People in Little Boxes

Luke 6:37 As children we learn about the world in broad categories. Parents chuckle quietly when their daughter points at a horse and says "doggie!" She's close. It has fur and walks on four legs. Growing up brings the ability to differentiate. We develop numerous smaller categories for filing away concepts. It is an efficient if sometimes inaccurate way of interacting with the world. The inaccuracy sometimes brings trouble. We've all known a person who allows their friends only one mistake. Cross them once, blurt out something in the heat of the moment, or embarrass them in front of others just one time, and they write you off. They pull open the file drawer labeled "People In My Life" and pluck you out of the friends file to permanently stuff you into "Enemies". The more dynamic our filing system, the less we judge. If we work at updating and maintaining our files we can see that people change, that someone's mistake shouldn't define their character or our relationship to them. Sure, we should limit how much a selfish person should injure us. But didn't Jesus demonstrate an amazing vulnerability to difficult people? He opens his arms to each of us. Perhaps our greatest work this Lent season is dropping our guard and walking straight into those arms.