WHAT MAKES PEOPLE ACT THAT WAY?
When he came in sight of the city, he wept over it. Luke 19:41, N.E.B.
I was single-mindedly boring down the freeway, intent on the destination I had in mind. Suddenly another driver swerved into my lane, in the very spot that I felt should have been occupied by my front fender. I was more than irate; I was fuming. By my feelings, I must have assumed he was meanly glancing into his rearview mirror, with a fiendish glint in his eyes, thinking, "I'll wait till he gets right next to me; then I'll cut suddenly into his way." Calculating. Perverse. Deliberately sinful.
It was only the next day, on the same stretch of freeway, that I failed to see a car in the blind spot between my mirrors, and I ducked suddenly into his path. His screeching tires and the lengthy blast of his horn told me exactly what he was thinking of me. But I was innocent! Careless, perhaps. But not at all the mean, deliberately perverse road animal his shaking fist and blaring horn were accusing me of being. I wanted to defend myself. To explain to him. But he had barreled on by, probably mumbling something about getting out of the range of such dangerous people.
Does it matter how we view our fellow-strugglers on this sin-blasted planet? I see a supermarket cashier being sharp with a customer. Do I assume that she got up that morning, looked herself in the mirror, and deliberately said, "I'm going to give everyone fits today"? Or do I assume that she is under extreme pressures that I know nothing about and is coping the best she can with a hard and thankless task?
Speaking of the vast majority of sinners, the garden-variety humans all around us: Are they perverse, deliberately evil people who set out every morning with the sole intent of being crassly selfish? Or are they stumbling, confused, wounded people who would like to defend their actions...or at least apologize for them? Our answer will determine whether we will view them with disgust or with compassion. It will dictate whether we will wish to harangue them or to educate and heal them.
How do you think Jesus viewed all those sinners in Jerusalem when, just hours before they turned against Him, He sat on a hill overlooking their city, weeping until His body swayed like a tree in a high wind?
When he came in sight of the city, he wept over it. Luke 19:41, N.E.B.
I was single-mindedly boring down the freeway, intent on the destination I had in mind. Suddenly another driver swerved into my lane, in the very spot that I felt should have been occupied by my front fender. I was more than irate; I was fuming. By my feelings, I must have assumed he was meanly glancing into his rearview mirror, with a fiendish glint in his eyes, thinking, "I'll wait till he gets right next to me; then I'll cut suddenly into his way." Calculating. Perverse. Deliberately sinful.
It was only the next day, on the same stretch of freeway, that I failed to see a car in the blind spot between my mirrors, and I ducked suddenly into his path. His screeching tires and the lengthy blast of his horn told me exactly what he was thinking of me. But I was innocent! Careless, perhaps. But not at all the mean, deliberately perverse road animal his shaking fist and blaring horn were accusing me of being. I wanted to defend myself. To explain to him. But he had barreled on by, probably mumbling something about getting out of the range of such dangerous people.
Does it matter how we view our fellow-strugglers on this sin-blasted planet? I see a supermarket cashier being sharp with a customer. Do I assume that she got up that morning, looked herself in the mirror, and deliberately said, "I'm going to give everyone fits today"? Or do I assume that she is under extreme pressures that I know nothing about and is coping the best she can with a hard and thankless task?
Speaking of the vast majority of sinners, the garden-variety humans all around us: Are they perverse, deliberately evil people who set out every morning with the sole intent of being crassly selfish? Or are they stumbling, confused, wounded people who would like to defend their actions...or at least apologize for them? Our answer will determine whether we will view them with disgust or with compassion. It will dictate whether we will wish to harangue them or to educate and heal them.
How do you think Jesus viewed all those sinners in Jerusalem when, just hours before they turned against Him, He sat on a hill overlooking their city, weeping until His body swayed like a tree in a high wind?
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