she would change if they treated her, for a time, as if she were part of their "in" crowd. They made an agreement that whenever they saw her they would compliment her and show an interest in her. Furthermore, they would take turns asking her out on dates.
The experiment took a strange turn. Under other circumstances they did not like her. Prior to this, they would not have talked to her but only about her, and in condescending and cynical ways. Yet as the challenge progressed each of the men gradually found the young woman more likable, less foreign, less alien. The first fellow's date with her went okay, even though he had to keep telling himself she was more beautiful and better company than he truly felt.
But by the time the third fellow asked her out, she had actually become part of their circle of friends. They thought it was kind of fun being with her. She wasn't so bad after all!
The fifth fellow never did get to date her, because the fourth fellow in line asked her to be his wife! What started as a rather cruel experiment ended up as an amazing testimony to the truth of James' words. The judgments made by the "in" group of men proved paltry in the face of mercy, even if it began as a psychological exercise.
Edwin Markham put it well when he wrote:
He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic! Rebel! A thing to flout!
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
We are taught fair play as children, seeking a place to hang onto our "rights." That is a good thing. But the law made for children, as these Proverbs declare, must eventually give way to relationships of mercy that reflect the spiritual maturity of our true Father.
Sometimes there are children who can show this in remarkable ways, as Dale Galloway related in his book Dream a New Dream. A friend's son was very shy, he said. Chad was usually by himself, and others took no effort to include him in their circles of friends. Every afternoon Chad's mother would see the children pile off the school bus in groups, laughing, playing, and joking around with each other. Chad, however, would always be the last down the steps, always alone. No one ever paid much attention to him.
One day in late January Chad came home and said, "You know what, Mom? Valentine's Day is coming and I want to make a valentine for everyone in my class!"
Chad's mother told Dale how terrible she felt. "Oh no!" she thought. "Chad is setting himself up for a fall now. He's going to make valentines for everyone else, but nobody will think of him. He'll come home disappointed and just pull back further into his shell."
But Chad insisted, so they got paper and crayons and glue. Chad made 31 valentine cards. It took him three weeks.
The day he took them to school his mother cried. When he got off the bus alone as usual, bearing no valentine cards from others in his hands, she was ready for the worst.
Amazingly Chad's face was glowing. He marched through the door triumphant. "I didn't forget anybody!" he said. "I gave them all one of my hearts!"
That day Chad gained something more than just friends. He gained a sense of himself. He won a sense of dignity and worth. "I gave them all one of my hearts!" he said.
That's where these Proverbs want to bring us. Circles of hatred erased by circles of love. Circles of judgment blurred by widening circles of mercy. Circles of death that give way to circles of life. The gospel says that when we had drawn God out of our circles, his love drew us in. Perhaps Markham's poem could be translated into the conversation of heaven as the Father and the Son reflect about me:
He drew a circle that shut us out --
Heretic! Rebel! A thing to flout!
But our love alone had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
That was the day mercy triumphed over justice!
James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen was traveling in Rome when he noticed a crowd of people gathered around a large red poster. They were talking rather animatedly among themselves about the message it announced, and Ibsen was curious to know what was causing the commotion. When he reached into his coat pocket, however, he realized that he'd left his eyeglasses back at his hotel. Not wanting to be left out of the excitement, he turned to the fellow next to him and said, "Signore, could you please tell me what that sign says? I've forgotten my glasses."
The man turned toward him with a "knowing" look in his eyes and replied, "Sorry, Signore, but I don't know how to read either!"
Corrective eyewear is a physical necessity for many of us. But James says that corrective eyewear is also a spiritual necessity for our hearts. As Dr. Karl Menninger once put it, "Attitudes are more important than facts." For that reason James indicates a trip to the "glorious" light of Jesus Christ is part of a spiritual ophthalmologist exam. Once we enter the light of Christ we need glasses that will change our attitudes about each other. We need glasses of the heart that will alter our perceptions. We need corrective lenses of the soul that will make us encourage and build others up, rather than cut them down.
Johan Eriksson learned that lesson well. In 1939 trainloads of Jewish children were piling into Sweden. Because of the changing political climate under Hitler's European campaign, parents were trying to get their young ones out of Germany. Boys and girls, sometimes only three or four years old, stumbled off boxcars and into culture shock carrying nothing but large tags around each neck, announcing their names, ages, and hometowns.
The Swedes had agreed to take in the children "for the duration of the war." Unfortunately there were more children than suitable homes, so even Johan Eriksson was called. Johan was a widower, middle-aged and gruff, and not a likely candidate for foster parenting.
Without comprehending why, young Rolf walked away from the train station next to Johan. The boy was starving at the time and frightened into silence. Every time he heard a noise at Johan's door, little Rolf would run into a closet and pull coats over his head.
For years Rolf wouldn't smile. He hardly ate. Johan created a spartan but stable home for Rolf, biding his time until Rolf would be gone and he could get back to his life. Yet Rolf never went back to Germany because no one ever sent for him. His parents perished in the ovens.
So Johan did his best with a son he never anticipated. When Rolf was in his twenties, Johan managed to get him a job in Stockholm. For a while Rolf struggled along, but he couldn't handle the pressures. "His mind just snapped one day," his employer said, and the local authorities wanted to put him in a mental institution.
Johan set out immediately to rescue his boy. Johan was an old man now, yet he brought Rolf home again to the little city of Amal. For many years Johan nursed Rolf back to health.
Rolf finally got better. He married a wonderful woman. He established a fairly successful business and even became quite wealthy. All along, though, he knew that his achievements were only possible because of Johan, the big Swede who took in a nobody, loved him back to life, gave him an identity, and hugged away his fears.
When doctors called Johan's children home for a final parting in his dying days, Rolf was the first to arrive. From an orphan's tragedy, his life had become the story of a dearly loved son.
Johan was a Christian. He found the spiritual corrective eyewear that James prescribes. It gave him the ability to see little Rolf as God saw him, and Rolf began to live that day.
Said Mark Twain, "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." True! But when you get that new pair of eyeglasses for your soul, everything begins to look different. James would say that it has to do with the light of "our glorious Lord Jesus Christ" restoring in us the true ability to see.
Mark 7:24-37
Thomas Long told about the examination of ministerial candidates in a North Carolina presbytery. One elderly minister always kept quiet through the bulk of the ordeals, according to Long, and then invariably asked the same final set of questions just at the close of each examination.
"Look out that window," he would order the candidates. "Tell me when you see someone walking out there." So they did. When someone walked by he would say, "Now, describe that person to me theologically."
Each person's answer would be a bit different from the others, of course. Yet they consistently could be reduced to just two basic ideas. One group of ministers-to-be would say something like: "Well, there goes a sinner who is on his way to hell unless he repents!"
The other group responded something like this: "There goes a person who is a child of God. God loves that person so very much, and the best thing that can happen to him is to find out how good it is to love God in return!"
Funny thing, said the old minister, both responses are probably right. Still, those who respond in the latter way always make better pastors.
Why? Because they have learned to live life in the manner of Jesus. For when the roll is called up yonder, the grades on the report cards that make it won't be "A" for excellent, or "B" for good, or even "C" for nice try. The only grade that will make it will be G for grace.
Application
Lee Sharpe remembers a childhood incident that made a permanent impact on his life. It was the spring of the year and his father wanted to get the garden ready for planting. When he took his hoe and rake from the shed, both needed repair. He dropped them off at Trussel's blacksmith shop, saying, "Whenever you can get around to it, I'd appreciate it if you could fix these. I know it's not much, and I hate to bother you with it."
Mr. Trussel said it was no problem; he'd look after it. Several days later he called to say that the tools were fixed and ready. Mr. Sharpe could pick them up anytime.
Lee went with his father that afternoon to get them. Mr. Trussel had done a fine job. But when Lee's dad asked, "How much do I owe you?" Mr. Trussel shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Don't worry about it. My pleasure."
That didn't sit right with Mr. Sharpe. He was a fair man and wanted to pay a fair price for a fair hour of work. He took out his wallet and tried to shove some money into Mr. Trussel's hands. The blacksmith, however, adamantly refused. He held up his hands and said, "Sid, can't you let a man do something now and then, just to stretch his soul?"
Young Lee carried that incident with him for the rest of his life. It was, for him, a vision of integrity: Mr. Trussel spoke and lived the faith he believed.
Even Charles Darwin was impressed by Christian faith that breathed through responsible Christian living. He had disowned the Christianity of his childhood and was sailing for five years around South America in search of confirmation to his theories of natural selection and evolutionary development. When he stopped for a while at Tierra del Fuego he found a community that defied his prescriptions for normal human development. Under the teaching and ministry of a man named Thomas Bridges the whole society was transformed into something better than it used to be.
The power in Thomas Bridges' leadership came from his own story. He was abandoned as a baby on the banks of the Thames in London, England. Passers-by heard his feeble cries and rescued him barely alive. It happened on St. Thomas' Day near several bridges over the river, so they called him Thomas Bridges. The family that raised him as their own gave him confidence in the love of Jesus. Though abandoned by his mother, he learned the power of faith that lives through deeds of those who care.
That is why he became a missionary of Jesus Christ, and the reason his words, coupled with actions, rang with power. Even Charles Darwin, as he was becoming an atheist, supported Thomas Bridges financially for the rest of his life. Here was faith that made a difference, and that was something the world needed more than another scientific theory.
An Alternative Application
James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17. Felix Mendelssohn loved to tell the marvelous story of how his grandparents Moses and Frumte Mendelssohn met and married. Moses was very short and far from handsome. He walked with a limping gait, partly because he sported a very noticeable hunchback.
The day Moses met Frumte, Cupid's arrow struck deep. He determined to win the hand of this young beauty, the daughter of a local businessman. He knew it would be difficult because, like other young women of Hamburg, Frumte was repulsed by his misshapen body. Only after Moses made many requests to her father did she reluctantly agree to see him.
Frumte did not fall in love with Moses, however. At the same time, in spite of her constant resistance, Moses' hopes did not dim. He persisted in calling on her until one evening she told him firmly and clearly that he should not return. She did not want to see him again.
Moses threw caution to the wind. This would be the last time he could get a foot in the door so he asked an intriguing question: "Do you believe that marriages are made in heaven?"
"Yes," replied Frumte hesitantly, reluctant in the insecurity of not knowing where he was headed with this. "I suppose so."
"So do I," agreed Moses. "You see, in heaven, just before a boy is born, God shows him the girl he will someday marry. When God pointed out my future bride to me, God explained that she would be born with a hideous hunchback. That is when I asked God if he would please prevent the tragedy of a beautiful girl with a hunchback. I asked God to let the hunchback fall on me instead."
Frumte's eyes filled with tears. Years later she wrote, "I looked into the distance and I felt some long-hidden memory stir in my heart. At that moment I realized the depth and quality of this deformed young man. I never regretted marrying him."
Maybe Moses Mendelssohn overplayed his hand in conjuring scenes of pre-natal heaven. Still, there is something quite insightful about his analysis of who we are in ourselves and what lies inside the persons we meet day to day. For one thing, there is something of divine beauty in every person knit together by God in each mother's womb. We did not emerge into this existence by our own volition or at the design of our own hand. And if our lives are a divine gift, we ought to be careful about artificial criteria of worth we might use as plumb lines in measuring the bent of another soul.
Second, though physical realities, including beauty and social status, may initially mark our assessments of each other, they rarely tell the whole story of human meaning. "Poor eyes limit your sight," said Franklin Field, "and poor vision limits your deeds."
He knew us well. Who wants to kiss a hairlip? Who wants to hold hands with a stump destroyed by meat tenderizer mistakenly injected by a junkie? (She was in our church telling her story recently.) Who wants to form "spoons" in bed with a hunchback? Perhaps only those whose vision is not encumbered with limited perspective and thus have eyes to see the true person. Some might say it is only those who love.
Third, there is something refreshing about stumbling into the kingdom of God and finding relationships of meaning that are not prejudged and limited by the rules of others. By the rules of the day Frumte should not have married Moses. Similarly, Sir Walter Scott should not have remained with his disfigured wife. Likewise, Hosea should have divorced his wayward spouse. There are millions of other relationships that ought to have dissolved, at least on our terms. But what a serendipitous delight to find power in the passions of heaven!
"You have insulted the poor!" said James. Too bad! See what you missed? You missed the gifts God lavishly showered in unlikely corners. You missed a beauty beyond status, and you missed Jesus himself, because he was playing ball with the kids down that very alley.
