Not Touching That

You can tell a lot about a person by the trash they leave behind.

From the eighteen bags we collected we can tell a lot about our community that has passed through the small two kilometer stretch in front of the church. Plenty of coffee cups, lots of chip bags, fast food value meals, some things that could create problems, some things to wash those problems away, and some things to help try and erase the effects of washing away the problems. We almost collected enough car parts and building materials to Monster Garage ourselves some new transportation. Some of it was easy to pick up while other parts required getting down and dirty to clean up the mess.

What can we learn from our game of 52 Pick-up? People like to drink a lot of coffee and eat plenty of chips. There are some poor drivers in our area. People think garbage will take care of itself once it leaves their fingers.

What about those things that still have a good amount of use left to them? We found nice coats that'll nearly stop traffic (because they laugh so hard!). Golf club bag for me, a horse blanket for someone else, bed coverings for another and even a nice mother's day gift for a lucky mom. We live in a throw away world that forgets about the consequences of not taking care of itself.

A priest, a Levite and a Samaritan walk by a wounded man... sounds like a start of a bad joke. A man was walking from Jerusalem to Jericho (couple hours of walking apart) when he was attacked by thieves who took all his clothes and money and then beat him up leaving him laying half dead on the road. Later a certain priest came along the road, but he passed by the guy on the other side of the road (a problem to avoid). A Levite later came along the road and stopped to look at the injured man but continued on passing by him on the other side of the road (an object of curiosity). Finally, a Samaritan happened to find the man as he journeyed past. The Samaritan saw the man and had compassion for him. He fixed up the mans wounds as best as he could even using oil and wine to treat the wounds. He put him on his transportation (a donkey?) and took him to an hotel where he made arrangements to pay for the man to stay there until he was well (treated as a person to love).

Now the man on the side of the road isn't exactly garbage. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But in the end that is how he was treated by both the priest and the Levite both of whom should have been most likely to help. The priest just wouldn't pick up the trash let alone glance at it. The Levite did stop to look at the trash but in the end decided he was not touching that. It took a Samaritan to look beyond the trash and see the value of the person laying beaten on the road. Jewish people, like the man beaten on the roadside and Samaritans have a deep hatred for each other and avoided dealings with the other as much as possible. Even with this cultural hatred it was a no-brainer for the Samaritan man. Reality is they're all the same people. All loved by the same God.

What can we learn from the Samaritan's game of 52 Pick-up? Lack of love is easy to justify, even though it is never right. Our neighbor is anyone of any race or creed or social background who is in need. Love means acting to meet the need.

How does that apply to our game of 52 Pick-up? We had all three types of people with us picking up the garbage in event Monday. Some of us wouldn't pick up any of the trash (I'm not touching that!). Some of helped pick up some of the trash (since I'm standing right on the bag I'll pick it up). While rest of us got right down in the gutter of the ditches and dug through the junk to pick out the forgotten trash.

Who was the winner? The guys ended up picking more bags of garbage and had the most of the scavenger items from the list. The community is a lot cleaner thanks to all of us. The real winner is all of us. We aren't perfect, yet God still picks us up.

What is one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Stop and help clean up the road.