Crowds or Persons
I mentioned one Sunday in the morning message that the one thing Jesus could not do was see a crowd. After the service, someone asked me to explain that a little further.
The point I was trying to make was that Jesus always dealt with people as individuals.CONSIDER how when he’d move through a “crowd,” he saw individual faces, with individual needs and he had for each of them an individual message. He could not see crowds, only individuals.
The fuel that feeds the flames of prejudice is caused primarily, I feel, because we tend to see crowds instead of individual persons.
I was out fishing with a friend. All day long he carried on about the faults of a certain ethnic group. Later we headed in and there on the dock fishing, was a member of that specific ethnic group. “Oh no, here comes a scene”, I thought…
“Have much luck?” shouted the man.
“Not much, you?” shouted back my friend.
“A few. Throw me your line and I’ll secure your boat”, came the reply.
Before we left, my friend gave the man all our extra bait and even the few fish we had. “What gives! How come you gave him our fish? Hey, what’s with all that talk in the boat? Are you color blind?” I went on needling my friend. He smiled and leaned back as a man would do who felt pleased with himself. “Who, him? He’s got five kids – he needs the fish more than we do. He’s a good old guy. Besides, he’s different!”
Different, or could it just be he was a person and not a crowd!
Rev. Wendell Mettey
Revised 3/9/2014
