I
had one thought as I approached the town: I want
to drive through it as quickly as possible. I was
returning from the beach via Maryland's Route 50
on a rainy Sunday evening in May 1969, and about
to make the unavoidable jaunt through Cambridge.
This once quaint fishing town had recently been
the scene of race riots, making it a national
symbol of hatred between blacks and whites.
About two miles outside of
Cambridge I experienced that obscene thumping so
familiar to college students driving hand-me-down
cars. Dismayed at the timing of my latest
blowout, I pulled over to the shoulder, jumped
out and performed the ritual of replacing one
retread with another. When I had finished, and
released the jack to let down the car, my heart
sank along with the spare I had put on. It was as
flat as the tire it replaced.
There was no choice but to go for
help, yet I trembled at the thought. I began
walking toward Cambridge, but hadn't ventured two
hundred yards when a battered car pulled
alongside me. A black man, a hulk of a figure
looking as weathered as his car, leaned out and
asked if I needed help. Fearing his reaction if I
ran, I climbed in.
What happened in the next few
minutes did more to shatter my preconceptions of
people than all of the sociology courses I've
taken. Far from treating me hostilely, the man
quickly showed he was determined to solve my
predicament--whatever it took. He drove back to
my car, picked up the flat which was still lying
on the pavement and threw it into his back seat.
He then drove us to a nearby service station and
gave the tire to an attendant, who for some time
struggled unsuccessfully to maneuver it off its
rim with one of those pedal-driven mounting
machines.
Finally the man who had picked me
up asked if he could try. With help from his
gigantic hands the machine quickly spit the tire
off the rim. Within minutes he had a new tire
mounted. I watched, astonished at his ease with
this complicated device.
He drove us back to my car,
jumped out, jacked it up and put on the new
wheel. I wondered if he was expecting a gratuity.
But before I could say anything, he was back in
his car ready to drive away. Only reluctantly did
he accept a $5.00 bill which I thrust through the
window.
Angels Unawares
God loves to surprise us. While
he is absolutely dependable to meet our needs,
the means he chooses to do so are often different
from what we expect. Needs can go unmet because
we have a restricted idea of whom Christ might
use to help us.
Only a small percentage of
Cambridge's population had been involved in the
racial disturbances. But in typical prejudicial
fashion I feared that any black citizen of the
town would be spiteful toward me. As that
benevolent man drove me to the filling station,
he explained that he worked for the tire division
of a local auto salvage yard. Among the thousands
living in that region, there was probably no one
better suited to help me at that moment--yet I
had come close to refusing his help.
Prejudice always involves a
guilt-by-association mentality. Many people of
Jesus' time failed to recognize who he was
because of this attitude. Some felt that no
prophet could come from Galilee (Jn 8:52). Others
were unimpressed with his family (Mk 6:3). Others
thought he was an illegitimate child (Jn 8:41).
They had preconceptions about the sort of person
through whom God would reveal himself. Because of
these biases, they missed the Prince of Peace
whom he had sent.
A Bigger Circle
Prejudice not only harms the
other person--it hurts us. It can close us off to
someone whom God intends to use as a channel of
grace to us.
The point is important to keep in
mind if we're eager for a serious relationship or
marriage. The influence of both our secular and
Christian cultures are such that few of us enter
adulthood without carrying an image of the
"ideal mate" which works against us.
Revision is usually needed of our notion of who
would be right for us--sometimes radical
rethinking. Our greatest happiness in marriage
may even be found in a relationship with someone
of a different nationality, race or economic
background. While relationship needs vary from
person to person, we must be careful not to get
locked into a narrow conception of whom we might
marry.
Such flexibility is also needed
in thinking about career possibilities. It may be
that the ideal spot on this globe for us to
invest our gifts is in a different country than
the one in which we've grown up, or in a
different social context within my our own
country. We shouldn't cheat ourselves by keeping
our options too rigid.
Being a Christian doesn't render
us incapable of prejudice or restricted thinking
about our relationships with others. Few in the
New Testament church were more seasoned and
comfortable in relating to people
cross-culturally than Peter. He received the
rooftop vision to go to the Gentiles (Acts 10)
and, along with Paul, broke the ice in the
church's ministry to non-Jews. Yet even after
this, Peter fell back into segregating himself
from Gentiles at public meals (Gal 2:11-14).
It is hard, even as Christians,
to let go of old thought patterns about people,
and easy to fall back into them once we think
we're free. Christ wants us to be as free as he
is to see past the external factors that blind us
from appreciating his image in others. A vital
part of the life he has for us is wrapped up in
relationships with others. Invariably, some of
these will be with those who are different from
ourselves--even those whom we never thought we
could love. Open yourself to the full measure of
love Christ wants to give you for others. Fully
experience the grace he wants to provide for you
through them.
That's where the rubber meets the
road.
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