#snap judgment

(by request, my homily from Sunday)

Last week, someone parked in my parking space.

I always park in the same spot. The (unmarked) “official” deacon parking space.

It’s my space.

I park there so everyone knows I’m at church. And because it’s right next to the back door.

Everybody knows it’s my spot. Nobody parks there but me.

But last week, there was someone parked in it. A car I didn’t recognize. In. My. Space.

And the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.

Who are these people? Who do they think they are?

Don’t they know who I am? That’s my space.

So I parked right next to them. As close as I could get. To my space.

As I got down out of the Jeep, I couldn’t help but look into their car.

That’s when I saw it. An ignition interlock.

If you don’t know, an ignition interlock measures your blood alcohol, and keeps you from starting your car. Unless your blood alcohol is below the legal limit.

It prevents you from driving under the influence.

When I saw the ignition interlock – all of my nonsense about “my” parking space, all of my ideas about them, vanished. 

Because the only reason anyone has an ignition interlock on their car?

They’re in the fight of their life with alcohol.

And the reason they’re in “my” parking space?

Because they want all the help they can get.

They’re in the fight of their life.

And they want God on their side. They’re at church.

They don’t need my nonsense about parking spaces.

They need me to minister to them, about a real problem. To lift them up, to encourage them, to pray with them, to let them know that God loves them.

To let them know that God still loves them, even after everything they screwed up before they were in recovery.

To let them know that God loves them on day 48 of sobriety.

To let them know that God will still love them just as much, after they blow it and are back to day one.

To do what God called me to do when I was ordained.

As I took my (barely longer) walk to the back door, God gave me a wakeup call.

You and I never know what someone else is going through.

You and I never know what someone else is dealing with.

We know this. And yet, there’s something in us that is so ready to make assumptions, to label people, to think the worst about them. Without really knowing who they are. Or what’s going on in their lives.

Why do we do that? Why is it so easy for us to think the worst?

We’re not bad people. It’s not that we hate anybody. It’s just that we’re so busy with our own stuff, that we get stuck on ourselves. In a little world where everything revolves around us.

And it’s just easier to go with those labels, those surface impressions – so we can keep on moving with our own stuff. Who has time for anything more? I mean, it’s not like we’re wrong about them.

Actually, that last one usually isn’t true. At least not for me. And it’s not for most of the people I’ve talked with about this.

A lot of the time, our labels, our surface impressions? Are just wrong.

This is exactly what Jesus is pushing back against in today’s Gospel. This is what that “isn’t this the son of Joseph” stuff is all about.

They vaguely know who Jesus is. And that’s all they need to know.

They’re saying to Jesus, “You’re trying to tell us something? Your dad doesn’t own a business. He isn’t important. He’s a nobody. Just like you.”

“Who do you think you are? Coming in here and pretending that you’ve got something to say.”

As far as they’re concerned, they’ve got Jesus figured out, packed up, and put in a box. And they have had for years.

But as it turns out, they’re completely wrong.

And that’s the point. That their certainty about Jesus, born of the easy habits of labels, of surface impressions, is just like our certainty about the people around us.

It’s unreliable. And that’s on a good day. Often, it’s just completely wrong. And it’s not how God sees things.

You want to see things the way God sees things?

Here’s where it starts - drop your certainty. Drop your certainty born of labels, of surface impressions, and ask if that’s all there is? If maybe, just maybe, there’s a little something more to the story.

Because the truth of the matter is that other people’s lives are just as messy and complex as our own.

You’ve got a thousand things going on right now. It’s no surprise that you forgot to go to the store. Again.

And now, on your way home from work, you can go fight your way through the grocery store with everyone else who forgot to go to the store. So then you can go home and make something for dinner. Eventually.

But tonight, you’re just not up for it. Not again.

So you hit the drive through. With everyone else who forgot to go to the store. Again. And as the line slowly crawls forward, you try to tell yourself that somehow this is better. But you’re not really buying it.

When you’ve been there long enough that you’re trying to figure out if it actually would have been quicker to go to the store, you finally make it up to the speaker to order.

The woman who takes your order is almost impossible to understand. And it’s like she’s being deliberately stupid, as she keeps asking you to repeat parts of your order. You have no faith that you’ll get anything you ordered when you get to the window.

If you want proof there’s a labor shortage, she’s it. Because that’s the only way anyone would hire someone this bad.

Maybe that’s true. Maybe she is the worst employee they’ve ever had.

Or maybe, there’s something else going on. Maybe, just maybe, she’s not always like this.

Maybe you can hardly understand her, because she’s trying to hold back the tears. Because she just got the call that they’re rushing her Mom to the emergency room. Again. But she’s trying to finish her shift. Because she doesn’t have any time off left. Not after Mom’s last trip to the emergency room. And she needs this job.

The thing is, you and I don’t know. We don’t always get to know what’s going on in other people's lives.

But you do always get the choice. The choice to go with the certainty of your snap judgments. Or to drop your certainty, and to see things from God’s perspective. To ask if maybe, just maybe, there’s more to the story than you know.

And in so doing, do what you can to lift up, to encourage, to pray for, to help, the real person who’s hidden behind those snap judgments and first impressions.

To open yourself up. To be the instrument of grace that God is calling you to be, for them.

Hawk: You promised us steak, and this isn’t it.

My best “No shit, there I was” larp story.