We all live, work, play, worship in environments. And every environment has a community. And every community has sub-communities, groups, cliques, and whatever other groups needed to make things roll in the community.
Every community has the in and out crowd. The in crowd is the hot crowd, the one "with it", the one who makes things happen. Then there's the out crowd. The one that's there to be seen and not to be heard. Their opinion doesn't matter, it isn't taken seriously anyway. They're there to fill space, to make the community a community. They're almost like the extras in the community.
The one thing that makes me go wah is the determinant of who goes in, and who stays out. I find it rather awkward, to say the least, on who decides who to go to the in or the out crowd. Especially for a newcomer. Once a new person joins a society, every other member stares and looks to see what they do, see, and how they're like, then dump them to either the in-group or the out-group.
I find it interesting, though that Jesus says to love your neighbour as yourself. Interesting in the fact that it transcends groups, cliques and sub-communities. He says to love the out-group like you love the in-group. That's easy when the people to love are good, easy going, so you, and all that stuff. People who you feel, and who feel you. But the people who get to your last nerve, who hates you, or call you all manner of names? Those whose manners irritate you to the core? Those in the out-group? Love those?
Yeah. Love those. Jesus said to love. They'll know we're His disciples with the way we love our friends, enemies, in-group, out-group, clique, every other sub-community. We are, eventually to love everyone, those in the in our neighbourhood that we feel we're better off without.
Because, eventually, we all need each other, either directly or indirectly. And it isn't the funniest or easiest thing to ask for help from someone you don't love.
No comments:
Post a Comment