As we sat at the breakfast table discussing memories good and bad, my Bertha said something so special I wrote it down just so I’d get it right.
We have a wagonload of memories of God’s people who have loved us and cared for us. But we also have painful memories that we wish we could edit out of our lives. But the Holy Spirit has shown me that if He took out the pain and strife, He would also be removing the lovely things that happened during that same time. Or, that happened as a direct result of the bad event.
It brought up a painful memory from my junior high days. A teacher said something really harsh that forever left its mark on me. Over the years as I have sometimes reflected on that incident, my primary focus has been on the painful hurt he caused. I’ve thought about that teacher, why he said what he did, what it meant, and how I took it. But I realized something from what Bertha said.
He helped me.
The teacher who scarred the kid
I was a new student in that school. There were a hundred of us seventh-graders from across that part of the county, and that day we had been herded into the gymnasium. The band director–Mr. Keating was his name–called us to order and announced that today we would be electing class officers.
Now, for four years I’d gone to school in rural West Virginia and then we moved back to Alabama in time for my sixth grade in a two-room rural (I mean really, really rural!) school. So, now, we would ride the bus on into the county seat of Double Springs, AL for the rest of our schooling. Junior high and senior high classes were all held in the same building.
Of the hundred students in our class, perhaps half lived there in town. Since the rest of us were from across the county, only the town kids knew each other. So, when class officers were chosen, they nominated people they knew. As a result, the town kids were nominating one another. Only they were being elected.
So, I raised my hand.
Mr. Keating said, “McKeever? You have a nomination?”
I said, “Mr. Keating, I don’t have a nomination. I just wish we could elect someone other than the town kids. The problem is we don’t know each other.”
The look he gave me could have burned a hole in my shirt. He said, “McKeever! I want you to sit down and shut your mouth and don’t open it again for the rest of this period! Are we clear on that?”
I had been slapped down with words.
The man did not know me, we had never met, and yet he was clearly hostile toward me. Later, I decided that since my older brothers were in the high school–Ronnie would have been 17 and Glenn 16, and they were forever pushing the envelope of what was permissible–that Mr. Keating figured me to be a trouble-maker.
That’s the incident. I had no further dealings with the man. I never took band and he did not have cause to lead any class in which I studied, so that was the sum total of our connection. He did, however, leave a lasting impression on me.
But I’ve decided something, particularly based on what Bertha said.
As a result of this harshness, the Lord made me more sensitive to new kids. He made me more aware and more thoughtful of new neighbors, new people in church, and new employees. I knew how it felt to be new and to be cut down by the system.
You know, too, don’t you? You’ve been there….
The Lord was emphasizing to Israel that once they got in the Promised Land, they were to be fair and show kindness to foreigners and strangers.
He said to them, You shall not cheat your neighbor nor rob him. You shall do no injustice in judgement. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.
He said,You shall love your neighbor as yourself. If a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him.
And, He said, The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.
That’s all from Leviticus 19, one of the great chapters of the Old Testament.
Don’t miss that last line: You shall love the strangers among you because you know what it’s like to be a newcomer and a stranger. You were that in Egypt once.
I have been a new kid in school, several times in fact. As a second grader in a West Virginia mining town’s elementary school, they laughed at my Alabama hillybillyisms. Then, as a sixth-grader in that tiny Alabama school, they laughed at my yankee talk. And the next year, in the junior high, I was the shortest kid in the 7th grade.
Add to all of this that I was outspoken. In every class, every school. I always had something to say.
All of these combine to make the new kid a problem for the rest of the class to welcome in. I am everlastingly grateful for those who did it.
In the sixth grade, the principal of that two-room school paddled me on the second day. For absolutely no reason. He was just letting me know who was the alpha male around here.
Later, in high school some of those “town kids” became my lifelong friends.
New in church?
As a general rule, church people are not intentionally rude or unkind toward newcomers. They do not intend to crush the spirits of those bewildered about the large church and all the choices and unfamiliar faces. But they achieve the same results by being thoughtless.
Thoughtless = giving no thought.
The friendly greeter at church is thoughtful. He or she arrives at church fully intending to find the unfamiliar faces and welcome them. They know not to overdo it, as visitors can easily feel pressured by too much attention. So, they pray in advance for the Spirit to lead them and they always try to listen closely to the guest and to the Spirit within.
The entrance to the huge church Bertha and I belong to has two greeters standing outside the doors. Mike and Bob wear overcoats in cold weather, and always have a smile and a bag of peppermint candies to share. (I am remembering that in one church I pastored, I had to gently remind the greeters not to stand there chatting with each other and even clogging the entrance. Instead of encouraging newcomers, they were making things difficult for them! Since they were standing outside with no covering, we made sure they had golf umbrellas–i.e., oversize ones–to assist people getting out of their cars.)
Heavenly Father, we have all been visitors in the past. We know how it feels. So, help us to be kind and gracious to all we meet.