Come Play!

A few months ago I had a hilariously humbling experience. I went to church on Sunday morning and heard a sermon based on the Lectionary text of the week—Jesus healing a blind man who cried out to Him through a crowd aggressively telling him to shut up. It’s a scene I had pictured many times before. Jesus walks by while a desperate blind man yells. Embarrassed people around him beg him to stop! This was their chance to see this man that everyone had been talking about, and maybe even make a good first impression. Then ‘that guy’—the one everyone in town just overlooks out of sheer disgust—ruins it all by yelling like an idiot. I can easily imagine how it must have felt for nearly everyone in that story.

That’s an interesting practice—to imagine which character in these Gospel stories you most identify with. In the past I had always imagined that I was the blind man, desperately calling out to Jesus. On really good days I might even be convinced that I’m Jesus—embracing the outcast despite the angry crowd. But during Teen Group, on that very same Sunday, I quickly learned where I can most often find myself in that story.

Jessica is a girl that lives at Joshua Station. She is very needy for acceptance and often smothers the people around her in the attempt to get it. Kids Club—the program I lead for her age group—is often difficult to get through without a good amount of frustration when she’s there.  That’s why I whispered, “Oh God. No. Please.” when I saw her approaching our Teen Group on the basketball court.

She really wanted to play and I had no interest in letting her. I immediately began to think of what clever reason I could give for why she couldn’t stay. “This is Teen Group”. “I think I heard your mom calling you.” “I think basketball might be a little too rough for you.” But before I could spit any of those winners out, our Teen Group—made up of teens living at Joshua Station as well as from the church I work at—tossed her the ball and said, “Come play!”

In an instant I realized that I was the angry crowd and the teenagers who I am supposed to be setting an example for, were Jesus. I wanted Jessica to be excluded, while Jesus pierced right through my attempts to do so with a beautiful invitation. My heart was made a little softer that day by the unlikely teachers I have the privilege to know. Now when I see Jessica—or anyone else I feel a need to exclude—I often hear Jesus whisper, “Come Play!”


* My thoughts in this newsletter are my own and not meant to be seen as representative of Mile High Ministries.