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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.”
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