|
WHO BLEEDS WHEN CHRISTIANS FIGHT?
#7
“ANYTHING YOU DO, I CAN DO BETTER!”
There’s a sweet old anecdote that comes from the dusty
corners of our collective Voice of Prophecy memories . . . and I apologize
that even with the best of Internet search engines, we couldn’t track
it down. So let me share it with you on that basis — unsubstantiated but
very touching. As the story goes, many years ago an elegantly dressed
woman got out of her automobile (or it might even have been a carriage)
outside a four-star hotel, struggling with her finery and parasol. Standing
near the entrance was a nicely dressed gentleman of African-American heritage.
So she immediately yodeled over to him: “Oh, boy! Boy! Come here!” She
gestured impatiently, and the man quietly walked over to her.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Help me with my bags.” And she pointed at a couple of large suitcases.
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, ma’am.” Picking up the two bags, he carried
them into the lobby and set them down next to the front desk. She came
bustling up behind him, trying to adjust her flowery hat. “Thank you,”
she said to him, very efficiently. And reaching into her jeweled handbag,
she pulled out three silver dimes. “Here you are.” (This was a great many
decades ago, you understand.)
But the quiet gentleman shook his head. “That’s all right,” he said, and
he walked away from the scene. Just a few moments later, someone who had
witnessed the aborted 30-cent transaction came up to the socialite. “Don’t
you know who that was?” he scolded. “You just made Booker T. Washington
carry your cases!”
Now again, friend — this is how our frail human data bank remembers the
story. This minor-league social climber had just made an assumption about
who might be better than who, and who must obviously be working for the
hotel because of their skin color . . . and she had tried to give the
brilliant scientist and inventor Booker T. Washington 30 cents for bringing
her suitcases in.
To her credit, the woman felt terrible. Absolutely chagrined about it.
But when she later tried to apologize to the renowned Dr. Washington,
he graciously shook his head. “That’s perfectly all right,” he said with
a warm smile. And get this: “I enjoy helping my friends.”
Isn’t that an amazing story? I hope and pray it IS true, because it certainly
rings true with all that we know of this gentle American hero. He responds
to abuse and discrimination and the unstated putdown of “Boy! Boy! Here’s
30 cents! Get the bags!” . . . by calling this woman a friend.
Dr. Ben Carson, one of the most brilliant brain surgeons in the world,
a world-famous physician at Johns Hopkins who separates Siamese twins
and is on all the TV talk shows, describes how, early in his medical career,
as an intern, he walked up to a nurses’ station wearing green scrubs.
And the nurse there, seeing this very young-looking black “kid,” almost,
asked him: “Who are you here to pick up?” Assuming that he was an orderly.
And Dr. Ben Carson, M.D., had to tell her, “No, I’m the new intern here.”
Well, the nurse was painfully embarrassed, stuttering and apologizing,
hoping she didn’t sound prejudiced for making a racist assumption. And
Carson very casually shrugged her distress away. “That’s all right,” he
said. “I’m new around here. How were you supposed to already know who
I was?”
Well, these are touching stories — and this second one is absolutely true,
coming from Dr. Carson’s marvelous biography, Gifted Hands. But the sad
reality is that most of the time, grace and gentle answers are not how
we handle potential fights in the parking lot of the hotel. We live in
a world of conflict, and we have the added dilemma of often liking it
that way. We enjoy the tumult of division, of having “our” side and “their”
side. It’s almost fun to be insulted, because then you can be mad and
nurse your anger.
Would you agree that for most of us, conflict comes, not only because
we don’t agree with the other person, but because we feel so superior
to them? That woman in the fancy dress and the pink parasol saw this unassuming
man with the dark skin standing at the hotel. Immediately, she just knew
she was on a higher level than him. He must be a bellhop. He must be making
45 cents an hour; he’d be glad to be called “boy” and to receive a boy’s
bonus of three silver dimes.
And then look at it from Dr. Booker T. Washington’s point of view. He
was a famous doctor, a scientist who had invented many things. In terms
of intellect and achievement, he was many stratospheres above this racially
foolish woman with her tacky clothes. But instead of pointing out to her
how he was so superior, he simply said: “I enjoy helping my friends.”
Even this red-faced woman who hadn’t yet had the privilege of learning
all things about the human race . . . was potentially his “friend.” And
Washington’s quiet, diplomatic answer honored God’s kingdom.
Over in the book of Romans, we find a gentle reminder of this very principle.
A dose of heaven-sent humility, friend, would go a long way toward reducing
the level of tension in our world. Here’s chapter 12, verse 10:
“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love,” Paul writes. And then this:
“Honor one another above yourselves.” In the familiar King James: “In
honor preferring one another.”
It’s interesting to borrow a line from the recent Message
paraphrase. Eugene Peterson puts it rather succinctly:
“Practice playing second fiddle.”
That’s it! “Practice playing second fiddle.” And how many battles could
be averted if we would only be willing to sit IN that second chair and
let someone else be “better.” Even if we know in our hearts they are NOT
better, can we go along and let them sit in the first seat?
In a web site produced by Paul Gear, he makes several interesting points
about conflict. He quotes, first of all, from Philippians 2:4, which says
this:
“Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the
interests of others.”
And he comments about that:
“Selfish ambition is the attitude of wanting to make it to the top — wanting
to be better than everyone else. . . . Conceit is the attitude of thinking
you already ARE better than everyone else.” Then Pastor Gear adds: “God’s
prescription for the unity of His people is humility. Humility is described
here as treating others as our superiors, or considering others as better
than ourselves.”
He goes on to point out that the Bible just never once
extols the importance of “SELF-esteem.”
“This is never regarded as a virtue in Scripture,” he writes. “In fact,
it is just the opposite: self-esteem will only get in the way of unity
of the body of Christ. Christ asks the members of His body to esteem others
as better than themselves.”
I think of that youthful-looking Dr. Carson coming
over to the nurses’ station. Obviously he was the nurse’s superior in
medical status, intellectual power, GPA, sheepskins on the wall, everything.
And yet Dr. Carson, who knew he would have to work with these nurses,
have to rely on THEIR perspectives and expertise and tireless cooperation,
went out of his way to respect them.
“Because of their practical experience” — sometimes 25 or 30 years’ worth
— “in observing and working with patients, they could teach me things,”
he writes. “And they did.” On the next page he wisely adds: “There isn’t
anybody in the world who isn’t worth something.”
In Dale Carnegie’s classic bestseller, How to Win Friends
and Influence People, he quotes from the great Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
writes:
“Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.”
And you know, right here in Romans 12, where it says:
“In honor preferring one another,” you just go back up a few verses and
discover that this chapter is explicitly about the metaphor of the “Body
of Christ,” and how we all need each other. You may be better at this;
I’m better at that. Deacon Brown is way better at some other things too
. . . but we all need each other.
Friend, I know that the flip side is still with us.
It’s absolutely true that evil needs to be confronted, and racial thinking
needs to be addressed and put away. (There’s another cute story, told
in Carson’s second bestseller, Think Big, where he decided to finally
treat himself to a sports car. But at the first dealership he walked into,
the three salesmen loafing on the main floor just assumed that this skinny
black “kid” couldn’t possibly afford one of their cars. They ignored him;
they didn’t even get up. So world-famous surgeon Ben Carson, M.D., just
quietly went to the Jaguar dealership in the next town over, and THAT
salesman earned himself a fat commission that day. I can’t help but enjoy
that story a little bit!) But just as Ben Carson met people who hadn’t
yet had a real chance to grow in their understanding of brotherhood and
unity, and just as Jesus once spent a Thursday night with 12 guys who
still didn’t understand that the greatest among you must first be his
servant, the kingdom of heaven invites us to look at that potential enemy
and see in them the redeemable, saveable “better” nature of their selves.
Chuck Colson, who used to think he was “better,” until he went to prison,
observed later:
“It’s kind of hard to wash someone’s feet . . . when you’re up on your
own pedestal.”
|
