The Journey 233: You have never really lived....
Read: Luke 19
We all have misconception about people. Misconception that come because of a person’s look, race and culture. Because of misconceptions, there are people who are condemned and not taken care of or given due care and attention. Listen to this wonderful incident reported by Kerry Kind in the Wesleyan Church news a few days back. It is about Cedar Grove Wesleyan Church which is in north west Oklahoma. This church has attendance of only 46 members but these forty six members are touching lives of people who are truck drivers. The Pastor of this church is Harold Hanson. Their idyllic life started experiencing problems when oil wells and pipelines began sprouting all around the church and parsonage. With this came the arrival of huge trucks along their paths, bringing not only dust and noises but frustrations as well. Everyone got annoyed and did not know how to handle this issues, as the people felt that they cannot talk to the truck drivers since they seemed to look very unfriendly and hostile. The Pastor soon came up with the idea that the Lord is giving an opportunity to minister to the truck drivers. “ How about offering a glass of cold water so that some of them would slow down and stop”. The pastor asked the congregation. But the congregation was not convinced. But soon they started serving not only cold water but also muffins and coffee. One of the parishioner would take turn to stand by the side of the road in the dust and the heat one day a week. At first the truck did not stop, and those who did stop were taken by surprise. But soon the words of kindness spread around and now more than 200 items are handed over to the truck drivers everyday. But this act of kindness did not stop in just giving food packets and drinks. Slowly the parishioners started giving them scripture packets and offered a prayer for the drivers and also their contact information. The truck drivers soon became friends with the members of Wesleyan church and some have even started seeking prayer support and counseling. A wonderful action done by just 46 members of a congregation. An act that helped them not only to remove misconception about people, but also paving way to use hostile opportunities to minister and show God’s love to others. I think this morning we also need to think whether we are missing chances of ministering to others just because we have certain misconceptions about them? I think this was one of the major issues that Jesus raised when he ministered his people. He would constantly break rules so that people could change their misconceptions about people and thus allowing God’s grace and love to flow through them. There are countless examples like that. Jesus talking to Samaritan woman [John 4], Jesus going to the house of Zacheus [Luke 19: 1-10], Jesus praising the woman who was sinner, in the house of Simon [ Luke 7:36-50] and so on. In each of these biblical portions, people in the society had certain pre conceived notions about others. But Jesus did not go by those notions instead he consciously tried to break those notions, so that He could be a channel of His Father’s love and grace. When we have misconceptions about people we are actually creating barriers in ministering meaningfully to them. What is needed in our life, is asking God to remove from our life all misconceptions that we have about others, so that we could become channels of God’s grace and love. I think the shooing of the Sikh people in Milwaukee was an example of certain misconceptions. Let us therefore this day make a commitment that we shall not judge people by their race, color, culture, looks or religion but on the contrary use every opportunity to engage people in meaningful relationship so that we could minister and serving them .
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla
We all have misconception about people. Misconception that come because of a person’s look, race and culture. Because of misconceptions, there are people who are condemned and not taken care of or given due care and attention. Listen to this wonderful incident reported by Kerry Kind in the Wesleyan Church news a few days back. It is about Cedar Grove Wesleyan Church which is in north west Oklahoma. This church has attendance of only 46 members but these forty six members are touching lives of people who are truck drivers. The Pastor of this church is Harold Hanson. Their idyllic life started experiencing problems when oil wells and pipelines began sprouting all around the church and parsonage. With this came the arrival of huge trucks along their paths, bringing not only dust and noises but frustrations as well. Everyone got annoyed and did not know how to handle this issues, as the people felt that they cannot talk to the truck drivers since they seemed to look very unfriendly and hostile. The Pastor soon came up with the idea that the Lord is giving an opportunity to minister to the truck drivers. “ How about offering a glass of cold water so that some of them would slow down and stop”. The pastor asked the congregation. But the congregation was not convinced. But soon they started serving not only cold water but also muffins and coffee. One of the parishioner would take turn to stand by the side of the road in the dust and the heat one day a week. At first the truck did not stop, and those who did stop were taken by surprise. But soon the words of kindness spread around and now more than 200 items are handed over to the truck drivers everyday. But this act of kindness did not stop in just giving food packets and drinks. Slowly the parishioners started giving them scripture packets and offered a prayer for the drivers and also their contact information. The truck drivers soon became friends with the members of Wesleyan church and some have even started seeking prayer support and counseling. A wonderful action done by just 46 members of a congregation. An act that helped them not only to remove misconception about people, but also paving way to use hostile opportunities to minister and show God’s love to others. I think this morning we also need to think whether we are missing chances of ministering to others just because we have certain misconceptions about them? I think this was one of the major issues that Jesus raised when he ministered his people. He would constantly break rules so that people could change their misconceptions about people and thus allowing God’s grace and love to flow through them. There are countless examples like that. Jesus talking to Samaritan woman [John 4], Jesus going to the house of Zacheus [Luke 19: 1-10], Jesus praising the woman who was sinner, in the house of Simon [ Luke 7:36-50] and so on. In each of these biblical portions, people in the society had certain pre conceived notions about others. But Jesus did not go by those notions instead he consciously tried to break those notions, so that He could be a channel of His Father’s love and grace. When we have misconceptions about people we are actually creating barriers in ministering meaningfully to them. What is needed in our life, is asking God to remove from our life all misconceptions that we have about others, so that we could become channels of God’s grace and love. I think the shooing of the Sikh people in Milwaukee was an example of certain misconceptions. Let us therefore this day make a commitment that we shall not judge people by their race, color, culture, looks or religion but on the contrary use every opportunity to engage people in meaningful relationship so that we could minister and serving them .
Rev. Dr. Joe Joseph Kuruvilla